Depop auto-applied boost AND auto-sent lowball offer without my knowledge/consent, buyer accepted, had to refund because I lost nearly $70 due to it (vent/advice requested)
I am feeling really awful and guilty right now, I would really appreciate some advice on how to navigate this situation going forward.
So I am sure some of you are aware that there is a glitch in the Depop app that auto sends offers to anyone who likes an item, regardless of whether auto offers are toggled on OR off.
However, I was NOT aware of this until it happened to me, last night. I had a designer item listed for around $175, and had never sent out an offer lower than $150 for it within the last few months it has been uploaded.
A buyer liked this item last night, and within 5 minutes purchased it. I was super excited until I checked the receipt and saw I would only be making about $109. I was super confused when I saw this, and even more confused when I saw an offer was sent without my knowledge/consent AS WELL AS THE FACT that it was boosted without my knowledge/consent. This was right before I was laying down to go to bed so tried to not panic and immediately sent an email to Depop support before I did anything.
They got back to me first thing this morning and were incredibly unhelpful, because while they DID admit that this (auto-sending offers) is commonly reported glitch right now, they also more or less gaslit me into believing that I actually DID turn all these features on when I have photographic evidence that this is not the case. They told me my only solution was to refund/cancel the order and explain the situation to the buyer, so that is what I did.
I tried to be as apologetic as I could be in my message to the buyer and even offered to relist and sell it to them at the offer price I was sending out ($150, so $25 off) once their refund processed instead of charging the full price. They have not seen or responded to my messages yet and I am so incredibly anxious and feeling like an awful person right now for disappointing or misleading them when that was never, ever my intention.
Depop is my full-time job (or I'm at least trying to make it my full-time career) so this was a huge loss for me. I know I could have just accepted the $109, taken the nearly $70 loss and just went about my day, but the fact that nearly a 50% discount (including both the offer/boost I never applied) was applied without my knowledge or consent was also so unfair to me as a seller that I wasn't even sure what else to do in this situation because I was given no other solutions by the support team.
I am so upset right now and really unsure of how to proceed. I really don't even want to sell on Depop after this because this is so unfair and I don't want to be bullied by this app into accepting such huge losses on my items in the future. The difference of $109 to $170 (approx. I would have made if it sold without offer/boost, just the base 3.3% + 0.50 cent) may not be huge to some, but it is really big to me. That is a whole week of groceries for me, lost against my own will. And now I am risking having to lose out on the entire sale because Depop is refusing to take accountability for something that is nobody’s fault but theirs. Fingers crossed that the buyer sees the messages and is understanding/decides to repurchase at the discount I *actually* sent out after all this, but I'm not counting on it.
Did I do the right thing given my situation, and is there anything can I do to if this happens again in the future? I would really appreciate any advice or support you could give.