Safety & Participation Policy

Tri-Cities Board provides local advertising, communication, safety information, and reporting tools. We are not the buyer, seller, landlord, tenant, licensed real estate agent, brokerage, business broker, dealer, escrow service, payment processor, insurer, appraiser, inspection service, or guarantor in a Marketplace or Homes & Spaces transaction.

Homes & Spaces carries advertisements only: homes and commercial space for rent or lease, homes, commercial property and land for sale, and local businesses for sale. We do not accept applications, screen tenants, create leases, collect deposits, process rent, present or negotiate offers, hold funds, or close transactions. We do not verify title, ownership, corporate authority, licence status, or any financial figure stated in an advertisement. Buyers, sellers, advertisers, renters, and their own professionals are responsible for their decisions and agreements.

Marketplace participants must use their own account and provide accurate information. Sellers confirm control of a mobile number by text before publishing. Buyers may also be asked to confirm a mobile number before contacting a seller about a vehicle, watercraft, rental, or other elevated-risk listing.

Phone confirmation shows that the person controlled that number at the time of confirmation. It is not an identity, ownership, licence, background, or trustworthiness guarantee.

Every Homes & Spaces advertiser must additionally complete one-time government photo-identification verification before a listing is published, as must anyone submitting or claiming a business or organization profile. Verification is performed by our identity provider, which handles the document and selfie; Tri-Cities Board receives only the outcome, the verified legal name, the document type, and the date. Identity verification confirms that a real, identified person is behind the account. It is not an ownership, authority, licence, financial, or trustworthiness guarantee. Ordinary item listings do not require it.

Advertisers must describe the item or property honestly, use media they are authorized to use, disclose important known defects or restrictions, and promptly update or remove unavailable listings.

Vehicle and watercraft sellers must be the owner or have authority to sell. Homes & Spaces advertisers must state their role and confirm they are authorized to advertise the property or business. Anyone advertising in a licensed capacity — licensed real estate agent, licensed commercial agent or broker, or business broker — must advertise under their own name and brokerage and supply their B.C. licence number, which is checked against the BCFSA public register before the listing is published. Company, brokerage, professional licence, VIN, HIN, registry, and similar information is advertiser-provided unless we explicitly state otherwise.

Business-for-sale advertisements may state revenue, cash flow, and similar figures. Those figures are the seller’s statements. We do not audit or verify them, and prospective buyers are told to obtain the records directly and get independent accounting and legal advice.

Listings expire after 30 days unless renewed. Sellers must mark completed sales as sold and completed rentals as rented.

Do not advertise stolen, counterfeit, illegal, unsafe, recalled, or unauthorized property. Do not impersonate another person or organization, misstate ownership or professional status, manipulate reviews, evade account restrictions, mass-message users, harvest personal information, or use Marketplace to facilitate crime.

Never ask another user for a password, verification code, gift card, cryptocurrency payment, payment-release or account-upgrade fee, banking login, or an overpayment refund. Do not send deceptive payment confirmations or links designed to collect financial information.

Housing advertisements must comply with applicable human rights, tenancy, real estate, municipal, and other laws. Describe the property, not who may occupy it: wording that excludes or discourages people on protected grounds under the B.C. Human Rights Code — including children or families, income assistance or other lawful source of income, ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital or family status, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or age — is prohibited and may be reported and removed. Commercial advertisers remain responsible for zoning, permitted-use, licensing, tax, and professional obligations.

Inspect items and properties before paying. Verify identities, ownership documents, identifiers, history, liens, licences, professional status, and authority using independent official sources. For high-value transactions, consider a qualified mechanic, marine surveyor, lawyer, notary, inspector, accountant, Autoplan broker, or other appropriate professional.

Meet during daylight in a busy public place when practical. The Coquitlam RCMP Exchange Zone is available for suitable face-to-face exchanges, but video surveillance is not actively monitored and ordinary safety precautions still apply.

Confirm funds inside your own banking app before releasing property. A screenshot, email, text, or message is not proof of payment. Tri-Cities Board does not provide purchase protection or guarantee recovery of money or property.

View a residential or commercial property and verify the advertiser’s authority before sending money or sensitive documents. Be cautious of unusually low rent, refusal to arrange a viewing, urgency, copied photos, inconsistent addresses, overseas-only contacts, application fees, or requests for deposits before a property can be verified.

A listing’s damage-deposit, pet, lease, renewal, or operating-cost statements are informational. Applicable law and the final written agreement control. Use official B.C. tenancy resources or appropriate professional advice.

For a home, commercial property, or land advertised for sale, confirm title, ownership, measurements, zoning, permitted use, and any charges on the property through a lawyer, notary, or licensed professional. Size, lot size, year built, ownership type, and open-house details are advertiser-provided.

For a business advertised for sale, treat stated revenue, cash flow, employee counts, and included assets as unverified. Ask for financial statements, tax filings, the lease, licences and permits, and supplier and employment agreements, and retain an accountant and a lawyer before entering any agreement or paying a deposit.

Keep initial communication on Tri-Cities Board so you can use blocking and reporting tools. Automated warnings may identify common scam phrases for the participants, but those warnings are not a finding that anyone committed fraud.

Report suspicious listings, users, buyers, sellers, or conversations through Marketplace. Include facts, dates, payment instructions, identifiers, and other relevant details. Do not knowingly submit a false or retaliatory report.

When fraud is reported, we may preserve a server-generated image and structured snapshot of the advertisement, the reporter and poster account identifiers, the complaint, linked conversation content, media references, hashes, and later moderation events. Evidence is restricted to authorized administrators and service providers with a need to access it.

A case-scoped conversation hold may preserve messages associated with that report, including messages sent after the report while the hold remains active. This does not create general monitoring of unrelated private conversations.

Evidence images are records of how listing data appeared to our server; they are not proof that the listing or complaint is true. Structured records, source data, and hashes are used to assess completeness and integrity.

We may calculate an internal, explainable risk score using signals such as repeated independent reports, confirmed prior Marketplace actions, unusual listing velocity, duplicate media or identifiers across accounts, missing authority fields, and public scam-related payment language.

The score helps administrators prioritize review. It is not shown publicly and does not automatically remove a listing, suspend an account, decide guilt, or contact law enforcement. An administrator reviews the available facts and chooses any action.

After review, an administrator may leave a report without action, request information, contact involved users, warn or restrict an account, remove a listing, suspend or block an account, preserve evidence, or reverse an action when appropriate.

Tri-Cities Board does not encourage vigilantism, public accusations, threats, or attempts to identify or punish people. We may provide lawful records to police or another competent authority when required by law, in an emergency, or when an administrator determines that suspected serious criminal conduct should be reported. Police—not Tri-Cities Board—decide whether to investigate or lay charges.

Dismissed fraud evidence is ordinarily scheduled for deletion after 90 days. Evidence connected to actioned or escalated cases is ordinarily retained for up to two years. A documented legal, safety, dispute, or law-enforcement hold may extend retention, with periodic review. Some audit metadata and cryptographic hashes may be retained after source files are deleted.

You may request access to or correction of your personal information as described in the Privacy Policy, subject to legal, safety, privilege, and third-party privacy limits. You may contact Tri-Cities Board if you believe a moderation decision was based on inaccurate information.

If anyone is in immediate danger, call 9-1-1. If money or account information may have been lost, contact your financial institution immediately. Report suspected fraud to local police and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. Preserve messages, receipts, account details, and transaction records.