Wish locks out accounts for excessive refunds

Online marketplace Wish appears to increasingly lock out user accounts in Germany after users returned items too many times. This also means customers lose access to the customer service and can no longer exercise their buyer rights.

Wish is a popular shopping app that sells low-priced products from hundreds of thousands different merchants. The online marketplace isn’t free from criticism: in May last year, a Danish consumer counsil said that Wish.com’s products violate EU laws.

‘Customers don’t get any warning’

And now there are complaints coming from Germany. The market watchdogs of the Brandenburg consumer association issued a press release in which they warn for the lockout of accounts at Wish. “The online marketplace accuses a part of its customers to abuse the ‘generous refund and return policy’. Those affected lose access to the customer service without any warning and thus the possibility of revoking or complaining about open orders.”

‘Returns make sense, because of inferior quality and incorrect information’
Wish is said to have sent multiple users a message that says “Your account has been flagged for excessive refunds”. According to the German watch dogs, more and more Wish customers are getting these kinds of messages. “But the fact is that withdrawals and returns are often part of online shopping at Wish, because of the inferior quality, incorrect size specifications or divergent product descriptions.”

‘Users got blocked after only one return’

According to the Brandenburg consumer association, it’s unclear what Wish understands by “overly many refunds”. They say some consumers reported having just returned a single purchase before being blocked.

According to the persons concerned, they didn’t get an early warning. And the lack of contact also has far-reaching consequences. “Once the customer’s account has been tagged by Wish, consumers will no longer be able to return outstanding orders, complain about defects or report lost shipments”, Kirsti Dautzenberg from the Brandenburg consumer association says. “With every order, customers run the risk that Wish will prevent them from exercising their buyer rights.”

Wish: ‘Blocked users should continue shopping with us’

What’s even more surprising is that Wish calls on its customers to continue shopping with them, despice blocking the customer service. Because only by an unknown number of further purchases, blocked customers can restore the ‘good reputation’ of their account and reactivate access to the customer service.