Allegro

Is Allegro safe to use?

Yes, as long as you stay inside the app. Allegro, Poland's largest online marketplace with 15.3 million active buyers in Poland at the end of 2025, runs its own security team, encrypts personal data and offers Allegro Protect refunds. What makes it risky is its fame. CERT Polska, the national computer emergency team, logged 22,513 phishing incidents using Allegro's name in 2025, second only to OLX. And Poland's consumer and competition authority, UOKiK, has fined it twice and has two more cases open.

We score Allegro 54/100, above OLX (43) and one point below eBay (55).

Fake Allegro pages are the main threat

The scam is almost always outside Allegro. A fraudster sends an SMS, chat message or email with a link to a page that looks like Allegro or Allegro Lokalnie, often telling a seller to "confirm" a sale or "receive" a payment, and the page captures login or card details. CERT Polska's warning list held 22,613 domains impersonating Allegro in 2025, more than five times the 4,074 it listed in 2024.

That rise is not a sign that Allegro itself was breached. It does mean the most likely way to lose money on Allegro is to type your password or card number into a page you reached from a link. Allegro's own annual report lists fraud on its platforms, including people selling goods they do not have, among its main risks.

What the app collects

Allegro's App Store label is restrained by marketplace standards. Only identifiers are listed as used to track you across other companies' apps and websites, compared with eight data types on OLX's Polish label. The data linked to you is still wide: purchase history, payment info, credit info (Allegro Pay offers buy-now-pay-later loans), name, address, email, phone, search history, photos and usage data. Allegro uses several of them for its own advertising and marketing. Location is collected only at a coarse level and is not linked to your identity.

The privacy policy, Annex 5 to the terms in force from 27 October 2026, goes further than the label. Allegro uses your IP address, browsing on the platform and data from cookies, pixels, SDKs and tags to tailor ads, including behavioural advertising. It also uses your activity to show you its ads on Meta, Google, TikTok and Microsoft services, and to match you there it sends your email address, phone number or device ID in hashed form. It does this on the basis of its "legitimate interest", so it is on until you object; Junior accounts are excluded. Sharing cookie and pixel data with partners for marketing needs your consent.

A table in the policy gives the longest period Allegro keeps data for each purpose, and data tied to your contract is kept for as long as claims under it can arise. Deleting your data is not a single button: the policy says that to use the right to erasure you must first terminate your contract with Allegro.

Security behind the app

Allegro publishes more about security than most marketplaces we score. Its 2025 annual report says personal data is encrypted in transit and at rest, that the company runs its own computer emergency team and a bug bounty programme, hires outside firms for penetration tests, and has an outside auditor rate its security maturity against the NIST framework every two years. It reported two personal data breaches to regulators in 2025 and one in 2024, but does not describe them. We found no public report of a large leak of Allegro accounts.

Fines and open cases

The PLN 206 million fine is the largest, but it concerns how Allegro treated sellers, so under our rules it counts at half weight. UOKiK found that Allegro used data on its search algorithm and on buyer behaviour, which other sellers lacked, to place its own shop's offers higher in search results. The unfair-terms decision is closer to buyers: UOKiK found that Allegro could change its terms and its paid Smart! delivery subscription for vague reasons such as "economic and market conditions", even for users who had paid months ahead.

How to use Allegro more safely

1. Open Allegro only from the app or by typing allegro.pl. Ignore links in SMS, WhatsApp or email that ask you to log in, confirm a sale or receive money.
2. Never enter card details to get paid. A seller on Allegro or Allegro Lokalnie does not need to.
3. Pay through Allegro checkout so Allegro Protect applies, and never agree to a direct bank transfer.
4. Check the seller's ratings and company details before large purchases, especially for electronics at prices well below other shops.
5. Read Smart! and Allegro Pay terms before you sign up, and watch for changes Allegro announces by email.

How we scored it

Security (62) is the strongest factor, backed by encryption, an in-house security team and a small number of reported breaches. Privacy (48) is the weakest: the label tracks you with identifiers only, but the policy shares hashed contact details with ad platforms unless you object. Scams and harmful content (50) is held down by fake Allegro domains, which grew fivefold in 2025. The regulatory record (58) reflects an unfair-terms fine upheld by a court and a large competition fine counted at half weight.