i am sharing this Vinted story, experience because I needed to rant and I also think it will stop others getting burned shopping and selling on the popular app.

I bought an item on 16th February, 2026 on Vinted.

I of course paid the mandatory buyer protection fee.

The seller was great. I’ve shopped with her before, communicated with me about the item and shipped it immediately. No messing about.

By the 23rd February, Evri the shipper confirmed the item was lost. I was gutted. Really wanted the item but the seller was great, we both notified Vinted and based on Vinted policies and the buyer protection fee paid wrongly assumed we’d both be covered.

Vinted said I had to wait until 13th March to receive a refund. Not ideal I thought but hey if that’s the rules then so be it.

I didn’t realise as I am not on the Vinted app everyday I had anything further to do regarding this transaction so I am writing this snoop as a warning to others who may get burned in the same way on Vinted at the hands of the business, their policies and a shipper like Evri.

Apparently on 15th March I received a notification from Vinted saying the parcel had been delivered, it hadn’t but this is their process. I then had 2 days to dispute this assumption, they already knew to be untrue as we had provided details from the shipper declaring the parcel lost. I didn’t dispute the assumption as I wasn’t on the app, so the transaction went through and was completed even though Vinted knew the item was lost.

When I saw this 3 or 4 days later and took it up with Vinted their response was basically “tough”. They told me I basically had two days to dispute the delivery, I didn’t do that, so the transaction was completed even though they had documentation from Evri saying the parcel was lost, and according to Vinted the time had now conveniently passed to take this up with Evri the shipper.

Shocking I know.

Fortunately the purchase wasn’t expensive so when the kind seller offered to split the loss with me if I sent her my bank details, there was no way on the Vinted app to offer any kind of refund for this situation; I declined. It wasn’t fair for her to lose her product and the money as much as it wasn’t fair for me either.

Vinted sitting in the middle weren’t bothered about either of us.

Which is fine.

If like me you use the app, better to know the pitfalls and if you decide to buy or sell on Vinted I am sharing this experience because being in the know, what to do if the shipper loses your item, which does happen more than it should is good. Don’t expect Vinted to help you if you don’t catch the item being delivered assumption notification and contest it, even if you’re in communication with them. Makes no difference.

I have included our last communication which did make me laugh. You can’t say “we (Vinted) are sorry you are not satisfied with the proposed solution” when you didn’t propose a solution.

Come on Vinted just own what you do. It’s fine if we all know the situation and choose to still use the site. Although the mandatory “buyer protection fee” maybe needs renaming to non refundable shopping premium or plain and simple “Vinted Sales Tax” as there wasn’t any buyer protection for me in this case.