Julia M.

My horrible experience with Vestiaire as a seller.

I sold a necklace which had an additional safety pin installed on it. I have shown it in great detail in the photos and wrote about it in the description to make sure the buyer knows what he/she is buying. There is absolutely no doubt about it because as a long term seller I sell on multiple platforms and use the same description across all of them.

Other people reported it before but it has never happened to me that VC changes descriptions of some of the items before placing them online. I have never bothered to check mine and learned to do it this hard way.

I shipped my item and I've got all these requests from VC asking for receipts and other evidence (like servicing which was done by the original brand) which I've provided although the necklace had all the original hallmarks etc. This is where I was puzzled on what the whole fuss about and then discovered that the description of my item is severely trimmed. The sale has been cancelled due to "item does not perfectly match the description". There were like 20 super clear high res photos of the item from all the angles. And I know what I am talking about because I see the photos that other people provide.

How is this possible that I DO write about my product in great detail and then this information just disappears?
How is this possible that I provide a ton of super clear photos of the exact same product I am selling and it "does not perfectly match the description"?

I am so fed up with Vestiaire and their "expertise"!

I have a lot of experience selling on different websites, including those offering authentication services. But this one was one of my worst experiences especially handling my issue from the customer support side.
One of my items was sold and it was a concern for me since that item was vintage and very rare, so I wrote to the customer support to double check whether it is going to be taken care of properly as otherwise I'd rather cancel my sale even if it affects my rating. I was assured everything would be fine. Ok great.
My item was collected from my place, authenticated and passed to the buyer. After a week, I get a notification of return. I really don't get what sort of return policy this is. Someone basically was USING my very valuable item for a WEEK for free and then just decided to return it. This is not how things are done.
This is not all though. My return was arranged and I stayed at home the whole day waiting for it. No one came and no one contacted me about what's going on. It was Friday. Saturday I tried to call but ooops - you are closed. Atrocious. The earliest anyone came back to me was Monday and without any reasonable explanation (see attached). We did not have your unit number. Really? What do you have my handphone number for?
In fact, they had my full address all the way (see screenshot).
When I received my item back and checked, the case had a stain. I am not quite sure what the quality control guidelines ST has, but reputable concierge services attach labels to the items in such a way that the buyers can't wear them unless they make a final decision and not just bluntly use them for a week or more (14 days return policy). On my item, I only seen a tag which was not attached to anything at all.
Just never again I will sell through this platform.

Massively overpriced jewellery but I happen to own quite a few pieces. Wanted to get some information on the services in other countries where I planned to travel, so I contacted customer support. Very simple questions but this info was not available anywhere on the web. They promised to come back to me soon and no one did. I chased again with the same result. However, they don't forget to send marketing emails and of course can assist you with great pleasure if you are buying. Beyond that - not so fantastic for a company of that level.

I am both seller and buyer. From both ends: buyers are way better protected than the sellers and there is a lot of room for a scam no matter how genuine seller you are. For other buyers: if your item came as not described, you can always start a case with eBay and most likely it will be decided in your favour. So there is no need to leave negative reviews - I guess many people who did that just don't know about these features. If the case is decided in your favour, you will be fully refunded and seller forced to accept return and charged full amount.
However, it does not work the other way round. In general, sellers are way more exposed than buyers - we can't even start a case against dishonest buyer and by default the buyer is always right. I've had few issues already despite being super transparent in my descriptions, posting high res photos of actual items + packaging, sending them exactly as described and my items are not cheap (1000+). And every time I am thinking - what will the buyer complain about this time?
The good thing about eBay is very accessible customer support: you can email, call and chat. However, the outcome really depends on the competency of the person sitting at the other end and they are not always trained to help you solve cases which are even moderately complex. I'd expect better service and better protection for the fees eBay charges you off every sale.
Still they are way better than Etsy and other selling websites although there is a lot of work to be done to make it really safe trading environment.

I've had few good sales on Etsy (as a seller) until I bumped into a scammer. No matter how hard I tried getting on hold with someone senior from Etsy, I did not have any luck. If you try to phone them up, they will tell you they are not authorised to advice. If you send email to support, they will respond with generic answers. I've lost the case despite pointing out all the facts about buyer's and providing proof on my side. Ah yes, when the buyer complained first, of course I offered immediate return+refund etc. But instead it was an immediate case filed. I was forced to do immediate refund + pat for return shipment. Surprise: this was completely not what has been sent to the buyer. When I tried to contact Etsy again, with even more proof (photos+videos of what I was selling against what I've received), my account was simply banned. Nowhere I've seen such a bad attitude to the sellers and so little protection.