Selling and buying on Vinted
It's been a while since I had a rant to share here but today is the day. I found out about Vinted, a second hand platform to sell and buy items internationally around November and so far my experiences have been great on both sides. I learned quite a bit about demographics in terms of who are more likely to pay a higher price than others and will take note when I open my own webshop in the near future.
The best thing about Vinted is probably the very easy upload process as well as the fact that you can write it all down in English, or your preferred language of any of the other countries on Vinted, and the system will automatically translate and make you show up in searches. This is very convenient compared to another big platform which is only available in Spain and Italy. And the upload process is more time consuming.
This alone made me love Vinted really quickly and I can't lie, I sold and bought quite a bit on there in the past months.
Shoes
Then the issues with shoes popped up, boyfriend doesn't want to buy any second hand, which I get, so I kept adding new in box shoes to my favourites because it was convenient using the wallet with funds in it on Vinted over having to pay by bank. Sometimes a questionable pair popped up, and I removed it from my favourites and stopped keeping track of price changes.
Then there was this one pair of Nikes which was an older model and the seller wrote, new in box, bought the wrong size. I guess it happens but as he asked a lower price, I already assumed it was going to turn out a fake, but as Vinted adds buyers protection to every sale and writes that counterfeit items will be refunded, I figured it was worth the shot.
My boyfriend also said if they are a good fit I want them anyway for that money so what's there to lose? Well, apparently scammers have the upper hand on Vinted so I learned yesterday.
Inspection time
My boyfriend always does quite a bit of research, knowing the shoes would probably be fake, he started looking for details to pay attention to. Still, if they would fit, he'd keep them over returning them if they aren't too ugly, haha. I personally already regret buying them knowing that I'd have to test the waters of Vinted customer support as soon as the proof would be 100% clear.
I summed up all things wrong, comparisons to the real deal, and the stupid mistakes by the seller where he used the same box for different models and also another sticker with the same model number and only different size for another pair, while also writing everywhere that they are new because of buying the wrong size. Also funny detail, he held up the shoes with a very recognizable tattoo on his wrist, name on it and everything.
Honestly, the case was clear as can be while finding more inconsistencies later, these weren't even needed in a case where you'd deal with real humans taking care of these issues. This is not happening on Vinted, so I learned. Instead of dealing with a first line of AI bot scanning for possible counterfeit (as selected in the reason to open a dispute) or even better, talking to a real human agent for guidance, the dispute is sent to the seller and then the seller can read all your points, see the pictures and decide if he or she confesses and let's you keep the item while being refunded OR have you ship back the order on their costs (which sounds fair if you're dealing with counterfeit, right?) OR they can piss you off and tell you to ship it back on your own cost before getting refunded. Say what? I'm not even kidding!
Seller's response
The seller already sent me a message after I picked up the package to let me know it was there for pick up. I know that he knew it was already picked up as these updates show up in the same chat, this was a red flag that he hoped to move quickly so that I'd press "everything is ok" and the money would land in his account. I didn't respond to it and took my time to build the case, the first thing he did was instantly write "what is this" and without being able to read it, he clicked return on own cost because I saw this in the chat:
Followed by these messages:
It was clear to me right away that he did this more often, the fact that he knows about the dispute disappearing as soon as the seller requests a return first before you receive a refund said a lot. The tone in his messages left a sour taste in my mouth, can't lie!
Little extra detail, we took screenshots of his other listing after this sale was a fact because I already felt his account could look empty after other complaints. I was right because he removed his profile picture with the tattoo as well as all other listings. This just added to the red flags I already had.
Vinted support sucks big time!
So what I learned after wasting hours of my time is that it's nearly impossible to get this sorted properly on Vinted when the seller knows he's untouchable and it would take a lot for a platform to eventually report this person. I googled and googled and found similar stories where it soon became clear that I could bow and send it back on my costs, hoping that the seller would even pick it up at the drop off point or confirm it arrived back in good condition OR keep the shoes. My gut feeling warned me that he'd probably be one of these d*ckheads who'd say there's something wrong with the shoes to not get my money refunded because of accusing him of selling counterfeit shoes.
The shoes fit, they are not as comfy as the real deal but at least they still look nice and they were bought for a good price we we decided to keep the shoes and let this go for now. I have a week to return the shoes, after that the money will be automatically released, and I plan on letting him wait until that Vinted releases it because of his attitude. It's the only thing I can do to get under his skin, lol.
At least I don't have to deal with him anymore or wait for this to be resolved because I find it quite stressful dealing with shitty customer support. It's clear to me why so many sellers sell counterfeit items on Vinted, it's worth the risk and effort so it seems. I will just keep using them for a little longer but then say goodbye completely after discovering how shit only AI customer support functions. It can be used for the good, and I've experienced that myself on other sites as well, but never as bad as on Vinted.
Lesson learned
Thankfully it wasn't an expensive lesson and even more thankful that the shoes at least fit, otherwise it would have cost use the return shipment. I always check the brand size before ordering online, so that in no case the size would be an issue, which is of course harder when they are not original brands because the size will differ most likely. Will I ever buy anything branded on there again, probably not. Lesson learned.
Do you have any similar experiences on online marketplaces? Want to share? Drop a comment below.. If in any case you have a Vinted issue and succesfully solved this matter with their support, I'd love to read how exactly, it will be too late for this purchase but at least then I know how to navigate their stupid system..
The header image is my own.