Mercado Libre

Is Mercado Libre safe?

It is one of the safer large shopping apps we score, and the safest of the marketplaces built for emerging markets. Orders paid inside the app are covered by Compra Garantida, which refunds you if the item never arrives or is not as described. Its App Store label declares much less tracking than Shopee or OLX. The weak points are a 2022 attack that exposed data of about 300,000 users and sellers who still list products that are illegal or unapproved in Brazil. We score it 58/100, above eBay (55) and Amazon (54).

MercadoLibre, Inc. runs the marketplace in 18 countries across Latin America, from Brazil and Mexico to Argentina and Chile. It had 121 million unique active buyers in 2025, according to its annual report.

The 2022 breach

On 7 March 2022 MercadoLibre filed a short notice with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Part of its source code had been "subject to unauthorized access", and data of about 300,000 users, out of nearly 140 million, had been accessed. The company said it had found no evidence that its infrastructure was compromised or that passwords, balances, investments or card details were taken.

Procon-SP, São Paulo's consumer agency, notified the company the next day. It asked when the problem was found, which customers and transactions were affected, and whether the company could prove it had the security measures Brazil's data protection law (LGPD) requires. We found no fine from that inquiry and no decision by ANPD, Brazil's data protection authority.

Since then the record is clean. The 2025 annual report says MercadoLibre had no material information security breach in the last three years. The company runs a public bug bounty programme on HackerOne that pays researchers who report flaws.

Tracking and your data

Mercado Libre's label stands out among shopping apps for what it does not declare. Only identifiers and usage data are listed as used to track you across other companies' apps. Only contact details and a user ID are linked to your identity. Purchases, payment info, precise location, photos and search history appear under "Data Not Linked to You", meaning the company says it does not tie them to your account. That is a self-declared label, which Apple does not check, but it is far narrower than Shopee's, which lists purchases and contact info for tracking.

Your name and address still go to the seller who ships your order, and the app is tied closely to Mercado Pago, its payment and digital account service. If you keep money there, read our Mercado Pago page: balances are not covered by deposit insuranceDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary in the way a bank account is.

Illegal products and counterfeits

Mercado Libre has a longer anti-counterfeit history than most of its rivals. USTR put it on its notorious markets list for 2020, as did the European Commission's 2020 counterfeit and piracy watch list. It was removed from both in 2022 and has not been listed since, the company says in its 2025 annual report.

Unsafe and illegal listings are the more current concern. In August 2021 São Paulo's civil police and Procon-SP called the company in over stolen goods and abortion pills sold on the site, and Mercado Libre agreed to remove illegal listings without a court order. In November 2021 it signed an agreement with Procon-SP to refund buyers through Compra Garantida, require invoices from regular sellers and send quarterly reports on removed listings. Procon-SP had logged 5,642 complaints against it in 2020.

In September 2023 Procon-MG fined it about R$704,000 after third-party sellers offered injectable facial fillers without approval from Anvisa, the health regulator. The fine can be appealed.

How to use Mercado Libre safely

1. Pay only at the app's own checkout. A seller who asks for a Pix, bank transfer or WhatsApp chat is trying to get you outside Compra Garantida.
2. Check the seller's reputation, number of sales and whether it is an official store before buying electronics or brands.
3. Do not buy medicines, injectables or cosmetics that need Anvisa approval from ordinary sellers.
4. Open a claim in the app within the guarantee period if something goes wrong, with photos.
5. Treat emails and texts about prizes, blocked accounts or order problems as fake until you check them inside the app.

How we scored it

The regulatory record (80) is the strongest factor: one small product fine and an inquiry over the 2022 breach, but no data protection decision. Privacy (55) reflects a label with little tracking. Scams and harmful content (50) is the weakest, because illegal and unapproved products from sellers keep reaching regulators. Security (60) weighs the 2022 breach against a bug bounty and a clean record since.