Questions people actually ask

No. You enter your bid, name, phone number and email, and confirm with a code we email you. You get a link that always shows the latest state of your bid — keep it, because it is the only way back in. Sellers do need an account, because they have listings to manage.

They are not the same thing, and usually only share capital is transferable. Deposits are your savings and normally come back to you when you exit the SACCO — they cannot be sold to someone else. Check which you hold with your SACCO before listing, because it is the most common reason a listing cannot go ahead.

Usually not while you remain a member. Share capital is your stake in the SACCO, so it normally leaves by being transferred to another member rather than being paid back. Rules differ between SACCOs, so check yours before you list.

Someone who meets the SACCO's own membership requirements. The SACCO decides who may join and approves every transfer, so check with it before you bid.

Tell us and we add it. Most large Kenyan SACCOs have a page, but there are more, and some appear under a different registered name than the one members use. Send us the name as it appears on your statement.

Nothing to SaccoBid. Buyers pay us nothing at any point — not to browse, not to bid, not to win. The seller pays the entire platform fee. You pay the seller for the shares themselves, in person at the SACCO office, and the SACCO may charge its own membership or transfer fees.

A flat fee set by the band your sale falls into: KSh 500 up to KSh 50,000, KSh 750 to KSh 100,000, KSh 1,000 to KSh 250,000, and KSh 1,500 above that. It is charged once, only after you have chosen a buyer. Listing and verification are free, and if no deal happens you are never charged.

You have lost nothing, because you were never charged. Tell us and we will chase the seller; if they stay silent we take the listing down and can alert you when the next lot in that SACCO appears. Sellers who do this repeatedly lose their verified badge.

No. The seller's fee is a flat amount within a band — there are four fixed bands rather than a percentage of the price, so a larger sale is never proportionally more expensive. The money for the shares themselves goes directly from buyer to seller and never passes through us.

A WhatsApp call of about five minutes and proof of your shareholding. We ask for your member number from memory, when you joined and which branch handles you, your share balance and whether any of it is pledged against a loan, and why you are selling. We write down what we were shown and it appears on your listing.

Some SACCOs do not issue statements to members, so a genuine seller may have nothing documentary to show. We do not turn them away: we confirm who they are on the verification call and ask about the holding, and they get the same verified badge. Whatever we checked, the SACCO has the final word — ask it to confirm the shares before you hand over any money.

No. Bids are visible by amount. Seller and bidder identities are partially masked until the seller pays the fee. Other bidders can see what has been bid, which is what makes the auction work, but not who bid it.

It depends entirely on the SACCO — members report anything from same-day to several weeks. Some require board approval at a monthly meeting. Ask your SACCO before you list or bid so both sides know what to expect; the SACCO's own fees are separate from ours.

Yes. The buyer must meet the SACCO's own membership requirements, and shares pledged against a loan usually cannot move until the loan is settled. This is why we ask about loan pledges on every verification call — it is the single most common thing that stops a completed deal.

The seller, directly, in person at the SACCO office. Never send money before the SACCO has recorded the transfer in your name. If anyone asks you to send the share price by M-Pesa in advance, stop and message us.

We confirm every fee by hand, by matching the M-Pesa message to your phone number and the amount, so it is not instant — usually within a few hours during the day. Make sure you tapped "I have paid" on the deal page. If it is taking long, send us the M-Pesa confirmation code from the contact page (topic: a fee or receipt) and we will find it.

Report it from the listing page — you do not need an account — and we review it within 48 hours. If you placed a bid on that listing, report it from your bid link instead, so we know you are the buyer.

That is not us. We never ask for your M-Pesa PIN, and we never ask you to read out or send us a code by call, SMS or WhatsApp. The codes we email you are only ever typed in on saccobid.co.ke. Block them and forward the message to our WhatsApp support so we can warn others.