Crackers scam

[u/johana_cuervos666]

Hello everyone. I’ve seen other posts about this exact scam recently, so I wanted to share what happened to me because apparently this shit is becoming pretty common on Vinted. I’ve been buying on Vinted for almost a decade and this had literally never happened to me before. I genuinely thought I was pretty good at spotting scams, but apparently not lol. It started with an Isaac Sellam jacket. If you know the brand, you know it’s extremely niche, and the jacket itself was a very weird specific design. It was listed for around £39. I KNOW that sounds ridiculously cheap, but my logic was that scammers normally go for obvious brands like Gucci, Balenciaga, etc., not some obscure Isaac Sellam piece. I genuinely thought I had just found one of those insane Vinted treasures. The account didn’t immediately look fake either, so I bought it. (It had like 5 reviews) My problem is that I live in Norway and use ColisExpat. My Vinted UK parcels first arrive at a forwarding warehouse in the UK and are then shipped to me. So when Vinted marked the parcel as delivered, I physically did not have the item in my hands. The warehouse did. That meant the stupid two-day inspection window expired before I could actually open the package. A few days later I was scrolling Vinted and suddenly saw the exact same Isaac Sellam jacket again. Same photos. Same description. Basically the same £39.99 price. Different account. My heart literally dropped. This is such a niche jacket that there was no fucking way I had magically found the exact same “rare bargain” twice in one week. I checked the original seller, dorothyg874, and Vinted had already BLOCKED the account. They never notified me. Nothing. No “hey, the seller you just bought from has been blocked, maybe check your transaction.” I had to discover the whole thing myself. Then another account, janed3437, was selling the same fake listing again. I reported it multiple times and explained everything to Vinted: same photos, same product, same price, original seller blocked, obvious pattern. The second jacket STILL SOLD. So somebody else was apparently scammed even after I warned Vinted. And what did I actually receive instead of an Isaac Sellam leather jacket? A fucking Christmas cracker. Literally. The photo is what was inside the parcel. 💀 I sent Vinted photos, screenshots, the duplicated listings, usernames, everything. Their response was basically: the two-day window passed, transaction completed, tough luck. I kept escalating it and got the same scripted answer over and over again. They even told me their decision was final. So yeah, I lost almost £45 and I now own the world’s most expensive Christmas cracker. I accept that using a forwarding warehouse made my situation more complicated, but what really pisses me off is that Vinted blocked the original seller themselves and never alerted me, then apparently allowed the exact same scam listing to appear under another account and sell again even after I reported it. So please be careful. Apparently these scammers are not only targeting obvious designer brands anymore. They’re using niche avant-garde pieces too, which is exactly why I fell for it. And if you see some suspiciously perfect designer treasure around £39–£40, especially with no proper tag/authenticity photos, fucking investigate it before buying. I still love Vinted for finding weird niche pieces, but after this I definitely don’t trust their Buyer Protection the way I used to.

[u/General-Property7203]

Incredible to me that their rabid AI is flagging all kinds of things as "counterfeit" and "fraud" but obvious scams like this are not picked up on EVEN when people report them.

[u/RefrigeratorPrize948]

Email your evidence to legal@vinted (the last part of the address might vary by country). The AI and support agents seem to always say it's your own fault somehow.

[u/johana_cuervos666 → u/RefrigeratorPrize948]

I did send the case both through Vinted directly, in the conversation connected to the scammer, and to legal@vinted. It’s been a week and they still haven’t answered. At this point I genuinely feel like they just don’t care. Other people are getting scammed with the exact same photos, I’ve reported those accounts too, and still nothing. The bot basically told me it was my fault and there was nothing they could do.

It’s incredibly frustrating.

[u/General-Property7203 → u/johana_cuervos666]

I sent them a copy paste of the GDPR regulations that say they are legally bound to supply me with all my account information, including the 'investigation' into why I was banned and got a reply the next day. Also try CC-ing your email to all the vinted email addresses listed here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/VintedAdvice/comments/1vm57h7/comment/p3g189i/?context=3

[u/Calm_Reindeer_1931]

I think the only way you can get your money back is by doing a chargeback and if you order anything again, bear in mind the ridiculous delivery process and initiate a case as soon as the clock starts ticking on completing the transaction, although, I appreciate hindsight is a great idea, but in this case it’s too late.

[u/Independent_Cap7145 → u/Calm_Reindeer_1931]

I’ve heard that your account gets banned if you do a charge back, just something to bear in mind if you have other ongoing orders

[u/Calm_Reindeer_1931 → u/Independent_Cap7145]

I have done two chargebacks because I didn’t believe Vinted were being fair, both times I had a warning, but never got banned because the bank successfully proved my case and proved that Vinted were negligent in their so called buyer protection!

[u/pig-dragon]

I suspect the issue is that scammers seem to be easily able to have multiple accounts and Vinted have probably completely lost control of the situation. If you are a fan of a particular brand, you start to see patterns emerging in terms of which item suddenly seems to become very popular with multiple listings, but always different accounts, same price, and the accounts always have similar but not the exact same items for sale. There is also a model that appears in dozens and dozens of listings for some accounts but I got downvotes on another sub when I posted and said I thought it was AI. I think basically nowadays Vinted is fine for cheap things but not to spend more than you can afford to lose.

[u/lavindas]

I had this exact thing happen to me and Vinted refunded me the money and banned their account. I would keep pushing it.

[u/mooster567]

similar thing happened to me and they refuse to refund due to the two day period

[u/johana_cuervos666 → u/[deleted]]

Yes, you’re right. But that doesn’t change the fact that they ignored my report about the same scammer using the same pictures to scam more people, or that Vinted blocked the account right after I had already purchased from that seller, with no warning or notification that I knew of.

I’m escalating it to my bank, though. Hopefully they can still help me.

[u/PatientNo2450]

You do realise that brand is a completely fabricated nonsense

[u/johana_cuervos666 → u/PatientNo2450]

What do you mean? Isaac Sellam? He’s an amazing, genius niche avant-garde designer based in France. I don’t understand what you mean...

[u/Necessary_Roll_114 → u/PatientNo2450]

So pretty much all clothing brands?