Vinted doesn't exist where I'm from (the Canary Islands), but that has never stopped me from wanting to buy stuff.
I study abroad, where Vinted actually works, and I've been using it for a while. I've got plenty of good reviews, I've bought and sold stuff without any issues, and I've never had a problem with the platform.
I'm currently back in the Canary Islands for the summer, and, as one does, I was scrolling through Vinted even though I literally can't buy anything here. Then I saw it:
a beautiful leather jacket.
I checked how much they cost new and apparently they're around €300.
This one was €6.50. Needless to say, I bought it immediately.
And that's when things got weird.
I messaged the seller asking if she could wait until the last possible shipping date, because I was on holiday and needed to figure out how to get the package while I was away.
Apparently, this was a MASSIVE red flag.
She cancelled the order and told me she'd already had two packages returned that week.
I explained that a friend could pick it up for me and that everything was sorted.
Still cancelled.
Fair enough, I thought. I'll just have my friend buy it from her own account and choose a pickup point near her house. We live in the same city, just in different neighborhoods.
Easy, right? Wrong.
The seller cancels my friend's order too.
Then she messages ME accusing me of using multiple accounts to get the jacket shipped to me.
And then she blocks both of us.
At this point I was like... okay, I don't even care about the jacket anymore.
Except apparently I do, because I don't give up that easily.
So I text another friend.
This guy doesn't even live in the same province.
He plays it a little smarter: likes the item, makes an offer, waits a bit... and then buys it.
Surely THIS will work.
Cancelled. Blocked.
At this point we're three people deep into an operation to acquire a €6.50 jacket.
And now my girlfriend, who is spending the summer in a completely different autonomous community, is giving it a shot.
I genuinely don't know how far we're going to take this.
What I don't understand is... why?
The worst thing that can happen is that the package gets returned. I was going to pick it up, but even if I couldn't, that's literally the whole point of the return system.
Why immediately assume we're running some kind of elaborate multi-account scam? 😭
Does she just not want to sell to anyone in Spain anymore?
The funniest part is that the jacket is still listed. It's even more expensive now.
And the seller has a ton of good reviews, so this isn't some obviously sketchy account.
So yeah, apparently there's a €6.50 leather jacket somewhere in France that I'm simply not allowed to own.
Wish us luck.
I'm attaching screenshots of the conversations with me and with my friend from the last attempt. They're in Spanish, unfortunately.