VINTED - Letter Before Action

GDB2222

soolin said:

GDB2222 said:

soolin said:

GDB2222 said:

I have a bit more sympathy with the online marketplaces. To run a really good arbitration process would require several hours of a non-numpty's time on each case. Add in all the overhead costs, and it is easily costing £100. For which the customers pay nothing. 

And then look at the amounts the market is earning. In Soolin's case it was a £12 item, and ebay earned maybe £1. It clearly doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of time arbitrating a disagreement over £12. So, toss a coin and move on to the next case. Better still, get the AI to toss the coin. 

My. Case was Vinted, if it had been a private sale on eBay using simple delivery then buyer would have still got their refund, but I wouldn’t have lost my money either. Even if it had been a sale on my eBay business account, I would have had a contract with courier, and could have made a claim for loss (purchase price only for business sales) but wouldn’t have lost everything. 

That is presumably because the shipping charges included a certain percentage for damaged items, and they pay you out of that? 

Vinted work the same system as eBay for private sellers (assuming eBay SD is used) , they pay the postage  and also charge the buyer a buyers premium.The only difference is that I can easily see what eBay have charged the buyer for postage (which is less in most cases than if I bought direct) but I can’t easily see what Vinted buyers have been charged, I can easily see a rough idea before my item sells on Vinted as the cheapest option (usually Relay and Inpost locker to locker) shows as a ‘from’ amount , but they can chose to pay quite a bit extra for RM or DPD. 

How do the postage costs compare between the two markets?

soolin

GDB2222 said:

soolin said:

GDB2222 said:

soolin said:

GDB2222 said:

I have a bit more sympathy with the online marketplaces. To run a really good arbitration process would require several hours of a non-numpty's time on each case. Add in all the overhead costs, and it is easily costing £100. For which the customers pay nothing. 

And then look at the amounts the market is earning. In Soolin's case it was a £12 item, and ebay earned maybe £1. It clearly doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of time arbitrating a disagreement over £12. So, toss a coin and move on to the next case. Better still, get the AI to toss the coin. 

My. Case was Vinted, if it had been a private sale on eBay using simple delivery then buyer would have still got their refund, but I wouldn’t have lost my money either. Even if it had been a sale on my eBay business account, I would have had a contract with courier, and could have made a claim for loss (purchase price only for business sales) but wouldn’t have lost everything. 

That is presumably because the shipping charges included a certain percentage for damaged items, and they pay you out of that? 

Vinted work the same system as eBay for private sellers (assuming eBay SD is used) , they pay the postage  and also charge the buyer a buyers premium.The only difference is that I can easily see what eBay have charged the buyer for postage (which is less in most cases than if I bought direct) but I can’t easily see what Vinted buyers have been charged, I can easily see a rough idea before my item sells on Vinted as the cheapest option (usually Relay and Inpost locker to locker) shows as a ‘from’ amount , but they can chose to pay quite a bit extra for RM or DPD. 

How do the postage costs compare between the two markets?

It's not like for like as on simple delivery for small items on ebay there is only a choice of RM or Evri, and a large letter RM costs the buyer £2.70, but the cheapest small parcel is Evri at £2.98.

On vinted it's difficult to see as sellers can disable certain options (and there's loads of them) just looking at buying a small item, under 500g so LL size and Inpost locker to locker would cost me £2.29 and delivery to my home is Yodel at £2.90 - but that seller only has Inpost and Yodel enabled.

Same size item from a different seller gives me £1.75 for Relay to shop, or Relay to home at £2.75..

Similar item from a different seller shows £2.89 RM pick up from PO or £3.15 RM LL to home.

For some reason I can't see anyone offering Evri- and none of my orders are being sent Evri either so possibly Vinted have temporarily disabled it. I'm also not seeing the usual options from sellers, I would normally expect to see all the options they have enabled with the various prices available to me, and now each seller is only showing one option. Vinted is notorious for glitches though- so this is probably yet another one. 

Pollycat

I appreciate how the poster who wants to take Vinted to the small claims court feels.

I'm currently banging my head over an issue that should be fairly easy to resolve but Vinted support are incapable of understanding.

My experience:
Inpost mistake/Vinted lack of Customer service — MoneySavingExpert Forum

RFW

Buster_Danog said:

RFW said: as a seller, you're not really a consumer, which is what TS are interested in. 

I have to disagree. I have had a few issues where Vinted has favoured the seller on electronic items. I am dealing with one at the moment in another thread. A few months back I bought an electronic item, opened the box, found it was faulty then raised an issue. The end result was that the seller lied, and blamed it on me. Vinted refunded me, but they also returned the item to the seller, and let him keep the money I had paid him as well. I was livid as it was clearly dishonesty by the seller. 

I am now in another dispute, where Vinted are asking me to return an item to a seller who, against Vinted policy and UK law, sent me a damaged battery inside an electronic item. They are forcing me to pay for the return and send the dangerous battery back, which is against the law in the UK. They simply don't care about the law or the buyer. I am going to report them to authorities in the UK and EU regarding rules for transporting dangerous goods, but I don't think they will care. They are arrogant for a reason.

I'm not entirely sure what you're disagreeing with. Trading Standards are there (in general) to protect consumers. In this case the consumer is the person who received the damaged item.

In both cases you mention above, you can contact Trading Standards who should assist you. The person I was responding to was the seller and is unlikely to get anywhere contacting TS, they may have recourse elsewhere.

Just a couple of bits of advice on your two cases. The first one you were left in the same position as you were before you bought anything, which is perfectly fine. Anything that happens between Vinted and the seller is their problem. You can't get beyond that legally unless you or your property were damaged in some way.

