VC is to a great extent dependent on the behaviour of sellers who sell on the platform, but in my experience to date they do offer you protection against items which don’t match the seller’s description, or have flaws the seller didn’t mention.
I’ve bought several fairly high end bags via VC (paid up to £3000ish) all at very good discounts, very much the real thing, and in excellent condition - in fact, all unused or used just once with no sign of wear. I expect there are fakes out there but mostly you can identify something obviously fake appearing on the site (though I’m very far from being an expert, and it must be much harder when you get into higher-end and high-end vintage items where there are also pretty high quality frauds in existence). There’s a weird looking ‘
Gucci’ or ‘Givenchy’ occasionally turns up: there is a truly horrible pink ‘Gucci Broadway’ on the site for a good few months now that looks as if it came out of a Christmas cracker! I suspect it’s difficult for VC to reject everything at the listing stage for all sorts of reasons we are not privy to, but I have reasonable confidence that it wouldn’t pass quality control and you’d get your money back. If it did pass quality control, but was later identified as fake after you’ve received it, there’s lots of advice in this forum about using PayPal to help, etc. (Don’t use a debit card or a bank transfer to pay!). A lot of people here seem to find PayPal very helpful in disputes.) I suspect that the cases in which VC has outright refused to refund for a verified fake are actually proportionally pretty low in the context of overall sales. Which doesn’t make it right, but I don’t think it means the whole thing is a dead loss. From some reviews you’d think the site was completely flooded with fakes and they all pass quality control - you can never say never, but from my experience, and from the fact that people tend to post about negatives more often than positives, I suspect that this really isn’t the case the majority of the time.
This of course is just my experience and perhaps I’ve been lucky.
As a seller, I missed a slightly unravelled seam on a dress I sold (only time I missed something in masses of sales!). VC flagged it up in quality control, sent me and the buyer photos of the flaw, offered the buyer a chance to reject the dress, but she decided to take it anyway. They would also have offered her a lower price if she’d been unhappy. To keep things clear, I always check my items really carefully, photograph them thoroughly, and highlight any flaws, however tiny, in the description.
It works both ways. I have bought items which they have offered me the chance to back out of at the quality control stage - one was simply a matter of an original receipt not having been provided with a handbag I bought, and the seller hadn’t even originally offered one, so they were going above and beyond in protecting me there. I was confident when they told me the bag (a really nice
Fendi) was genuine and in very good condition, and indeed it was.
They refunded me automatically in the stated time period (30 days) when another item I’d bought failed to show. It’s difficult to see how they could do this much more quickly when they are dependent on sellers shipping on time. In this case a courier lost it. They are good about chasing sellers every week after sale if an item hasn’t been sent, and they notify the buyer that they’ve done this too. When I buy something from a second hand site and there are so many variables and the T&Cs have a time period in them, I feel it’s reasonable to accept the situation.
If a seller pulls out of a sale immediately, you as buyer get an immediate cancellation/refund, at least I did, paying via PayPal. This happened once to me with a handbag I bought (and a further note - I suspect it was a fake, and the seller backed out and withdrew the item when I started asking specific questions about it after I’d bought - which obviously I should have done before buying, but I was inexperienced - I think she realised she was getting rumbled - DO communicate with sellers, you can get a good feel for the kind of person you’re buying from).
VC lost the belt to a dress I bought and shipped it to me without it - they gave me the option for a full refund and then would have relisted the dress, sans belt, on their own behalf, no loss to me at all. A pity, but resolved.
With regard to returns, some sellers are professional, which is clearly stated, and you can get a full refund for returns within two weeks of receiving the goods (not within two weeks of placing the order, as some people seem to think, so delayed delivery should not affect this). Return shipping is then free, with a label they email to you, at least from where I am in the UK, though as with any other refunds you’ll have paid the original shipping fee (probably can claim that back too if you’re sending back because it wasn’t as described, though). I don’t much like that you can’t see what proportion of professional sellers’ sold items have passed quality control, but the right to return does protect you from disasters.
It’s true you can’t return an item you’ve bought from a non-professional seller which was compliant at quality control (unless you’re querying the quality control, like I had to with the lost belt, when I was offered a satisfactory resolution by customer service) but you can relist and they only charge a small transaction fee, not the same high commission they charged the seller again. Of course it might not sell, or for the same price. It’s a risk, and depends how much you think you want the item, really, and an occupational hazard of buying pre-owned goods. I don’t have much experience on EBAY so I don’t know how that would compare.
