Choose a side: Vinted v disabled users

[Supersimkin2]

Please say what you think. Vinted asked NDN to verify her ID, which she’s happy to do, or they won’t let her withdraw the £300 she’s made selling her stuff.

Life on disability benefits not so easy right now. Her £300 a big deal.

But she can’t do the checks - cos the only ID Vinted accepts is a passport or driver’s licence, neither of which she has as she can’t travel. All the other ID proofs - she has loads - Vinted won’t accept.

We’ve appealed to Vinted three times and they won’t budge. Mangopay, their money platform, refer us to
Vinted.

So Vinted are keeping NDN’s money. They say ‘We hope you will understand’.

YABU = I’m with Vinted.
YANBU = Shame on Vinted.

You have to declare eyesight correction when APPLYING for a licence.

That’s what many people on here have been suggesting - that the OP’s NDN applies for a provisional licence.

If she already had one that wouldn’t be an issue and Vinted would have happily paid out the money already.

Specsavers even have this on their website - it really shouldn’t be something people have no knowledge of if they wear glasses and want to apply for a driving licence!!

Do I need to inform the DVLA if I need glasses for driving?There's no need to notify them if you need glasses for driving.
When you apply for a driving license, however, you have to state at that time if you wear glasses when driving, in which case your license is usually endorsed with the code 01.

https://www.specsavers.co.uk/help-and-faqs/do-i-need-to-inform-the-dvla-if-i-need-glasses-for-driving

@blackcherryconserve my Mum has neither passport nor driving licence, and she has a postal vote.

This is discrimination. Taken from the citizens advice website
Taking your disability into account Under the Equality Act, service providers ie banks must take your disability into account when dealing with you as a customer. This means they may have to change the way they do things so you’re not disadvantaged by your disability. If you've suffered a disadvantage because of your disability, it could be disability discrimination.
Your NDN has suffered a disadvantage because she cannot get her money
What counts as unlawful discrimination? Service providers eg banks must make reasonable adjustments if you’re disadvantaged by something because of your disability. If they don’t do this, it’s unlawful discrimination.
It may also be unlawful discrimination, if a service provider treats you unfairly because of something connected to your disability - for example, if you're disadvantaged because you can’t read small print or have difficulties communicating or understanding things.
This is called discrimination arising from disability.
If a service provider fails to make reasonable adjustments, you can also often complain about discrimination because of something connected to your disability.
Equality Advisory Support Service (EASS) If you have experienced discrimination, you can get help from the EASS discrimination helpline.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimination/check-if-youre-protected-from-discrimination/equality-advisory-support-service-discrimination-helpline/

I’m disabled and I have a passport for identity reasons (though hope to travel again one day). I don’t know why Vinted needs those types of identification documents and EBay and Etsy don’t 🤔

I had this problem trying to get my son ID so he could get a DBS check. He can't have a driving licence due to his learning disabilities. We are on benefits as he can't work and I'm his carer. For his first adult passport he'd need a doctors letter to say he can't attend the interview as he wouldn't understand the questions. £30 for a doctors letter. Then the cost of the passport. That we'd never use as we can't afford to go abroad. So over £100 just to check he hasn't got a criminal record. We don't have that money spare a month, despite apparently getting tons of benefit money.

I found they also accept ID cards which some companies provide, so I got him one of those in the end - I think it was £40 (because I fast tracked it)

I don't know if Vinted would accept those?

It’s not being done to prevent crime because they didn’t care when I got in touch to say a bag listed on there was fake (I’ve done work for the company so I can tell).

And on many sm sites buyers have enormous issues with sellers and vinted don’t care.

That is for people who already hold a driving licence.

But if you are applying for your first licence you have to declare if you require eyesight correction to meet the minimum standards required for driving.

Seriously, is that really so hard to understand?

Go through the first few questions in the online application to obtain a provisional licence and you’ll reach this one which asks if you can meet the legal eyesight standard for driving.

If you select NO then your application goes no further. If you can’t meet the legal minimum eyesight requirement then you cannot legally obtain a provisional licence.

If you select YES, WITH GLASSES OR CORRECTIVE LENSES, then when you receive your licence it will have the endorsement code 01.

If you fail to declare this at the time of your first application then you open yourself up to a fine.

Once you have obtained your licence any later deterioration in your eyesight isn’t something you have to mention to DVLA unless you develop one of the notifiable eyesight conditions or you no longer meet the minimum eyesight requirement.

Keep up people, this stuff isn’t that difficult. 🙄

Just get her a passport, dear god. It's going to come in useful anyway (even if only as ID, though of course you never know and she may well end up travelling in the future), and the £300 she will get back will more than cover the cost.

It absolutely has something to do with her disability. A service shouldn't have procedures that disadvantage someone because of their disability.
An able bodied person would have the option to use a driving license as ID. A person who is medically unfit, does not have that option and by expecting them to have to buy a more expensive form of ID, you are placing them at a financial disadvantage. Hence discrimination.
I can't understand how people can't see this.

