Consumer columnist and West Hartford resident Harlan Levy has more than 20 years of experience writing stories about everyday experiences that anyone could encounter.

By Harlan Levy

Dealing with popular online buying service Poshmark can be frustrating, problematic, and enraging, as my daughter-in-law found out a few weeks ago.

But before I tell that tale, here are this week’s grocery items that are vulnerable to the world-shaking Trump tariffs – declared illegal by a court, which Trump is appealing to his friendly Supreme Court:

• Big Y: Large avocados: $1.99 each, Bananas 69 cents/lb.
• Whole Foods: Avocados: 3/$4.45, Organic: $3.49/lb. Bananas: 59 cents/lb.
• Trader Joe’s: Large avocados: $1.48 each. Bananas: 23 cents each. Organic: 29 cents each.

A bad Poshmark experience

My daughter-in-law and family were in Florida visiting her parents when she went into a grocery store, leaving her 6-year-old daughter (D) with her mom’s phone. She was playing games on the phone and asked her mother (K) if she could search for American Girl dolls. Her mom told D she could look for them online to see if she could find the one she wanted, which she had seen at her friend’s house. K was in the store for 15 or 20 minutes, while D was on the phone while D’s grandfather watched her. When K came out, she took her phone back and talked with D about the dolls she had looked at. K didn’t see anything indicating that D had actually bought a doll … until later when she got an email receipt from Poshmark saying D had purchased clothes for a doll costing $25, including the cost of shipping.

It was four hours after D had ordered the clothes when K went on her Poshmark app to try to cancel the purchase, since it was only four hours later. K tried to click on “accidental order,” which said one only had three hours to cancel an order.

K then wrote to Poshmark customer service, saying her daughter had accidentally bought the clothes. They weren’t sure how D had made the order. D just said she had just kept clicking and had somehow managed to order the item.

K then told Poshmark that the address in Pennsylvania was wrong, since she hadn’t used that address since moving to Connecticut a year ago, figuring Poshmark would cancel the order. That’s when the cascading problems began.

“They wrote back to me, saying they can’t cancel the order, but possibly the seller could cancel the order, and all I needed to do was contact the seller,” K said.

K wrote to the seller, saying she needed to cancel the order, that she was sorry, that her 6-year-old had inadvertently ordered the clothes.

The seller wrote back, saying no worries, that she understood, but that K should see if customer service could cancel it.

”I told her customer service said it can’t cancel it, and only you can cancel it. She responded that she didn’t know how to cancel it,” K said.

She then wrote back to customer service saying the seller can’t figure out how to cancel, so can you please cancel it for her.

Customer service wrote back, saying, “No, we can’t cancel an order for a seller, but if the seller agrees not to ship the order, then seven days after that we can cancel the order.”

“I wrote back to the seller, saying, ‘Please don’t ship the order, and Poshmark will cancel the order in seven days,’” K said.

The seller agreed she would not ship the order.

“Then four days later, I figured we’re done with this,” K said.

The seller then wrote her, saying she was shipping the order, because Poshmark had told her she must ship it, that otherwise Poshmark would dock her page, and would state that she was an irresponsible seller for not shipping her order.

”I wrote back, asking her not to ship it, because Poshmark had not fixed my address. I never heard from the seller again,” K said.

So a doll’s dresses were shipped to her old Pennsylvania address.

K then complained to Poshmark that she had tried so many ways to cancel the order and couldn’t do it.

”What I learned from this,” K told me, “is that you only have three hours to cancel an order, and because a seller is a third party, you have to be careful with a site like that. Also, I’m deleting the app, because I don’t want my daughter to be making purchases on it again.”

Now you know.

NOTE: I have two pairs of Kizik shoes I want to sell, so I’ll try using eBay … never Poshmark … unless any reader wants to buy a practically new nice pair of size 10½ slip-in Kiziks that are too big for me.

NOTE: If you have a consumer problem, contact me at [email protected] (“Consumer” in subject line), and, with the power of the press, maybe I can help.

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