On the second case you most definitely should not be paying for any return of a faulty item and certainly not to send electrical items. I don't use them but hear the horror stories about their customer service but you really need to get that message across, look for a CEO email or message them on social media if you can't get through to any kind of help. I'd also contact Trading Standards via your local council. 

Spoonie_Turtle

RFW said:

Buster_Danog said:

RFW said: as a seller, you're not really a consumer, which is what TS are interested in. 

I have to disagree. I have had a few issues where Vinted has favoured the seller on electronic items. I am dealing with one at the moment in another thread. A few months back I bought an electronic item, opened the box, found it was faulty then raised an issue. The end result was that the seller lied, and blamed it on me. Vinted refunded me, but they also returned the item to the seller, and let him keep the money I had paid him as well. I was livid as it was clearly dishonesty by the seller. 

I am now in another dispute, where Vinted are asking me to return an item to a seller who, against Vinted policy and UK law, sent me a damaged battery inside an electronic item. They are forcing me to pay for the return and send the dangerous battery back, which is against the law in the UK. They simply don't care about the law or the buyer. I am going to report them to authorities in the UK and EU regarding rules for transporting dangerous goods, but I don't think they will care. They are arrogant for a reason.

On the second case you most definitely should not be paying for any return of a faulty item and certainly not to send electrical items. I don't use them but hear the horror stories about their customer service but you really need to get that message across, look for a CEO email or message them on social media if you can't get through to any kind of help. I'd also contact Trading Standards via your local council. 

That's standard for Vinted.  Any return is at the customer's expense, even if it's damaged / faulty / otherwise SNAD.

RFW

Spoonie_Turtle said:

That's standard for Vinted.  Any return is at the customer's expense, even if it's damaged / faulty / otherwise SNAD.

Given that it's against the law, how do they get away with it? I'm assuming it only has private sellers and there's some way around it there. I've never had a desire to use Vinted but this would certainly put me off.
Consumer law says that anyone receiving an item not as described should not be liable to any expense for returning it. 
 

Spoonie_Turtle

RFW said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

That's standard for Vinted.  Any return is at the customer's expense, even if it's damaged / faulty / otherwise SNAD.

Given that it's against the law, how do they get away with it? I'm assuming it only has private sellers and there's some way around it there. I've never had a desire to use Vinted but this would certainly put me off.
Consumer law says that anyone receiving an item not as described should not be liable to any expense for returning it. 

Yep, puts me off too.  I have similar questions!

GDB2222

RFW said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

That's standard for Vinted.  Any return is at the customer's expense, even if it's damaged / faulty / otherwise SNAD.

Given that it's against the law, how do they get away with it? I'm assuming it only has private sellers and there's some way around it there. I've never had a desire to use Vinted but this would certainly put me off.
Consumer law says that anyone receiving an item not as described should not be liable to any expense for returning it. 
 

Surely consumer law only applies when there’s a business doing the selling, not in the case of a private seller?

soolin

GDB2222 said:

RFW said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

That's standard for Vinted.  Any return is at the customer's expense, even if it's damaged / faulty / otherwise SNAD.

Given that it's against the law, how do they get away with it? I'm assuming it only has private sellers and there's some way around it there. I've never had a desire to use Vinted but this would certainly put me off.
Consumer law says that anyone receiving an item not as described should not be liable to any expense for returning it. 
 

Surely consumer law only applies when there’s a business doing the selling, not in the case of a private seller?

I'm a big user of Vinted but have never understood how they get away with buyers having to pay return SNAD items at their own costs. Change of mind returns can be at buyers expense under law, but I didn't think that applied to SNAD returns.

There is also the complication that whilst Vinted was set up purely for private sellers only, with business sellers supposedly being warned and then banned (this happens a lot, seems to be quite random, a lot of banned people are businesses, some are not) , they do now have a pro seller programme. The FAQs on Vinted are usually quite poor so I can't see whether or not buyers get return labels for SNAD items bought by a pro seller.

Registering as a Pro seller | Vinted

Registering as a Pro seller

You can become a Pro seller on Vinted if you’re a sole trader (entrepreneur), a charity, or a registered company incorporated in Italy, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Belgium, or the UK.In case you’re eligible to become a Pro seller, follow these steps:If you’re new to Vinted, start by signing up via our Vinted Pro page.If you’re already using Vinted, you can convert your current account to Vinted Pro.Want to go Pro and keep your current profile? You may have 1 standard and 1 Pro account. Just log out and then sign up as a Pro seller using a different email address and phone number.

RFW

GDB2222 said:

RFW said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

That's standard for Vinted.  Any return is at the customer's expense, even if it's damaged / faulty / otherwise SNAD.

Given that it's against the law, how do they get away with it? I'm assuming it only has private sellers and there's some way around it there. I've never had a desire to use Vinted but this would certainly put me off.
Consumer law says that anyone receiving an item not as described should not be liable to any expense for returning it. 
 

Surely consumer law only applies when there’s a business doing the selling, not in the case of a private seller?

It's not super clear, you lose some rights buying from a private seller but you still have protection from being conned. Trading Standards will likely have a look and any seller who's a multiple offender could be prosecuted. 

There used to be, especially on Ebay, professional sellers claiming they were private sellers and refusing returns after knowingly sending out faulty items. One used to boast about it on the seller forums, he'd threaten them with negative feedback if they tried to complain. Ebay tightened their rules as they were losing buyers and offered more protection. From the sounds of it Vinted are getting to that place.