Guides

Sell cars with escrow

A buyer’s money is held safely until the car and its papers are in their hands. You find the buyer; we keep both sides protected.

How it works

Cars for sale are checked by our team (the car and its papers) before they are listed.
The buyer reserves a car with a deposit and pays the balance by bank transfer into escrow. The seller is paid only after the hand-over is confirmed.
Only one buyer can hold a car at a time.

Search with filters (make, model, city, class, year, a price range in kobo) and sort. Each listing shows the price, the reservation deposit, mileage, condition, accident history, origin (Nigerian used, foreign used with duty paid, or new) and the chassis number.

curl "https://engine-production-0004.up.railway.app/api/v1/sales/vehicles?make=toyota" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer wc_test_YOUR_KEY"

2. Reserve

Reserve the car with the buyer’s details. The deposit defaults to 2% of the price (at least ₦50,000); the response gives you the checkoutUrl to send the buyer to. After they pay, the car is held for them for about 7 days. Send an Idempotency-Key.

curl -X POST "https://engine-production-0004.up.railway.app/api/v1/sales/orders" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer wc_test_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: 6b2f7c3e-6f0a-4a3e-9d1c-1c2b6f1a9e55" \
  -d '{
  "listingId": 31,
  "buyer": {
    "name": "Bola Ade",
    "email": "bola@example.com",
    "phone": "+2348066660002"
  },
  "metadata": {
    "cart": "C-77"
  }
}'

Not paid yet?

A buyer can withdraw before paying with POST /sales/orders/{ref}/cancel. After the deposit, cancelling and refunding is decided by our support team (you get a 409).

3. The balance

The buyer transfers the rest of the price to our escrow account, quoting their order reference. When our team confirms the transfer, the order becomes paid and you get a sale.paid event. Until then the seller is not paid and the car stays held.

4. Hand-over

The buyer and seller meet, the car is inspected and the papers are exchanged. When our team confirms the hand-over the order becomes completed (sale.completed), the seller is paid and your commission is released.

Order states

Status	Meaning
`pending_payment`	Waiting for the deposit.
`reserved`	Deposit paid. The car is held for the buyer.
`paid`	The full price is in escrow.
`completed`	Car and papers handed over. Everyone is paid.
`cancelled`	Cancelled; money returned as decided.
`expired`	The deposit was not paid in time.

In the sandbox, play the buyer and our team with POST /sandbox/orders/{ref}/pay-deposit, pay-balance and complete.

What you earn