I took Vinted to court to get my money back

Vinted sellers say they are being forced to fight for money that the online marketplace holds, with the BBC hearing from customers who describe difficulties accessing cash locked in their online wallets. Some say they have taken the remarketing platform to court in a bid to recover funds they believe are rightfully theirs. The investigation highlights growing frustration among buyers and sellers who feel the platform’s payment rules are leaving them stranded, in a market where the line between an unpaid balance and a frozen wallet can be hard to read. Many describe spending hours on the phone or typing into help pages, only to be told to wait or to complete more checks.

What the investigation found

The BBC spoke to several sellers who say they have had money tied up in their Vinted wallets and that attempts to retrieve it have met with little response. In some cases, those customers say they resorted to the courts to recover funds that, they argue, belong to them once a sale is settled. Sellers describe a process in which the platform asks them to complete checks or appeals, while the cash stays outside their reach. Each case is at a different stage, and the BBC’s report does not say how the disputes were resolved. Some sellers say they were asked to appeal, only to find themselves back at the start of the process with no clear deadline for their money to be released. The report named no individual seller and gave no figures for the amounts held, leaving the scale of the problem unclear.

Why it matters

E-commerce platforms increasingly hold customer funds, and the rules around releasing that money are a rising concern for both buyers and sellers across the UK retail sector. For sellers who rely on Vinted as their main channel of trade, a frozen wallet can mean a cash-flow problem with knock-on effects for stock, staff and small businesses. For buyers, the trust that an online marketplace will release funds promptly is part of the deal. The disputes also raise wider questions about how platforms handle floating balances and what should happen when customers and sellers cannot agree on who owes whom. Regulators watching the online retail sector are likely to take an interest in how such balances are managed.

What happens next

Cases already before the courts will test how far Vinted must go to release money held in seller wallets, and the outcome of each dispute will be watched closely by the online retail community. Sellers who believe a dispute has been handled wrongly are preparing to argue their case, while those who have not reached court say they will keep trying through the platform’s own routes first. The sellers involved are urging regulators to look at how online retail platforms hold customer money, and to say more clearly how long funds may be held before they are released. The outcome for each seller will depend on the evidence they can present and on how the courts choose to interpret the agreement between buyer, seller and platform. For now, the disputes remain unresolved.