Holly HY / 18 August 2025 / Categories: Product and Brands, High Street Brands, Corporate Brands, Opinions, Internet

The Reason I Pay For Everything On Barclaycard

Online fraud is on the rise and the shopping sites we love may not love us back when things go wrong

Up until recently I had only positive things to say about the secondhand shopping site Vinted. I used to use EBay a lot to source all kinds of things secondhand but over the past 12-18 months I have slowly swapped over and over the last 3 months I’ve found myself brand loyal to Vinted. I absolutely loved browsing my curated feed. Vinted got to know what I liked and would always show me things I loved from brands I’d never heard of so I was getting an education too. It was great. I even sold a few things quickly and easily on there through our @rescueluxury account.

All I can say today is thank goodness I have paid for everything with Barclaycard because when something goes wrong and it went badly wrong for me there is absolutely no recourse from Vinted. It’s that one way revolving door once again with no customer service and automated responses to anything you say.

When you find yourself in a dispute with a seller unlike EBay, Vinted don’t get involved and when the seller won’t respond or acknowledge your beef with them you are left with no option but to suck it up.

I had no idea loads of people have encountered the same problems as me until after the fact. There’s a whole community of people I discovered on Reddit ranting about the terrible closed door policy of Vinted should something go wrong. To be fair I have had a great experience on there until now so knowledge is power and although I am not going anywhere near the app at the moment, I am sure in time I may go back with a much more cautious, less gung ho approach. I certainly won’t be promoting Vinted like a fiend as I have done in the past. And don’t think buying from someone with great history and excellent reviews will protect you. I got stung by one such seller @tpinfold on Vinted and I don’t believe my experience will have any impact on them continuing to trade on the platform.

The only email I could find for Vinted was legal@vinted.co.uk and I am yet to get a reply.

My only saving grace is I paid with my trusty Barclaycard who do have a process for customers who have been mis sold, ripped off or both. You can report any transaction to Barclaycard you have an issue with and they will then freeze that transaction, charging absolutely no interest until your claim is investigated. If they find you have been conned, or mis sold you are reimbursed by Barclaycard.

This is only the second time I have needed to make an online claim with Barclaycard in 20 years being a customer but with digital fraud on the rise and shopping sites offering little or no recourse to customers should things go wrong I now use my Barclaycard to pay for everything.

You don’t get the same protection using your debit card when you shop online.

In the past Barclays Bank who have been operating Barclaycard credit card services since 1966 have received some terrible press and there has been quite a few scandals around dubious activities over the years, the Barclays Libor rate scandal back in 2012 springs immediately to mind. Allegations that stretched back as far as 2005. They were fined a staggering $200 million by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, $160 million by the United States Department of Justice and £59.5 million by the Financial Services Authority and it cost the then CEO Bob Diamond his job as well as engulfing quite a few of his global banking peers.

That said Barclaycard continues to serve me well as a customer, better than anyone else in fact when it comes to dealing with companies we shop with who might close the door and just not listen when things go wrong.