A mum has demanded action from Vinted after she saw a ‘rape’ video while trying to browse for clothes.
Kirsty Hopley, 44, was looking for an old-fashioned fluffy dressing down on the secondhand app, when an advert appeared between listings.
It showed a video of a man and a woman titled ‘My girlfriend is having an affair with my father’, depicting what Kirsty told Metro was an ‘awful’ scene of a rape.
Describing the video, she said: ‘The man touches the woman and she resists. He then touches her breasts then up her skirt then his head goes up the skirt, he then has her thong in his hand.
‘He is then behind her and thrusting whilst she has blood on her face. Afterwards she’s crying. Then it starts again.’
Earlier this week, France launched an investigation into claims some sellers were directing users to adult content on Vinted, using their profiles as a showcase for Only Fans. As the platform has no age limit, authorities are concerned children could have been directed to this content.
Law and criminology teacher Kirsty, from Carlisle, said it’s not only sellers linking to inappropriate content, but she saw it on Vinted’s own adverts.
The mum-of-four, including two step children, said she will no longer allow her teenage girls aged 13 and 15 to use Vinted as she can’t trust they will be safe from seeing adult content.
‘I’m really disappointed, because it’s such a good business, and then all of sudden I feel like they’ve just got greedy and they’re just putting whatever ads they want on there and it’s just not on,’ she said.
‘Responsible people can seek that sort of stuff out; they don’t want it pumped in their face when there’s children’s stuff on there – I could just as easily have been looking at clothes for my grandson.’
This was not the first time the ad had appeared, as she said she had also seen it a few days before but scrolled past it despite thinking it was ‘unusual’, especially as their internet has content filters in place.
When it appeared again, Kirsty was sitting next to one of her daughters, though she hid it from view while taking screenshots to complain.
When she reported the advert to Vinted, she first got an automated response. Then a ‘couple of days’ later, she was asked to go back and find it, and click on the link to tell them which URL it directed users to.
She responded to customers services: ‘Are you completely and utterly mad. You want me to click on the porn link and see where it takes me? You want me to do that for you. So you’re telling me to watch more porn in order to report the porn you showed me that I didn’t want to see. Absolutely sickening.
‘Also, I screen shotted and sent to you enough info for you to investigate. I haven’t hung around on exactly the same section of my feed since!’
Although there was no graphic depiction of body parts, Kirsty thinks it was clearly pornographic and inappropriate for children to view.
She said she was not satisfied with the response from Vinted, and also reported the advert to Ofcom.
It was advertising an app on Google Play store called DramaWave, which describes itself as ‘the ultimate streaming platform for drama series’, which offers ‘exclusive vertical TV videos, series, and movies’.
It is understood that the advert seen by Kirsty has now been removed from the platform.
But she said that there should be better procedures to stop it happening at all, as well as better ways for users to report explicit ads if they do appear.
A Vinted spokesperson said: ‘At Vinted, we have a zero-tolerance policy regarding unsolicited sexual communications and the promotion of sexual content.
‘This includes prohibiting sexually explicit advertisements on our platform. Where listings or ads are found to violate these rules, we will take action including blocking or removing them.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this, check our news page.
