Another cross-border platform collapsed, and thousands of sellers were owed payments!

The wind of "collapse" has spread from the entertainment circle to the cross-border circle.

First, TMON and WeMakePrice, the fourth and fifth largest e-commerce platforms in South Korea, owed sellers more than 100 billion won in accumulated payments due to financial crisis, and their parent company, Singapore platform Qoo10, was also affected; later, Coupang was investigated for suspected arrears of payments.

Recently, a US platform was also exposed to owe sellers millions of dollars.

The olive branch was extended in times of crisis and was once regarded as a "savior" by Russian sellers.

This American platform is Inspire Uplift.

According to online information, Inspire Uplift was founded in 2017 by American Aaron Wallace and co-founder Pakistani Yaseen Rehman. It mainly sells handicrafts, gadgets and vintage goods. According to its official website, the platform currently has 55,000 independent sellers and millions of buyers around the world, and the number of goods sold on the platform exceeds 20 million. It is worth mentioning that this large company is very "mysterious". There is very limited information about it both domestically and externally, and most of the information comes from its official website.

According to current information, most of the sellers who are owed money are Russian sellers, and there are also a small number of American sellers . The emergence of this situation is related to the "sanctions storm" in 2022.

In 2022, platforms such as Amazon, Etsy, and eBay successively restricted the business activities of Russian sellers for some reasons. At this time, Inspire Uplift, as a "savior", extended an olive branch to many Russian sellers.

According to Russian seller representative Stanislav ( Станислав ) , in June 2022, many Russian sellers who produce nesting dolls, dolls, accessories, clothing and other ethnic products received emails signed by Aaron Wallace, inviting them to join the platform.

According to Stanislav, Russian accessories, household items, clothing, toys and other handicrafts are very popular in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia, so the importance of these markets for Russian sellers is self-evident.

As a result, many Russian sellers who were forced to withdraw from the European and American markets due to sanctions entered the platform without a deep understanding of the platform . In Stanislav 's words, " Everyone has lost their livelihood and is trying to find a new e-commerce platform to be able to receive payments from Western customers. "

When they switched to Inspire Uplift , these sellers also brought their customers with them, because they were told at the beginning that Inspire Uplift would not provide organic traffic. Therefore, sellers need to promote their products through social media and then guide buyers to trade on the platform. Therefore, Inspire Uplift is more like a trading medium between craftsmen in Russia and CIS countries and overseas customers than an online market.

The seller is frustrated that he can't get his money back.

At the beginning, the sellers' business was good and the payment for goods was made monthly.

Take the victim seller Aitaqi ( Айтач) as an example - she sold flower ornaments made of beads on Inspire Uplift. At first, her sales on Inspire Uplift could reach $1,200-1,500 (about RMB 8,746-10,932) per month, and even more during the holidays. Before joining Inspire Uplift, Aitaqi had already created her own independent website, but after joining Inspire Uplift, due to the surge in orders, Aitaqi had to hire an assistant to help her complete the work in time .

Olga , another seller who sells felt toys on Inspire Uplift , also said that at first, payments were made on time and regularly. But as time went on, the waiting time for payment became longer and longer, until it stopped completely in March 2024, when the site's founder Aaron Wallace said the platform already had 15,000 sellers. Not only did the sellers fail to receive payment, but the buyers also did not receive refunds for canceled orders.

When the payment was not received, the co-founder of the platform, Yaseen Rehman, appeared in a 3,500-member Inspire Uplift seller group to appease the sellers and said that the sellers would receive the payment the following month. When the sellers questioned him about the failure to fulfill his promise, he admitted that there were indeed "some problems" (with the platform's funds).

This situation lasted for several months until last summer when Yaseen Rehman promised the platform again that all outstanding debts would be settled in September. However, in September, Yaseen Rehman still did not pay the money, saying that “it is not the peak season now .” However , he told the sellers that they must continue to sell and ship goods, otherwise the platform would ban the sellers’ stores.

As autumn passed and winter came, the sellers still hadn’t received their money back, and Yaseen Rehman stopped replying to all messages in the seller group and the sellers’ private messages. Technical support also responded to the sellers’ messages in a perfunctory and ignoring manner.

Sellers are caught in a vicious cycle: continuing to sell will result in greater losses; not selling will result in their accounts being blocked, and there is no hope of recovering the payment.

Thousands of sellers struggle to defend their rights, and seller representatives are threatened

At this time, the seller representative Stanislav began to collect the sellers' losses and submit complaints to the relevant Russian authorities.

According to Stanislav, at the beginning of the rights protection, an anonymous account offered him $5,000 (about 36,000 RMB) on Telegram as long as he stopped "defaming the company's reputation" and "ended the movement." After Stanislav refused, he received a threat in English from a hidden number.

At present, sellers are owed about 25 million rubles (about 1.879 million yuan) in unpaid payments , but this is only the loss confirmed by the sellers Stanislav has contacted; he estimates that the amount involved by all sellers may be as high as 50 million rubles (about 3.758 million yuan) .

In this turmoil, Russian sellers were more affected than American sellers. Not only because of the amount of payment, but also because American sellers have other platforms to choose from compared to Russian sellers. Many Russian cross-border sellers have lost their "only choice" for the European and American markets, and many sellers who have difficulty even shipping due to delayed payment have to "start all over again."

At present, the victimized sellers have united to form an advocacy group "Inspire Uplift: Community", and 3,300 people have joined in the Telegram channel. The victimized sellers have also sent letters of appeal to relevant Russian departments and organizations, but have not received a response yet.

This situation was also noticed by Wildberries co-founder Vladislav Bakalchuk, who expressed his willingness to provide legal support to help them (the victimized sellers) solve the problem on his social media platform. The victimized sellers also said they were considering the possibility of filing a lawsuit. However, considering the background of Inspire Uplift and its founder, Russian local media believes that "the prospect of recovering the funds remains unclear."

It is worth noting that since 2018, American users have complained on the consumer review website www.trustpilot.com that the goods ordered on Inspire Uplift have never been delivered, and the latest complaint was published in January this year. The platform's rating on the website is only 2.8 points (out of 5 points).

In addition, the same names as the two founders also appear in the materials of the US court. The materials show that the two are related to some websites that publish "information about people involved in immoral and criminal behavior". These websites also provide paid services to delete information, so they are regarded as blackmail by the plaintiff. The case started in 2018 and is still under trial.

Although sellers have been working hard, the two founders of Inspire Uplift have not yet appeared. This also reminds domestic sellers that they must understand and investigate the background and possible risks of the platform before entering the platform, and confirm the channels when entering to avoid losses.

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