backstory: I’m a professional seller selling used clothing well within vinted guidelines.
I keep receiving alerts and having some of my items masked; it began a few weeks ago.
Vinteds reason is that my photos are either not my own, from another website, or are IP infringement. None of this is true!! I am a legitimate business operating in Europe and my product images are all my own.
Initially they just kept masking my items. Then the third time, I was given an account restriction where I couldn’t upload any new items for three days. This was lifted within an hour and they apologized saying it was a mistake.
Two days later, the same thing again. And this time they say it will take up to five days to respond to my enquiry.
I am considering my next steps… they ignore my questions about why this is happening and what I can do to prevent it from occurring again.
I am wondering if anyone here has taken legal action? I am fairly confident that this breaks European law because I am a legitimate business and this factually incorrect situation is costing my business money. I am well within the guidelines and regulations. The aggressive AI combing is making these error and t suspect this is an infringement of concurrence laws. For context I am in France.
Any help or advice or similar situation? Please share
You are not yet blocked… you are lucky this time! Their general conditions are incoherently empty.
Despite SignalConso (DGCCRF), the FEVAD (mediator), a dispute via the app, and about ten emails, nothing has improved my situation.
I don’t think going to court will change anything, regardless of the context. Vinted today is too powerful, and they will only get worse.
Their golden age is over, even if they still have high sales figures, one day a much more « ethical » competitor towards its sellers (as well as buyers) will emerge, and Vinted will be dethroned. But for that to happen, there actually need to be even more problems…
It’s such a shame.. I agree with you that a competitor will appear soon…
If you went to court though you would be able to recover lost earnings if you are a business.. there are laws to protect the right to competition & against defamation so if they are operating illegally in a way that is preventing you from earning as a business you could seek lost earnings through tribunal. This is what I am considering- yes I am not blocked BUT a ban on uploading new items means my business is restricted and unfairly because the reasons they state are factually incorrect and based entirely on error. So I think it possibly would be worth pursuing? I am going to wait for this first issue to be resolved, and then I will create a dossier that I will share with them and legal. If there are further restrictions that are also incorrectly issued I will consult my solicitor and send a mise en demeure. That is my potential plan! It may not change vinted but at least it recovers lost business revenue..
Have you checked your reports? You need to go to « Your profile » → Settings → privacy settings and « download my Vinted account data »
There is a dedicated folder for reports made by third parties. (alert_by_others_members)
In many cases, the answer to this type of restriction is here..
Yes, I already looked into that. I have only had a few reports, about 4 or 5 in the entire year! So I don’t think it’s related to that in my case…
I feel like it’s the automatic bot that is very aggressive with photos, maybe photos with ‹ a lot of white ›? And they use it as a report for screenshots or images from a stock photo bank… I don’t know… It’s also entirely possible that these are erroneous reports due to a technical issue - I am currently compliant with Vinted’s rules, so there’s no real explanation…
The restriction has currently ended, but I haven’t received a response from Vinted legal support yet. I’m waiting to see their reply, and then I’ll think about how to proceed and how to protect my business from errors like this…
Speaking of restrictions… I have a pro account and a personal Vinted account (which is allowed), and I’m subscribed to my pro account. I added a lot of items this morning, and what a surprise to see that only one listing was notified on my personal account. So I looked at the previous notifications and indeed, only 1 or 2 listings are notified when several are added.
So, very clearly, Vinted is restricting this kind of « spam »? Only one listing would be visible as added by subscribers? Who knows if it’s not the same for non-subscribers.
What is this mess.
Interesting @toinoviche .. that could just be a technical bug.. the technical definition of what you are describing is ‘shadow ban’ - basically a ban but the user isn’t notified. This is definitely not legal and I believe vinted have been through the courts for this already in Europe. You wouldn’t be able to prove it though without looking at the data over a longer period.
How many items are you uploading one ‘one go’ / around the same time?? I add around 60-90; I am quite sure they are visible because I can see good viewing numbers.
With each wave of posts, only one article appears in the notifications. This is a recurring phenomenon. I’ve just checked the other days when I posted my articles. Only one appears each time.
Strange! I don’t think they would consider 10-15 items - I think it’s more likely a technical bug. I add many more items than this in one go and I don’t think this is happening in my case.
My problem has been in the last five / six weeks, each time I upload my items, one or two is masked and I receive an automatic signal to say my image is ‘copyright infringement, appears elsewhere on the internet, from a photo bank or is a screen shot’- none of which is true!
This has happened four times, the third time I was banned for three days, which was lifted within 15 minutes and they apologized saying it was an error; and then this fourth time, where I was again banned for three days and had to serve the ban because they are taking up to five days to respond to my complaint…
@Lucile no, only on Vinted! I carefully checked all the reasons in the warning, and I am within the rules. No screenshots, I take all the photos myself, no AI, no stock photos. I sell vintage items, which are quite rare, so it’s impossible for there to be the same items in similar photos on Vinted or elsewhere on the web… it was completely false. The warning was only about my photos on a few products, and it was for one of the following reasons: copyright photos not my IP, photos elsewhere on the web, stock photos, or screenshots. However, all my images are mine, taken by myself, only on Vinted, no AI, no stock photos…
To answer your question - no, only selling on vinted. My photos appear nowhere else! Only on my listings. All photos taken by myself.. copyright owned by my business.. none of the scenarios in the signal are true; no IP infringement, no screenshots, no photos taken from elsewhere on internet..
Regarding subscriber notifications. I just tested it this morning, I posted 3 articles at 5-10 minute intervals, they were notified correctly, but as soon as I post faster, like every 1 or 2 minutes (I specify that I do this manually, not with clemz), the notifications no longer appear. So in my opinion it’s not a bug, otherwise I would see the notifications displayed later or at least partially. But it’s within a timed and quite consistent window.
The big question that might go unanswered is: “Is it possible that this also happens for organic highlights?” which could be counterproductive for someone who posts quite a bit at once thinking it will be just as effective.
When I type the article names “Marques” I only see 2 highlighted articles in recent posts. And I had 2 favorite notifications, but not for these specific ones. Out of 8 articles posted of the same brand. I’ll leave you to ponder this and do your tests.
