Mali Osmelak never expected that selling clothes on Vinted would end in a court claim to recover almost £6,000, the BBC reported. She started trading on the platform to earn money while managing Crohn's disease and caring for her four-year-old daughter. When she became a professional seller in March, she could not complete Vinted's verification process, leaving thousands of pounds stuck in her Vinted wallet.
Vinted is widely used in the United Kingdom, with 17 million users, and does not charge sellers a listing fee. After the BBC reported on users whose accounts had been suspended or banned, dozens of people got in touch about money they could not take out of their wallets. Vinted said sellers may be asked to complete verification checks to meet legal and regulatory requirements, and that 98 percent of transactions are completed smoothly without help from support.
Osmelak joined in 2024 as a side hustle. Demand for second-hand gymwear grew, and she set up a limited company. This year she signed up for a Vinted Pro seller account, meant for high-volume, registered-business sellers. Within weeks she had generated almost £6,000 in sales. When she tried to withdraw the money, the account was restricted and she was told to complete verification. She said she spotted an error Vinted had made with her name and flagged it, but "the verification kept failing." She was stuck in automated replies. She also contacted Mangopay, which at the time operated Vinted sellers' wallets, and was sent back to Vinted. After eight weeks without the money, she took both companies to the small claims court, spending £455 in fees.
Three days after the claim was filed, she said, the account was unlocked and she could withdraw the funds. The BBC also described other sellers in similar binds, including one man, Azri Mukthar, who said a Companies House certificate Vinted requested had been declined 15 times and that he planned legal action. Vinted said his check could not be completed because he did not provide all the required documents, and that support was in touch to help. Osmelak's case shows how a verification loop can freeze a livelihood, and that, in her telling, a court claim was what finally moved the money.
Vinted's 98 percent figure is the company's own, and it does not erase the sellers who say they were trapped by a verification loop and auto-replies. Osmelak had an accountant, a limited company, and, in her account, a name error she flagged that was not fixed. The £455 court fee was money she paid to try to unlock money she had already earned. That the wallet opened three days after the claim was filed is her timeline, reported by the BBC; Vinted's general statement did not address her case in the same detail it used for Mukthar. For professional sellers, the wallet is a wage packet, not a convenience feature.