Vinted and now minted too – a seller of second-hand clothes and accessories who uses the popular platform is better off than she could ever have hoped a few weeks ago.

One of the millions running what’s known as a side hustle and enjoying the catharsis of decluttering, Denise Potter is part of the UK’s burgeoning pre-loved market. Worth some £4.3 billion, it’s got the wind in its sails as we accumulate more things, seek more space and prefer finding good homes for our surplus stuff rather than dumping it in landfill.

With technology making the process easier Denise had become a big fan of online marketplace Vinted whose headquarters is in Lithuania.

“It’s easy to use, there’s new opportunities with more categories and both sellers and buyers are protected,” she told Crusader.

“What I do isn’t a treasure trove, but even with small sales -from £3 to £10 and a few every month, it does ok for me.”

But late last year the £189 payment she was expecting for a pack of clothes didn’t come through.

++ If you’ve been affected by this issue or feel you’ve been a victim of injustice, please contact consumer champion Maisha Frost on maisha.frost@express.co.uk ++;

While she had completed the sale in good faith, supplying further information when requested had made no difference.

 “A letter from my bank, a copy of my bank statement showing no payment had been made, I sent at least 20 emails to them, all several times and have met every obligation. Now I’m exhausted and have no clear date when I’ll be paid,” she explained.

Given Denise’s problems we didn’t expect a quick answer when we raised her problems with Vinted, but how wrong we were. Just a couple of hours later a spokesperson replied: “I am pleased to confirm the issue is resolved and the member has been fully compensated.

“The delay was caused by a technical issue with our payment provider tracing the original funds. However, given the clear evidence that the member had not received her pay out, we have stepped in to compensate her directly to ensure she is not kept waiting any longer.”

Denise was undoubtedly down a digital rabbit hole – arguably the worst for consumers to navigate – and her struggle could have lasted much longer so this latest action by Vinted has certainly saved her further time which for some can be as precious as money.

“I am so relieved and thank all of you who made it happen,” she told Crusader and also shared this piece of advice for other sellers: “I used to like knowing I had a reserve of funds in my account, but this has made me think differently. I will continue to use Vinted but I won’t let the money build up in future.” [names have been changed]