Why Mädchenflohmarkt is currently having massive problems

The platform for second-hand fashion has apparently not been paying some of its sellers for weeks. They are frustrated and angry. Startbase has now found out the reason for the complications.

The start-up Mädchenflohmarkt was a pure success story for a long time. Over the past ten years, the platform for second-hand fashion has benefited from the trend towards greater sustainability. The portal now has around two million users - and they now sell and buy so many second-hand clothes via Mädchenflohmarkt that the company was even able to announce that it was profitable in September 2021- a milestone all of its own among start-ups. On top of that, there was also financing, with Momox founder Christian Wegner joining as a new investor. In short, things could hardly have gone better.

But the start of the new year marked the beginning of the problems at Mädchenflohmarkt, which continue to this day. Users complain to Startbase and on review platforms that the start-up is not paying them back. There is a risk of damage to the company's image. Mädchenflohmarkt rejects the accusations on request, sees itself as a victim of fraudsters and has called in the police. So what's going on at the Stuttgart-based start-up?

According to its website, Mädchenflohmarkt actually wants to pay out to sellers as soon as customers have received their product and confirmed that everything is in order. Mädchenflohmarkt acts as a kind of trustee so that buyers and sellers can complete the transaction as securely as possible and collects a commission of ten percent.

Users rate Mädchenflohmarkt poorly on the internet

However, while the buyers received their products, the sellers waited not a few days but weeks for their payments - in some cases until today. This led to many bad comments on review platforms such as Trustpilot. Of the approximately 3,300 reviews, 28% are marked as "unsatisfactory", with only one star out of five. If you then scroll through the comments, you will find a lot of worry, anger and frustration from users who have previously enjoyed using Mädchenflohmarkt and who, according to their own statements, are waiting for hundreds or thousands of euros.

One user, for example, writes: "I'm totally angry too. It's the first time I've sold something on Mädchenflohmarkt. If I had known that I would have to wait so long for my money, I wouldn't have done it". Another wrote that her payout had been three weeks in coming, making it one of the more harmless comments. The rest of the column reads more like this: "Mess!!! customer service responds with any excuses!!! will file a complaint and get a lawyer involved!" writes one user. Another commented on Trustpilot: "NEVER AGAIN !!!! FINGER AWAY ! MONEY IS NOT COMING!"

Several reviews call for class action lawsuits, legal action and speculate wildly about financial problems. Maria Spilka, who founded the start-up with Peter Ambrozy and Thorsten Lückemeier in 2012, is surprised by the extent of the accusations, which she immediately denies to Startbase. When asked, she explains the actual reasons for the delay. Since the beginning of the year, the platform has noticed an increase in attempted fraud in payment processing. "These are systematic and carried out by a group," writes the founder, adding: "We have already reported this to the police."

Mädchenflohmarkt wants to settle the outstanding payments soon

The fact that Mädchenflohmarkt now filters out attempted fraud means that a "significant proportion of payments" have to be checked manually. This naturally takes longer than if the transactions were simply run through a fully automated system. According to Spilka, however, the delays should be resolved in the next one to two weeks.

Users have therefore recently started receiving an email in which the platform apologizes and also outlines the reason for the problems: "Since the beginning of the year, we have noticed an increase in fraud attempts when processing payments on Mädchenflohmarkt. Thanks to our payment system, your payout is secure. Nevertheless, we have to ensure that the right people get their money," it says. Outstanding payments will be settled soon, they say. From the start-up's point of view, we can only hope that users will understand this - and that the ratings on Trustpilot will soon go up again.