Vinted: buyer claims I sent different item..

[aggiemay24]

Help!

I sold a lovely pair of Dune shoes and matching bag (so not cheap) for £10 on Vinted. I packaged everything well in tissue paper and put inside a big shoebox and wrapped securely in an M&S parcel bag.

Stuck label on myself and sent via Evri in my local Co-op.

Buyer has contacted me to say she received a pair of jeans from ASOS. She's sent a photo and it's the packaging I used (not the shoe box) in the photo with the jeans. She says the bag was sealed closed.

She wants a refund.

I feel I am being scammed. I firmly believe she has received the bag and shoes because I know what I sent and she has the parcel bag. I'm furious.

The buyer has one review and no profile photo. I have used Vinted for years and sold many items and have all positive reviews.

I've messaged Vinted but heard nothing. The buyer has started a claim on there and is demanding a refund. I've been presented with two options automatically by the app: 1. ask buyer to return item (jeans) then give a refund. Or 2. Give refund without buyer returning the item.

I don't want a pair of jeans in exchange for an expensive bag/shoes set. I'm so upset because I could've donated the items to charity shop instead.

Any ideas what I can do? Anyone experienced this before?

Unless you have your own pics of you packaging her item, it's unlikely Vinted will side with you unfortunately 😔 their customer service isn't very good in this situation.

Do you have a receipt from when you sent the item showing the weight of the package? I would imagine shoes + bag would weight more than a pair of jeans

Ah I really feel for you -it's happened to me too. There's not a lot you can do but I'd definitely get her to send the jeans back, though only if you are sure that is at her own expense (you don't want the cost of that too!). You can probably sell the jeans on again and recoup some or all of your loss.
As an aside -it is possible that the jeans were substituted in the delivery route from co-op to evri to her evri I guess -bit of a long shot but might make you feel less angry about all this. Best of luck with whatever you decide.

Her profile sounds like she's a scammer.

I'm having a similar experience. I sold some quite expensive shoes (£65) on Vinted. Sent them using Evri with a drop-off at my nearest Tesco Express. Today my buyer received a pair of trainers. My package had definitely been opened and taped up and someone replaced the shoes (and shoebox) with some random trainers.

I believe my buyer. Either Tesco or Evri have swapped the contents.

I'm fucked aren't I? I'll lose the money as well as the shoes?

You don’t weigh parcels when sending.

I had this exact same issue. The only difference was the courier was In Post (who I now refuse to use). It was a label free service which I believe caused the cock up.
At first, I thought I was being scammed too but after some back and forth with her decided she was genuine and was equally as pissed off as me.

Eventually she got some sort of refund but as the seller, I just fully lost out. Vinted don’t give a shit. Sorry 🙁

The most plausible explanation (the buyer swapped them) is usually the truth.

I’ve had this happen with InPost. Don’t refund the buyer yourself otherwise Vinted won’t do anything. Report it to them and they will refund the buyer and you.

@hammering you are 100% right!! Someone just put my stolen shoes up for sale on Vinted! (at twice the price). They're quite distinct shoes so 100% my ones. Pretty sure it's my buyer with a different account (they're both in London). I've reported it to Vinted with screenshots but not sure if they will be able to do anything.

I'm so angry!!

And I was an idiot and already refunded her because she gave me a whole sob story before she even bought them so I felt sorry for her. I am such a mug.

Get her to send the jeans back.
Then take a photo of a different item and complain saying she’s sent you something different!!! Beat her at her own game. Can you find a way to not receive the return.. pay the courrier.. I’d explain and hope they’d join you in your revenge!!

im digging deep here, wouldn’t normally do any of these and love vinted, but I am angry for you!!! Good luck let us know what you do!!

Buy them back and do the same thing!

Seriously? Are you actually an idiot?

@ChockysChimichanga erm no but thanks for such a lovely helpful comment in the spirit of MN. It would highlight the obvious ridiculous situation to vinted and give the buyer a taste of her own medicine. You would of course argue you’ve refunded her and she’s kept the item; which is exactly what they would have done despite their best efforts to keep the item and get a refund.

Don’t be ridiculous. The majority of people who buy and sell on Vinted cannot be bothered with stupid revenge acts.

Same thing happened to me.
I sold three pairs of jodhpurs and buyer claimed he got a red jumper and 2 pairs of jodphurdt
I've never owned a red jumper.
I argued for ages and eventually agreed reduced price.
I think he got about £ 2.50 off... ridiculous to try scam for such tiny amount.
I was so angry and now video myself packaging up parcels.
I also have someone claim a sweatshirt was faded and marked...it was brand new with tags...I refunded and asked her to send it back ..it never came back

I’ve had exactly the same on a a set of 4 beautiful copper cups I’ve sold. I sent in pix of my original purchase. Vinted decided in the buyer’s favour. The only consolation is I’ve the stainless steel ones that she claimed I’d sent so I will get at least some money recouped from selling those.

But so annoying and upsetting.

