How Vinted became the most lawless place on the internet

Welcome to the Wild West of Vinted: A Second-Hand Shopping Free-for-All

When a mysterious package arrived, swaddled in a Pampers wrapper, Sophie couldn’t help but wonder if someone was having a laugh, or if she’d somehow rubbed a frenemy the wrong way. Turns out, it was just the second-hand T-shirt she’d bought from Vinted, but wrapped so confoundingly it could’ve warranted a peculiar art installation.

Think of Vinted as the mobile, modernized lovechild of eBay and a car boot sale, where you can haggle with strangers over pre-loved threads and accessories. Sounds peachy, right? But dive in just below the surface, and it’s quickly clear that navigating this wild west of second-hand shopping is no walk in the park.

I became a Vinted veteran in 2022, lured in by the promise of not having to share my spoils with the mothership. (Though now, with the looming ‘side hustle tax’ from HMRC just days away, I’m dreading my new ahem hobby officially becoming a ‘job’.) Since joining, I’ve pocketed over a grand selling my pre-loved clothes, and generally had a corker of a time. Until recently, that is. The etiquette bus seems to have driven right past Vinted.

I’ve been on the receiving end of passive-aggressive ALL CAPS broadsides from buyers ireful over delayed deliveries, even though I’m innocent by proxy. I’ve weathered tales of threadbare items arriving riddled with holes, and been bombarded with demandso text speak ("?????"), all because someone didn’t like my response time.

Sophie, for her part, has had only fleeting glimpses into Vinted’s madness. But those encounters have stuck with her. "People can be quite bossy and expect instant service," she says. "They seem to forget there’s another human on the other end, not some automated machine."

But some stories are stranger than fiction. Rhiannon Picton-James ordered a second-hand Osprey cardholder for £20. What arrived was a broken Gucci watch. When she requested a refund, let’s just say the seller’s communication style didn’t exactly mirror exemplary customer service.

Vinted’s rise is undeniable. In 2020 and 2021, the fledgling Lithuanian company operated at a loss. But by 2023, profits soared to €17.8m, with revenues rocketing 61%. The second-hand fashion market’s booming, and everyone wants a slice of the tens of billions in global sales. Even high- fashion designers are now sourcing their pieces from Vinted – case in point, the vintage Donald Duck T-shirt snapped up by a Coperni designer for just €8, only to strut down the Paris Fashion Week runway a few hours later.

But with no face-to-face interaction, the anonymity of online transactions can also breed free-for-all behavior. Newsflash: you can’t send someone a nappy-wrapped parcel and then insinuate it’s a prank if it arrives covered in suspicious stains.

Vinted’s doing its best to keep the chaos at bay. They’ve set out packaging protocols and banned inappropriate behavior. But there’s only so much a company can do when the responsibility lies with its users to be decent humans.

So, the next time you’re tempted to send a package wrapped in a, well, anything other than sturdy cardboard, just remember: there’s a person on the other end. And they might not take kindly to your unorthodox delivery method. But hey, they might just find it hilarious, too. Who’s to say? That’s the unpredictable beauty of Vinted, isn’t it?