Vinted are being arses. My argument to them would be as follows, and I would try to engage disability rights organisations to support this.

The law of this country is specific. It is illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of disability. You, Vinted, are requiring disabled people to produce one of two specific documents which they are far less likely to have, or to have access to, then are the general public.

A disabled person may not have any right to a driving licence. They are far less likely to travel abroad than is an abled person. This requirement is thus indirect discrimination.

In addition to this fact, businesses are legally required to make reasonable adaptation to their business practices to ensure that those with protected characteristics are not subject to discrimination. This is a clear case where those with disabilities have significant problems in complying with a policy which is not applied in other countries . What are V doing to make the required accommodations?

But why should she have to? The bank is discriminating against her!

I posted the documents required to apply online. I copied the list of acceptable documents from the online application page.

If the applicant doesn’t have a passport they cannot apply online.

Do you understand now?

Exactly ! Vinted have to change their policy so that it is not discriminatory. Your NDN is being treated unfairly because of something arising out of her disability...ie because of her disability she cannot get a driving licence and cannot travel.
Your NDN needs to make firm representations to Vinted. See if she can get some free advice

It may be true that she can't apply for a provisional driving license if she is not allowed to drive..
But she can still apply for a passport.

Your original post on this matter didn't mention anything about that being to apply online. It read as if you need a passport to get a driving licence by any means.

@Tarquina when was this? When I applied for my first adult passport I didn't have to attend in person, it was all done by post. Although granted that was in the early 00s so things may well have changed since then.

Sorry, I still feel it is discrimination to ask someone with lower earnings potential than the rest of us (check disability employment rates etc) to pay quite a substantial sum for a passport they are unlikely to use for its intended purpose.

I realise this isn't actually the strongest legal argument out there which is why I suggest linking with a disability organisation. In the meantime, the question about reasonable adjustments remains...

I am on UC (unable to work) and on a fucking pittance.
The price for me to apply for a passport would be a massive chunk for me too... but I would not see that as being discriminatory.

The case should really be against the UK government for not having cheaper passports or free national ID, unlike other countries.

That’s what I would have thought. If anyone’s at fault here, surely it’s the UK government for charging nearly £100 for a passport and not offering a cheaper option? Vinted didn’t come up with that price, neither did Mangopay.

The link in my post contains this:

If you do not have a UK passport or a share code
You’ll need to send an identity document by post to prove your identity.

So I thought it was obvious.

But then again, people would have to actually bother to read it, wouldn’t they? Much easier to just pretend they’ve read something or make up their own interpretation based on misunderstanding what they’re looking at.

Case in point - the need to declare corrective eyesight measures to meet the minimum driving standard of eyesight on a first application for a driving licence.

A number of posters were adamant this wasn’t true despite it being written in quite large print on the DVLA application page and one even linked to the information for people who already hold a driving licence! 😂

There have been a number of attempts to introduce a national ID card over the years by various iterations of government.

Each time it has failed.

Usually the press report the proposal and some idiot campaigner declares that this is an assault on our human rights / we haven’t had ID cards since WW2 / it discriminates against (insert random cohort who likely would not be negatively impacted by this at all) / it’s the start of a social credit score / the government will use them to track your movements / you’ll be digitally recorded every time you buy alcohol / the police will use ID cards to restrict your movements / we just don’t do that sort of thing in this country.

Public pressure then makes the government cave in and the proposal is quietly dropped.

So don’t blame the government, blame the (largely) middle class electorate who bafflingly consider ID cards to be an assault on our freedoms whilst at the same time being perfectly happy to own a biometric passport. They’re not the ones who are affected by this lack of national ID, because they can afford one. The disabled are overrepresented in the cohort of poor people and they are the ones who may be unable to obtain a driving licence so are either forced to pay for a passport or are denied access to many things in society the rest of us take for granted.

Thank you @ExasperatedDancer . Beautifully put.

I wasn't talking about the link. Your actual words were

So quite apart from the fact that the NDN cannot legally drive due to her disability, in order to make a falsified application for a provisional licence to circumvent the need for purchasing a more expensive passport, she first needs… a passport!!

She does NOT need a passport like you said. She just can't apply online for the provisional.

A passport is for travelling, eh?

I've needed it to marry, to divorce, to buy a house, to open a bank account, to rent a flat, to apply for benefits, to get access to professional exams, to get a DBS check, to go through some sort of electronic government check where you scan your passport with your phone (forgot what it was for), I've needed it when I started new employment, it can be used to vote, travel abroad, buy age restricted items, gain access to age restricted venues... And clearly a passport can be used to withdraw larger sums from Vinted.

I've had my new passport actively in use since 2020 and it will travel for the first time this year. "Travel document" - lol!

This. Neither law nor regulation specifies that the only ID you can use to verify customers is a driving license or passport. By having such unnecessarily restrictive ID requirements they are not ensuring good customer outcomes or considering they are meeting the needs of vulnerable customers who may struggle to get ID.