Sad Vinted Faces<\/a>.<\/p>\nWithin two days, hundreds of people had responded. Since then, she says, more than 6,400 cases have been collected.<\/p>\n
Catherine Warrilow of the Sad Vinted Faces campaign. Photograph: Handout<\/p>\n
One of the users who claimed, via Warrilow\u2019s website, that she had had a bad experience, was Maggie, who did not want to give her last name. She says she sold a pair of Birkenstock Boston clogs for \u00a372. When the buyer disputed their authenticity, she provided photographs of the shoes, and a bank statement showing she had bought them from Office.<\/p>\n
But Vinted decided the shoes were counterfeit, she says. The buyer was refunded and kept them, and Maggie permanently lost her account.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat upset me the most was not just the financial loss, but the feeling that my evidence was never properly considered,\u201d Maggie says. \u201cI had no meaningful opportunity to explain my case, or have it reviewed by a real person.\u201d<\/p>\n
The consumer expert Martyn James says he has been \u201cflooded\u201d with messages from people who say they were accused of selling counterfeit goods and then had their Vinted accounts, and their money, frozen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis problem has been bubbling away for a while,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Part of the issue, he says, appears to be the use of automated systems in dealing with disputes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI is all well and good as a first line of investigation,\u201d he says. \u201cIt is fine to use it to speed things up. But a service cannot exist without the service part, and that has to involve a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds: \u201cThere seems to be no real sense of appeal. The company is acting as judge and jury, but there is money at play and it is not as straightforward as that.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Vinted, all appeals are handled by human reviewers, including Warrilow\u2019s cases.<\/p>\n
Vinted says all appeals are handled by human reviewers. Photograph: Timon Schneider\/Alamy<\/p>\n
Victoria Chamberlain-Ralphs has built a business selling clothes for clients who do not have time to do it themselves on Vinted. She says her problems started when she was made to convert her account to a \u201cPro\u201d one, which took her offline for six weeks. \u201cThey said that our wardrobe was too big: we have 700 clients, which was, at that time, 18,000 items. They said that they had no capacity to get us back on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were emailing constantly, and they said they \u2018would get around to it\u2019.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
She adds: \u201cI told them I have staff to pay. I have clients asking why their items are not online, and I have a building to pay for.\u201d<\/p>\n
In three years, Chamberlain-Ralphs says she has had her account shut down about 12 times. \u201cI got banned last Thursday,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was a permanent ban due to \u2018fraudulent activity\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says Vinted gave her no explanation. She had 42 outstanding orders, all of which were cancelled when her account was banned.<\/p>\n
Five hours later, she says, it was reinstated. \u201cThey said it was \u2018a false alarm\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cBut that has cost me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says her account was also banned in November 2025 after she was accused of selling a fake item of clothing. \u201cI rang one of my clients and got a receipt from Amazon for the trousers I was selling, and proved it was not fake \u2013 but they did not remove the ban.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Vinted, accounts will be suspended if Pro members repeatedly breach its \u201ccatalogue rules,\u201d which prohibit counterfeit and dangerous items, or commercial activity that is not centred on secondhand goods.<\/p>\n
James says cases such as these raise questions about what happens when a platform\u2019s automated systems make allegations against users, and there is no obvious route for an independent review.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings may not be the fault of the individual, but Vinted is not responding,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Vinted says the company has \u201cclear rules to protect the community and keep the marketplace safe\u201d.<\/p>\n
It says that \u201c98% of transactions are completed smoothly, without needing help from our support teams\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, it adds, action is taken when rules are breached, to help \u201ckeep the marketplace safe for everyone\u201d.<\/p>\n
It says that users can appeal against decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Catherine Warrilow sold a Zara necklace for \u00a36 on Vinted, she packed it up and posted it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-809234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}