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Click, clic … boom! How secondhand clothes shopping turned very sour

Apps like Depop and Vinted are hugely popular, but an online culture of scams, rage and suspicion is now the default between buyers and sellers, with communications quickly descending into hurling abuse at a stranger

Brad J Bushman, professor of communication at Ohio State University, tells me it doesn’t surprise him that people speak to each other in passive aggressive ways on there, versus say, social media where profiles are more built-up and personal. As Asos’s business plummets, the high street closes and the cost-of-living crisis endures, haggling and arguing with strangers has become a part of our lives now, and possibly a small price to pay for a thriving secondhand marketplace. “The amount of times I’ve ordered something drunk, then cancelled it the next day and got into it with the person being like, ‘Sorry my kid bought that on my account.’ I just love to fib,” she says, adding that she doesn’t even think it’s real anger we feel towards these people, more a disrespect born from barter culture colliding with a British predilection for banter.

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