Vinted removed money from my balance after making unfair decisions

soolin

RhondaD said:

pyrrhus80 said:

RhondaD said:

The easier thing to do would have just been to accept the return and re list surely? They gave you 48 hours to negotiate a solution with the buyer which does seem reasonable? Your own decision to do nothing appears to be the sticking point.

It's not a negotiation though; it is Vinted dictating what I must do.

soolin said:

It is almost unheard of for Vinted to side with a buyer especially regarding condition of items, selling something as used where buyer complains it is not new should have been an easy win for you. I wonder if you might have saved yourself some issues by just accepting the return as buyer would then have to have paid the return fee themselves and of course you don't lose the outward postage either as Vinted pay that.

It is very hard to contact Vinted, they don't really do  customer service like ebay and I'm not sure what to suggest here. However be aware if you do decide to go down a legal route you will be dealing with Lithuanian processes as that is where Vinted is based. 

Have you tried the Vinted forums for advice?  

I am 100% certain that I could have saved myself some issues by accepting the returns - but that's not really the point, and 48 hours  really isn't a lot of time. Everything I did prior to Vinted's ruling followed their rules. With the first issue, the buyer was clearly at fault - and with the second issue the buyer was obviously lying. Communicating with Vinted is almost impossible; even when I receive correspondence from them, it is robotic and does not address any of the points that I have raised.

It's not a negotiation though; it is Vinted dictating what I must do.

It is a negotiation. You had 48 hours to negotiate a return. You are only in this situation because you chose to ignore their terms. It's Vinteds platform, of course they are going to dictate what sellers must do if a customer wants a refund. Accepting a return, refunding the money and then re listing would have been a more favourable outcome that adopting the stubborn approach that a platform you are using to make money has no right to dictate what you should do. I doubt the outcome would have been much different on eBay either if you just ignored the request because it wasn't convenient for you.

It would be the same on eBay, if you completely ignore any return request then it goes against the seller. With eBay a business seller can appeal after a safe return , but there is no such facility on Vinted as it is only meant for private sellers. 

pyrrhus80

RhondaD said:

It is a negotiation. You had 48 hours to negotiate a return. You are only in this situation because you chose to ignore their terms. It's Vinteds platform, of course they are going to dictate what sellers must do if a customer wants a refund. Accepting a return, refunding the money and then re listing would have been a more favourable outcome that adopting the stubborn approach that a platform you are using to make money has no right to dictate what you should do. I doubt the outcome would have been much different on eBay either if you just ignored the request because it wasn't convenient for you.

No, I am in this situation because the buyers were stupid/dishonest and because Vinted do not use living customer service agents capable of applying common sense when disagreements arise.

And I don't know what you understand to be the definition of "negotiation" but you are incorrect. There was no opportunity for me to negotiate. What Vinted offered me was an ultimatum: with every option rewarding the buyers for their dishonesty. And while it may seem like I am adopting a stubborn approach (and in many ways I am) my refusal to accept either of the options that Vinted presented puts me in a much better position legally should I decide to take matters further.

What eBay would have done is of no relevance whatsoever.

MikeJXE

£14 ? Let it go or face more expense and more hassle it's the world we live in 

pyrrhus80

MikeJXE said:

£14 ? Let it go or face more expense and more hassle it's the world we live in 

I know. I'm grateful that it's only £14 and not more - but it just riles me that sites such as this seem to reward dishonesty. They rake in the profits and take it for granted that people will "let it go" when injustices arise.

soolin

Just some additional thoughts on this. I use Vinted, I sell a fair bit on there but am extremely cautious how I use them, the fact that OP had 2 issues both returns is worrying, it is extremely rare to get a return but to get 2 suggests that perhaps there was something in the wording that has caused an issue. Vinted discourage the sale of new things, they work on the principle of maintaining it is a peer to peer private site and therefore outside the UK rules about returns , sell too much new stuff and you will get banned.

As Vinted consider themselves completely private buyers do not have the facility to get an automatic change of mind return but allow buyers to request this but then remove buyers right to leave feedback if they return something, they also expect the buyer to return the item at their own cost fully tracked. Where Vinted start to be on dodgy ground is that they also deny the right to a free return for faulty or damaged goods unless buyer pays for the return.

