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I have been running an online T-shirt business since the summer. I use platforms such as Etsy, Depop and Vinted to sell them. In January I was invited by Vinted to register for “pro” status because of my growing volume of sales. I agreed, but it’s been a disaster.
Since I started this process I have submitted my passport and driving licence as well as the required corporate documents multiple times. Each time they were rejected with generic and vague emails asking me to resubmit the same documents. In the end I contacted my accountants, who produced a set of documents that they believed would satisfy Vinted. These have now been rejected (after requesting that I once again upload my passport) with a generic, vague email saying that I need to submit certain documents — the exact ones that my accountant had already provided.
As a result I cannot access my account balance, which has built up to £32,000. This is putting my business under extreme financial stress because I need the money to cover bills. The lack of effective communication and action is unacceptable and I’m feeling so defeated. Please help.
NM, Shrewsbury
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Holly Thomas writes
Your online business had taken off and Vinted invited you to become a “pro” seller, a term applied to those with high sales, sole traders and limited liability businesses.
Verification and anti-money laundering checks are done as part of the registration process and without them you cannot carry on selling or make cash withdrawals.
You didn’t realise that access to your money would be blocked while the checks were carried out and this was a big problem because you had built up a big Vinted balance to keep money from your business separate from your personal bank account. Some of the money was earmarked for a number of big outlays early in the year including to buy supplies.
The frustration of trying to make it through verification was huge, with you and your accountants simply coming up against the “document provided does not meet the verification requirements” message.
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After each reply you sent you had an automatic reply to say that someone would come back to you in 24 to 48 hours. There is no customer service number to call at Vinted and the verification process is handled by the tech firm Mangopay.
Luckily I was able to work out with Mangopay exactly what the problem was — you needed to submit an “ultimate beneficial owner” document, which hadn’t been requested. It’s a formal declaration listing the directors of a limited business, which in your case includes your daughter.
It’s incredibly frustrating when businesses won’t pick up the phone and speak to customers who need support. Waiting for replies on email or in-app messaging systems for days is just no good when something is urgent, and I suspect your problem could have been solved far quicker if you had managed to speak with a human.
It took a week of back and forth with Vinted and Mangopay, but we got there in the end and you have now completed the verification process, and transferred your £32,000 to your bank account.
You said: “I was so relieved to have been able to withdraw the money I could have cried. This has been an enormous worry for me. I’ve put my heart and soul into this business — it’s been a lifelong dream and I felt like giving up when I thought I wouldn’t be able to get the funds in time to keep everything going. Thank you so much. I will be making regular withdrawals from now on.”
Mangopay said: “As soon as the correct documentation was received in our system, we validated it immediately, allowing the user to withdraw their funds.”
This perhaps serves as a cautionary tale not to let a large balance build up in a Vinted account, just in case things go wrong and you can’t get at your money in a hurry. As an aside, that money could also be earning interest in an easy-access savings account until it is needed to pay bills. You could earn £120 a month on £32,000 with the top easy-access rate of 4.5 per cent.
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I chose the wrong returns method. Now Boots won’t refund me
I do hope you can help me with what has become something of a saga involving Boots and Royal Mail. In early December I bought a £52 Fitbit watch as a Christmas present for my husband from the Boots website.
As it turned out he didn’t want the gift so on January 2 I packaged it up and returned it via Royal Mail, using the personal collection service where the package is collected from your home and the postman prints you a postage label.
At this stage I should say that I hadn’t read the Boots small print, which if I had, would have told me that this return method was not permitted, and that I should have taken the package directly to the post office. Since then I have had numerous phone and email conversations with Boots and Royal Mail, with Boots saying that as long as I could supply proof of purchase, proof of posting and proof of collection by Royal Mail, then things would be OK.
Having forwarded the documents, sent several emails and made a few phone calls I have not had a definitive response from Boots. I used Royal Mail’s tracking service so I have proof that the package was delivered to the Boots warehouse on January 6.
Joan, Wigan
Holly Thomas writes
You bought a Fitbit Inspire 3 watch for your husband after he mentioned that he might like to start counting his steps on his regular walks, but he found the strap too slender for his wrist.
Boots offers free returns for online orders within 35 days. Customers can either return unwanted items to a shop or via Royal Mail by dropping them off at a post office with a prepaid label. On the first working day of the year, January 2, the watch was nearing the end of its returns window.
Poor weather put you off trudging to the post office or Boots shop, and you opted for the convenient collection service offered by Royal Mail. As you were the first to admit, you hadn’t read the detail about the returns policy, but you did have proof that the watch had been returned.
After a little nudge from me, your refund was processed in 48 hours and the money is now back in your account.
Boots said: “As stated on our website, we do not use the Royal Mail collection service for returns and ask that our customers do not use this method as a way to return items to us. However, we appreciate the inconvenience experienced by the customer on this occasion and have provided a full refund.”
For those unable to get to a drop-off point, Boots offers a DPD collect service, which can be arranged by calling the Boots customer service team.
The consumer campaigner Martyn James said: “Retailers often specify return methods because there are so many disputes about items that go missing in transit or are damaged by couriers.
“If something does happen to a parcel when you return it by an alternative method — either it doesn’t turn up or the item is damaged — you aren’t breaching either the Consumer Rights Act or the Consumer Contract Regulations. But who the burden of proof falls on in this circumstance is a grey area — the retailer could argue that an item was lost or damaged by you or the courier and ask you to prove otherwise.”
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