Parcel Buddy rules
Read this properly. Carrying something across a border for another person is the one thing on this platform that can get you in real trouble, and the rules below are what keep it a favour between neighbours instead.
The open-item rule
Every item is handed to you open. You look inside each one, you pack it into your own bag yourself, and it stays in your control until you hand it over.
People who smuggle things do not look like smugglers — they look like a friend of a friend with a sealed gift box and a good reason. If someone will not let you see and pack what they are giving you, that is the whole answer. Walk away and report it.
This is a favour, not a courier service
Parcel Buddy exists because someone flying home has spare baggage and someone else needs their father's medical records, or a medicine that only sells in one country. It is neighbours helping neighbours.
Carrying is never a paid service.No fee, nothing for “customs” or “excess baggage”, and never any money up front. A member may offer an optional thank-you gift(shown as a Pro €25 or VIP €50 badge), paid directly between the two of you — but it is a gift, not a charge for carrying, and nobody is ever owed it. Reimbursing exactly what a shop receipt says on a “grab this for me” errand is separate. We never touch the money and we never hold it.
The moment a fee for carrying enters the picture it stops being a favour and becomes an unlicensed courier service, with all the liability that carries. Anyone who offers to pay you to carry something — or asks you to pay a fee to have it carried — is not doing you a kindness.
The open-item rule
Every item is handed over unsealed. The person carrying looks inside each one personally and packs it into their own bag themselves. Nothing arrives gift-wrapped, taped shut or “already sorted”.
This is standard airport-security advice and it is the difference between doing someone a favour and being used as a mule. People who smuggle things do not look like smugglers. They look like a friend of a friend with a good reason and a sealed box.
If someone will not let you see and pack what they are giving you, that is the whole answer. Walk away, and report them.
What may be carried
Only these categories exist in the system — anything else cannot even be entered on a post.
Documents
Certificates, legal papers, medical records, printed photos.
Over-the-counter medicine
Sealed, labelled pharmacy items you can buy without a prescription.
Prescription medicine
In its original labelled box, with a copy of the prescription travelling alongside it.
Packaged food
Factory-sealed snacks, spices and dry goods. Nothing homemade, fresh or perishable.
Clothing
Saris, kidswear, woollens, fabric.
Small gifts
Unwrapped gifts under the declared value limit.
Small electronics
Chargers, cables, headphones, accessories. No loose lithium cells or power banks.
Baby supplies
Formula, sealed baby food, bottles, clothing.
Books and stationery
Textbooks, novels, exam material, stationery.
Never carry these, whatever you are told
Anything sealed, wrapped or already packed
If you did not see inside it, you cannot tell customs what it is. This is the rule that matters most.
Cash, gold, jewellery or bullion
Almost every country requires these to be declared above small limits, and the carrier is the one who gets stopped.
Controlled or narcotic drugs, or any loose or unlabelled medicine
Carrying these is a criminal offence regardless of who packed them or what you were told they were.
Perishables: meat, dairy, fresh fruit, vegetables, seeds, plants
Biosecurity rules mean confiscation and fines, and India and the EU both enforce them at arrival.
Power banks and loose lithium batteries
Airlines prohibit them in checked baggage outright — a genuine flight-safety risk, not paperwork.
Weapons, replicas, ammunition or anything bladed
Obvious at security, and it is your boarding pass attached to the bag.
Alcohol or tobacco above your personal duty-free allowance
Over the allowance it stops being personal use and becomes a dutiable import.
Anything intended for resale, or commercial quantities of anything
Duty and import licensing apply the moment it looks commercial.
Anything you are being paid a fee to carry
A fee for the service turns a favour into an unlicensed courier run. An optional thank-you gift is fine; charging to carry, or being paid for “customs” or “excess baggage”, is not.
If someone pushes back on any of this, stop and report them. Nobody with an honest reason needs you to bend these rules.
Limits
- Up to 8 items per post, and 10kg in total.
- Total declared value of £120 or less. Above that it stops looking like a personal favour and starts looking like a dutiable import, which puts the carrier at risk.
- To offer to carry, your account needs a verified ID, at least one completed help, or 7 days of membership. Asking for help has no such gate.
- A limited number of open offers and in-flight carries at a time. Scammers scale; genuine travellers do not.
Medicines
Over-the-counter medicine must be sealed, labelled and in its original packaging. Loose or unlabelled tablets are prohibited outright, no matter what you are told they are.
Prescription medicine must travel in its original labelled box with a copy of the prescription alongside it. The sender ticks a box saying so. Do not upload a prescription and do not tell us who it is for. That is medical data, we do not want it, and we do not store it.
Import rules differ by country and some perfectly ordinary medicines are controlled substances elsewhere. Both of you should check before you agree.
Handover codes
Once a match is accepted, two six-digit codes are generated. Both belong to the sender.
- The pickup code is read out when the items change hands, and typed in by the carrier. It only works if the two of you are actually standing together.
- The delivery code goes to whoever is collecting at the other end — not to the carrier. They read it out on delivery. It is what proves the parcel actually arrived.
Never send both codes to the carrier up front. Doing so throws away the only real protection either of you has.
What “Booking checked” means
A traveller can scan their boarding pass. If the name matches their profile, the route and date match the post, and the same pass has not been used by another account, the post shows a Booking checked pill.
Being straight about the limits: airlines do not publish the keys needed to validate the signature on a boarding-pass barcode, so a determined person can produce a well-formed one. That is exactly why it does not say “Verified traveller”. It is a useful signal, not proof.
More importantly, it tells you nothing about what goes in the bag. The worst outcome here is not a fake traveller — it is a real traveller with a real ticket being handed something illegal. Only the open-item rule protects against that, and no badge on the other person's profile changes it.
Privacy and data
Item photos go into a private bucket and are only ever shown through short-lived signed links, to the two matched parties. Nobody browsing the board can see them.
The itemised manifest, the recipient's details and the flight details are hidden until a match is accepted. The public board only shows the route, the date and broad categories.
We store a one-way digest of a boarding pass, never the booking reference or the passenger name. Chats close and their message history is deleted 7 days after the delivery date.
When to report
Report immediately, and do not carry, if someone:
- refuses to let you see and pack what they are giving you
- hands over something different from what was declared
- offers you money, or asks you for it
- pressures you about timing, or wants to hand over somewhere private
- asks you to carry anything on the prohibited list
The report menu on their profile and in chat has entries for exactly these. You will never be penalised for pulling out of a handover.
The part we cannot fix for you
If you carry something illegal, the criminal liability is yours — not the sender's, and not ours. That is true even if you were lied to, even if the other person had every badge on the platform, and even if you genuinely had no idea. It is your name on the baggage tag and you are the one standing at the customs desk.
This is not us covering ourselves. It is the actual legal position, and it is why the open-item rule is not negotiable.