Check here for full rules Vinted Refund Policy

So what happens is that buyer has a very short window of 2 days to start a 'conversation' about a faulty, damaged or SNAD item and seller is expected to join that conversation. Sometimes if it is clear cut that an item is damaged then Vinted will refund and seller receives their money anyway, other times buyer is told to return goods. If seller joins the conversation they can supply their own evidence and Vinted sometimes go down the full refund route with no cost to buyer or seller.  If Vinted go down the return route the money remains held until such time that tracking shows the item has been returned, buyer gets their money back and seller loses item cost. Seller does not lose outward postage though as they would on ebay or other sites as Vinted paid that in the first place.Once seller gets the item back they can then appeal the decision if item is not faulty or damaged as claimed , see the FAQ where it says

"We’ll step in to help in situations where the seller: 

Reports an issue with the returned item.

• We’ll review the evidence and make a decision on the refund."

The main requirement though is that seller is that the seller must engage with the return request, ignoring it means that Vinted have no evidence and no way of deciding who is right or wrong, and so buyer automatically wins.

OP I'm not sure what you hoped to achieve by not engaging with Vinted, they hold your money until buyer is happy so ignoring the request for your side of the story was never going to end well. You do obviously have the right to go to small claims, assuming this is practical against a Lithuanian company, but I suspect the fact you made no attempt to mitigate your loss, nor follow any appeal process means you are unlikely to win. 

You quite rightly say that us regulars mentioning ebay is not helpful, but ultimately any time you sell remotely you need to be aware of buyers rights, and ignoring requests, especially where someone else holds your money, is never going to be a policy that works.

TOP_CAT

So vinted has some good points regarding selling items for private sellers vs Ebay?

You could assume soolin wouldnt use vinted if it was pants .

soolin

TOP_CAT said:

So vinted has some good points regarding selling items for private sellers vs Ebay?

You could assume soolin wouldnt use vinted if it was pants .

You are quite right!

I have bought on Vinted, but I buy considerably less than I sell as I don't think they actively support buyers and I don't like the idea that if I get something completely wrong or damaged then it would cost me money to return it. 

pyrrhus80

soolin said:
OP I'm not sure what you hoped to achieve by not engaging with Vinted, they hold your money until buyer is happy so ignoring the request for your side of the story was never going to end well. You do obviously have the right to go to small claims, assuming this is practical against a Lithuanian company, but I suspect the fact you made no attempt to mitigate your loss, nor follow any appeal process means you are unlikely to win.

I did engage with them, I just chose to refuse the ultimatum that they presented me with.
Vinted's initial requests were that I provide "detailed" images of the items before I posted them, along with photos of them packaged up with the buyers' postage labels clearly showing. I was unable to provide such images because I hadn't known it would be necessary to take them. I imagine that most sellers would be unable to provide such "evidence". Vinted then gave me 48 hours to either request returns from the buyers or provide refunds.

I continued engaging with Vinted but it soon became abundantly clear that Vinted Support was little more than a time delayed chatbot sending me pre-written responses based on key words it had picked up in my messages. It was futile writing to them. Since I disagreed with their judgements that my items were SNAD, I refused to do what they instructed. And here we are.

pyrrhus80

soolin said:

Just some additional thoughts on this. I use Vinted, I sell a fair bit on there but am extremely cautious how I use them, the fact that OP had 2 issues both returns is worrying, it is extremely rare to get a return but to get 2 suggests that perhaps there was something in the wording that has caused an issue. Vinted discourage the sale of new things, they work on the principle of maintaining it is a peer to peer private site and therefore outside the UK rules about returns , sell too much new stuff and you will get banned.

This is something that I find weird. I have been selling on Vinted for around six months. I have probably sold around 25-30 items in that time and have nothing but five-star feedback.

Both of the items that I had issues raised with were sold on the same day. Probably just coincidence, but weird nonetheless.

Rantband

If you do not follow rules you end up in your situation, out of pocket and no where to go. Both Ebay, Vinted and any Court will just laugh at you for £14.