Help

Signing up. You need an email address, a username (letters and numbers, up to 20 characters) and your community. Your community is your suburb; your sub-community is the block, complex, sub-area or street within it.

My suburb isn’t listed.On the sign-up page, use “Can’t find your community? Ask us to add it”. Tell us the suburb and, if it helps, the block or complex. We add it manually, usually within a day or two, and then you can finish signing up.

I forgot my password. Use forgot password. If the address is registered we email a link that works once and expires. Check your spam folder before writing to us.

Free Stuff is open to every member and costs nothing. For Sale and Services listings are for advertisers: you register as one, buy tokens, and each listing spends tokens (a 30-day listing costs 1 token, 90 days costs 2).

Why isn’t my listing showing? New listings are reviewed by a moderator before they appear publicly. Until then only you can see them, under your own listings.

Refunds. Tokens buy advertising space from us, and that is the only thing you buy from Makhelwane. Anything you buy from another member is a deal between the two of you — we cannot refund it, reverse it or recover it.

Makhelwane does not verify anyone’s identity, background, qualifications, insurance or the condition of anything advertised. Treat every arrangement here the way you would treat a classified ad from a stranger, because that is what it is.

• Meet in public, in daylight where you can. Bring somebody with you, and tell a third person where you are going.
• Inspect before you pay. See the item, test it, and be wary of anyone who wants payment before you have.
• Be careful with deposits and transfers. Money sent by EFT or instant payment is very hard to recover. Pressure to pay quickly is the most common sign of a scam.
• Do your own checks on services. Ask for references, proof of qualification, licences and insurance — and verify them yourself.
• Sharing a ride is a private arrangement. We do not check licences, roadworthiness or insurance. Decide for yourself whether you are comfortable.
• Keep personal details out of public posts — your home address, ID number, banking details or movements. Use private messages, and only once you are comfortable.
• Trust your instincts. You are never obliged to go through with anything.

Every discussion and reply has a Report link. Tell us what is wrong in a sentence — that reason is what a moderator reads. You can also email report@makhelwane.co.za.

If a moderator removes something, the post stays where it is with the reason shown in its place, so the conversation still makes sense. What we do and do not allow is set out in the Community Guidelines.

Crimes are for the police, not for us. If you are reporting something illegal — threats, fraud, abuse of a child, or anything else — report it to the South African Police Service as well. We will act on our platform and, where the law requires it or where we judge it necessary, we will report it to the authorities and give them the information we hold.

You can edit your profile and change your community at any time from your profile. To ask for a copy of your personal information, to correct it, or to have your account deleted, write to privacy@makhelwane.co.za. Your rights under POPIA are set out in our Privacy Policy.

• Police: 10111
• Ambulance: 10177
• Any emergency from a mobile: 112
• Gender-based violence command centre: 0800 428 428
• Childline South Africa: 116

Email support@makhelwane.co.za. Tell us your username, what you were trying to do and what happened instead — a screenshot helps.