A wave of hacking has hit the French accounts of the resale platform Vinted. Many users had the unpleasant surprise of finding that their digital wallet had been emptied by hackers. Vinted ensures that compensation will be put in place.
Virtual wallet at 0 euro. This is the bad surprise that we had some French users of the Vinted clothing sales application. After a wave of hacking some saw their money fly away.
Vinted management confirmed this wave of thefts and hacks to TF1info: “We recently blocked access to the accounts of several of our members, due to an incident in which fraudulent access to these accounts was observed”
The platform’s teams are mobilized to allow users who no longer have access to their accounts to recover them while providing them with security advice. Members who have seen their virtual wallet emptied by hackers will be compensated.
The money is transferred to tax havens in Europe
The procedure followed by the hackers is rather simple. The targeted user receives an SMS or a call containing a 4-digit code. The latter allows the contact details of the Vinted account to be changed and in particular the security code. Others receive an email confirming that their password has been changed. From there, the hackers have already taken control of the accounts and the sums of money stored there.
For others the password remains unchanged but the banking information is no longer theirs. The money would then be transferred no longer to the bank account of the legitimate owner but to accounts in Luxembourg or Ireland, countries known to be tax havens.
In just a few years Vinted has seen a massive rise in its users. In France, there would be according to the figures communicated by the platform, one in three French people having an account on the application.