'Banned over a pair of £2 sandals': Why some sellers are complaining about Vinted

Single mum Emma Neil was a huge fan of Vinted, using it most days to sell old things and buy clothes for her children.

That was until she bought a pair of sandals for £3, found they didn't fit so relisted them for £2 then was permanently banned. Vinted said there had been "fraudulent activity, such as selling counterfeit items".

"I did feel like a criminal," says Neil - one of several thousands complaining of being wrongly suspended or permanently banned, spending days trapped in a system of what they believe are AI generated responses.

Vinted's preloved buying and selling community has grown rapidly with 17 million UK users - it says the "overwhelming majority" have a positive experience.

However, Neil is one of more than 4,000 Vinted users who have logged their experiences on sadvintedfaces.com, a website set up by freelance marketeer Catherine Warrilow, who became so frustrated with the platform she decided to find out if others were having problems too.

"It was the number of hours I was spending sending irate messages back to Vinted and getting what felt like automated responses, copy and paste... I was going round in circles, and I was the one losing out," she says.

Warrilow logged 2,609 users being banned or suspended, 1,618 with a permanent ban and 2,526 who said they were ignored by Vinted customer service.

"I think the automation they're using isn't working properly," says Warrilow.

"It's detecting fraud if you change the price of something. It's detecting a counterfeit item for a second hand pair of Zara jeans."

Matthew Connor is one of the biggest professional sellers on Vinted and relies on it for his livelihood with some ten thousand top reviews. He also thinks the system isn't working the way it used to.

"I noticed at the start of this year, there were a lot of fake items on there. I think they panicked, rightly so...and they've reacted with AI."

But last month, he found himself permanently banned because of "fraudulent activity, such as selling counterfeit items" after listing a used North Face fleece.

"I wouldn't jeopardise my business by selling a fake. This is my livelihood," he said.

"Essentially someone's walked into my business and sacked me, removed my business from the internet with no prior warning."

Two weeks later, Connor had his ban lifted after he appealed. Vinted said it was a mistake. He's relieved but has also lost thousands of pounds of potential sales.

Neil's appeal to have her ban overturned failed.

"I don't understand how they could say that to me...it's just unbelievable," she said. "They weren't specifically branded. I think they're like a Shoe Zone make."

"I'm absolutely devastated because I love Vinted and I used it for so long and for so many different things...but now obviously that's all ended."

Vinted said it doesn't comment on individual cases. In a statement it said its teams worked hard every day to maintain a safe and trusted marketplace using a combination of trained moderation teams, member reports and detection tools to identify potential breaches of its catalogue rules.

"Where members believe a decision has been made in error, they can appeal and each case will be reviewed individually by our Member Support Team," a Vinted spokesperson said.

Has Vinted lost the human touch?

An online business the size of Vinted with millions of transactions needs automation and communicates electronically with its users. But as it grows, has it lost the human touch?

Consumer expert Helen Dewdney, who runs the Complaining Cow website, has recently seen a sharp increase in complaints and requests for advice about Vinted.

"It does boil down to customer service," she believes.

"We know that AI makes a lot of mistakes...it's too difficult to get to a human being... we know that people prefer people...you just ask anybody that they're sick of all the bots."

Dewdney says anyone who believes they've been unfairly banned or suspended should first go through Vinted's own appeal process. She also suggests contacting Vinted's legal team and making a subject access request, or SAR, which can give users access to information about how a decision affecting their account was made.

Vinted stresses that assessments of appeals are always carried out by its human review team.

The Lithuanian based firm has built a business worth billions on a simple idea which has changed the way millions of us buy and sell second hand clothes. It's now in 26 countries and expanded into new services, like Vinted Pro for professional sellers and more categories including electronics and toys.