How Vinted became the most lawless place on the internet

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Everyone who’s used the app will have at least one bizarre tale, like the buyer who received second-hand jewellery inside a Fruit Shoot bottle, or another whose parcel was delayed as the seller was too “distraught” over Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury’s breakup to mail it on time. open image in gallery ‘The fact that these transactions take place online, and without any face-to-face interaction, means there isn’t much to discourage people from behaving poorly, or making up a lie to excuse their bad service’ The exchanges shared on the Instagram account have included outlandish excuses for not posting parcels on time, from someone’s boyfriend getting his “finger stuck in a can of lemonade” to a woman “getting trapped in a PureGym security pod for more than five hours”. In another conversation posted on the account, a prospective buyer is seen politely enquiring about the measurements for a skirt, to which the seller responds: “Can’t – booking Magaluf.” For buyers and sellers, this sometimes funny and sometimes deeply uncomfortable overfamiliarity is baked into the Vinted operation. open image in gallery In the UK, consumers spent £2.4bn on second-hand clothes and shoes last year, with around half of them buying something pre-worn Commercially, Vinted is a success, but the paradox of user-to-user digital marketplaces is that users are trusted to be reasonable people who won’t take advantage of one another.