Vinted is now used by more than 60 million people in the UK to buy and sell second-hand goods. But there are risks that come with the hugely popular app. In Channel 4’s ‘Vinted’s Dirty Laundry: Dispatches’, which aired on Friday 18 October, journalist Ellie Flynn digs into its darker side. Here, she shares what she discovered during the investigation.
“I love Vinted. I use it all the time. I’ve got a two-year-old and I buy almost all of his clothes on the app. I often declutter my wardrobe and sell things on Vinted, too. I’m trying to be more environmentally conscious, and everyone loves a bargain, especially when you have kids.
I think the app is a good thing, but it has blown up so quickly, and it’s the first secondhand clothing app to turn a profit. With it being used on the scale that it is and without proper regulations, that causes some serious concerns. Working on this investigation, we discovered some quite shocking things.
One of the worst was a website called Vinted Sluts where women’s photos were being taken from Vinted and posted there. They were the kind of pictures that anyone would post on Vinted, with women wearing the clothes they were selling – sometimes they were existing pictures of them wearing the outfit or they were taken in the mirror. They were posted on this website in a sexualised way with captions like: “Would you ask her to wear it first?” And pointing out people’s breasts and intimate areas, sexualising something that was totally innocent, and using those photos in a completely unexpected way.
We got in touch with all the women from the UK featured on the website to let them know we had found their images and share our information. We spoke on camera to one of them. She was shocked and upset. It felt like an invasion of her privacy. When you’re selling clothes you don’t wear for a few quid, you don’t expect the photos to be used in that way.
People could submit photos that they’d seen on Vinted. We tested it out by sending in some photos of me. I’d cropped my face out of them, but it made me feel gross, even though we were running it as a test. You see photos of your body appear on this kind of website and think: “What might they be used for? Who might be looking at these and why?”. It was really troubling.
Along with the photos, the website shared information lifted from people’s Vinted profiles, as well as in some cases their Instagram or TikTok accounts (Vinted does not display users’ social media profiles). It felt like it was encouraging people to reach out to these women. We didn’t find out who was behind it but we alerted Vinted and they got the website taken down.
Another issue we raised in the programme is Vinted’s customer service. It’s really difficult to get through to an actual person. People’s complaints are lost in the ether of the automated messaging system. The woman who we spoke to in the film complained to Vinted and flagged that her photos were being used in this way. When we caught up with her 11 days later, she hadn’t heard back at all. There’s clearly an issue with customers who need to raise problems with Vinted, but they can’t get hold of an actual person, so these issues go unresolved.
We also spoke to a man called Amir who was being threatened and harassed by a seller on Vinted. Amir bought a rucksack on the app and after he bought it, but before the backpack had arrived, Vinted messaged him saying that they had closed the seller’s account down due to suspicious activity, and were issuing a refund.
Despite this seller’s account being suspended, he still had access to the Vinted messaging system. He messaged Amir and tried to get him to pay directly, outside of the Vinted app. Amir said that he wasn’t comfortable doing that but could send him the bag back once it arrived.
The seller became aggressive, started threatening him and said that he was going to come around to his house with a gun. Amir has a wife and two young children, so he was really anxious. He reported it to Vinted, who told him to speak to the police, who didn’t do anything. It was a really difficult time for him.
When the bag arrived, it was clear the bag was a fake, so he would have been eligible for a refund anyway, based on Vinted’s policies. In the end, the seller stopped messaging Amir and he was grateful that it didn’t actually escalate any further. But that person should never have had access to the private message function after his account had been suspended. Vinted should have stepped in to do something more quickly.
Now, Amir uses the app less frequently and if he does order something, he doesn’t get it sent to his home address. The fact is, you’re giving out your home address to people who you don’t know. Often people don’t know how to make sure that a seller is legitimate – not everyone knows to look at reviews or the number of stars that a seller has. You think about it as if you’re buying something from any other website.
We also found more than 100 items available on Vinted that are on the government’s recall list. These are products that have been recalled because they’re unsafe in some way. We found a variety of different things – electrical goods, strollers and items for babies to sleep in. These things come with a serious risk of harm, or in worst case, death. There were items that had a risk of electric shock and a serious risk of fire, and yet we were able to buy a number of them.
The most shocking was self-feeding baby pillows. We spoke to the Child Accident Prevention Trust about these and they were really concerned. These are pillows that you can attach to your baby, you can put a bottle in it, and it allows a baby to feed itself. But the concern is that babies don’t have the ability to push a bottle away if they’re choking, so these products should not be on sale anywhere. They’re really dangerous. You wouldn’t be able to buy them in any store on the high street or online retailer, so they definitely shouldn’t be available to sell on Vinted.
I don’t think it’s realistic to expect people to go through their old things and look at the government’s recall list to make sure those products are still safe. But on Vinted, the responsibility currently lies with the seller, and the contract is between the seller and the buyer. The company says it does have the technology to screen for some items, but now that Vinted is being used by so many people, it’s important that the app is able to keep on top of any items that may have been recalled, to ensure that they’re taken down and not listed.
Now that Vinted has been made aware of these issues, it needs to act quickly to try and make it a safe platform for everyone. I hope that as it grows it will put consumer protections and customer safety first and make sure that these issues don’t happen again.”
Vinted told i about the allegations: “We don’t want our members to have these experiences and we are taking the allegations seriously.
“We always place our community first and put safety at the heart of everything we do. This is how we are able to deliver on our mission to make second-hand the easiest, most accessible and affordable choice for everyone. It is also why we act as swiftly as we can against anything or anyone that violates our Terms and Conditions.
“We immediately reported the website mentioned in the documentary, which led to its shutdown. We encourage members to report any listing or situation that would violate our rules, so we can take action. Users found to be violating our Terms and Conditions face various actions, including a potential permanent ban.
“We are also constantly working on additional measures to bring even more protection to our members and their transactions, so we can keep Vinted a safe, secure and friendly platform for everyone.”
