On The List, you respond to a listing by emailing a anonymized address that forwards to the poster. In theory, this protects privacy. In practice, one reply reveals your real email, and from there it's open season for spam, phishing, and harassment.
On The Feed's Garage Sale, you message through Messenger, which means you're handing someone your full Facebook profile, your photo, your friends list, and years of personal information. All because you wanted to ask about a used desk.
We looked at both of these approaches and decided neither was acceptable.
The Decision
All messaging on The NYC Classifieds happens on-platform. No phone numbers are exchanged. No email addresses are exposed. No external messaging apps are required. You tap "Message" on a listing, type your question, and it goes to the seller within our system.
This wasn't the easy choice. Building a messaging system is significant engineering work. It would have been much simpler to slap an email link on each listing and call it done. But easy and right aren't the same thing.
Why It Matters for Safety
Your contact information stays private. Until you decide to share your phone number or email in a conversation, the other person doesn't have it. If someone turns out to be a creep, a scammer, or just annoying, they can't reach you outside the platform.
Block and report work properly. When messaging is on-platform, blocking someone actually blocks them. They can't just text you instead, or email you from a different address. Block means block.
There's a record. If something goes wrong in a transaction, the conversation history exists on our platform. This matters for dispute resolution, for reporting bad actors, and for your own peace of mind.
Scammers are contained. On-platform messaging means scammers can't redirect you to WhatsApp, Telegram, or SMS where there's no oversight. If someone tries to move the conversation off-platform, that itself is a red flag.
The Trade-Off
We know on-platform messaging adds a step. Some people would rather just get a phone number and text directly. We get it. And once you've established trust with someone, you're free to share your contact information in the conversation if you choose to.
But the default should be safe, not convenient. Convenience without safety is how platforms end up with inboxes full of scam texts and phishing emails.
How It Works
The messaging interface is straightforward. You see your conversations in one place, organized by listing or Porch post. Each conversation shows the other user's verified status. You can block or report from any conversation with one tap.
We don't read your messages or scan them for advertising keywords. The content of your conversations is between you and the person you're talking to. We only access message content if a report is filed and review is necessary.
Privacy and safety aren't in conflict here. On-platform messaging delivers both. That's why we built it this way.