I had somebody else who claimed an item was missing in a bulk buy … after she’d knocked me down on the bundle price then she wanted a refund for the FULL value of the missing item !

In future I shall be doing a video/pictures of the package but I do wonder if it could still be disputed - i can you possibly prove that what you packaged-up is what you sent ???

@PamJo it’s miserable isn’t it? Fortunately these dodgy buyers only pop up occasionally but I find it soul destroying at the time and it really puts me off Vinted. Even with videos and photos, it doesn’t really prove anything.

I sold a high end body wash on Vinted. A beautiful frosted glass bottle, still boxed and unopened. It was a ‘compensation gift’ to me from direct from the brand but I have so much body wash anyway that I thought I might as well make a bit of extra cash and sell it.

The buyer claimed it was counterfeit! He insisted that there was a slight leak around the neck of the bottle so it must have been opened by me and filled with something else. Stupidly I had never even opened the box (why would I when it’s come straight from the brand) so didn’t have photos and couldn’t prove he was lying. Maybe it had leaked in transit but I find that hard to believe. And anyone who knows there actual product would recognise the scent and colour/consistency of the body wash and know it’s genuine. I told him to return it to me and I’ll happily refund me. But Vinted policy is that if something is counterfeit then it can’t be returned so they wanted him to keep the product AND get a refund. 😡

I continued to dispute it. I sent evidence of emails from the brand confirming what they were sending me whereas the buyer never even supplied photos of the allegedly leaking / counterfeit bottle or any evidence at all. In the end (after weeks) Vinted suddenly released the payment to me. All I can assume is that the buyer decided to give up dicking me around but who knows? I quickly blocked him to make sure he can never buy anything from me again.

The majority of buyers and sellers on Vinted seem to be decent people. Some of them are genuinely lovely. But holy hell that 5-10% of dodgy ones can really spoil it. When this happens I remind myself that overall I have a lot more positive experiences that negative ones and try not to let it get me down too much.

I have had the exact thing happen to me recently. The buyer had bought a new river island dress still with tags from me. I posted via royal mail and wrote on back of envelope dress and rm so I would not get mixed up with other parcels. Anyway, the buyer went to collect the oarcel, opened it up and claimed i sent her white shorts, she put issue with the parcel. Now, i dont own a pair of white cropped shorts plus these were a very big size and not mine. When she sent the photo i could see the dress straps.
I have contacted vinted and waiting for a reply

I've been on the other side of this - I bought something and received completely the wrong item. Neither I nor the seller had a clue how it had happened but it was presumably a labelling cock up by the courier I reported it to Vinted immediately because that's the process they tell you to follow.

Maybe I was lucky - the seller treated me like a disappointed customer, not a crook and we had a couple of amicable conversations about it. I sent photos, both to the seller and to Vinted, followed the reporting procedure and got a refund from Vinted - presumably that's what the buyer protection fee is for? I understand the buyer was also compensated although I don't know if she got the full value of the item back.

Please don't assume we're all scammers.

This is a scam but not necessarily from your Vinted buyer. This happened to me, as I said above. Vinted ended up refunding the buyer and reimbursing me. But the shoes and bags remained a mystery.

A few weeks later it happened to me again when I returned three pairs of shoes to La Redoute. They contacted me to tell me they'd received my return parcel but that I'd sent them two UniGlo tops. I most definitely had not!

I had sent the shoes by Evri from my local Coop, the same place I'd sent the Vinted order. Turns out someone was opening parcels taking what they fancied and then repacking them with anything they didn't want and sending the orders on their way.

So in your case, it could likely be that the parcel was intercepted, opened and then repacked with an item the thief didn't want.

I think they recognised mine were shoes because you can easily tell. And they probably knew what was in yours because you wrote on the envelope.

Just one theory, but it's what happened to me.

I'm sure Vinted will reimburse you but it's also so annoying because the item is now stolen. I hate the idea that thieves got my things.

Good luck!

Now I video myself packing up parcels and take photos of it packed and then again when I drop off at the post office. I don't use Evri if I can avoid it, though in your case it was Royal Mail. I bet they're all at it!

The Buyer pays the ‘buyer protection fee’ so I suppose that gives you your answer as to whose side they’re on, that’s what funds Vinted - I really don’t know what else they do with it!

When I first started selling on Vinted, I sold a large bundle at a huge discount as I hadnt realised that would kick in (I appreciate I was naive) and the buyer complained that i hadn't sent everything, that there was an item missing. Five items, all packaged up and sent were received, I assume and the buyer ended up paying about £5 for items listed for £25 in total once the full price cost of the apparent missing item was refunded..
Now I have someone who kept offering a lower price on a brand new item, being sold for almost half the full price cost already then reluctantly paid the full listing pruce , requested that it was sent via Evri despite being a very large, heavy item and has now not picked it up! I'm just waiting for it to be returned, a complete waste of time..
I feel like giving up on Vinted as their customer service is useless.