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· Corporate Misconduct Accountability Project
Depop, Inc. · Junk Fee Scheme · 2025
Depop’s Hidden Junk Fee Scam Hit 43 Million Users
The resale platform hid a mandatory “Marketplace fee” until checkout, trapping budget shoppers with inflated totals they never agreed to.
TL;DR
Depop, the peer-to-peer resale app used by tens of millions of budget-conscious shoppers, charged buyers a hidden “Marketplace fee” that never appeared in advertised prices. Shoppers browsed, selected, and committed to purchases based on posted prices, only to discover at the final checkout screen that an extra mandatory fee had been quietly added to their bill. This practice, called drip pricing, has been illegal in California since July 2024. Depop knew the law existed and continued collecting these hidden fees anyway, effectively stealing small amounts from millions of people who could least afford it.
Every hidden fee is a choice. Demand transparent pricing everywhere you shop, and support this class action by spreading the word.
43.5M
Registered users on Depop’s platform
$1.55
Hidden fee charged to named plaintiff on a $17 item
$5M+
Minimum amount in controversy (CAFA threshold)
Jul 2024
Date California’s Honest Pricing Law took effect
4
Counts filed: CLRA, UCL, FAL, Unjust Enrichment
Tens of thousands
Estimated class members in California alone
Core Allegations
What Depop Did
The Junk Fee Scheme · 6 points
| 01 | Depop advertised individual item prices on its website without including a mandatory “Marketplace fee” in those prices, misrepresenting the true cost to every buyer from the start of the shopping process. | high |
| 02 | Buyers only discovered the hidden fee after spending time browsing, selecting items, and proceeding to their shopping cart, at which point walking away meant wasting the effort already invested. | high |
| 03 | The “Marketplace fee” is mandatory: buyers cannot complete a purchase without paying it, yet it was never disclosed alongside advertised prices as required by California law. | high |
| 04 | Named plaintiff Linsey Dinh paid a $1.55 fee on a $17 item in January 2025, a 9.1% price increase that was hidden until the final checkout screen. | medium |
| 05 | Depop’s hidden fee prevented buyers from making accurate price comparisons with competing resale platforms, undermining fair market competition at the direct expense of budget shoppers. | high |
| 06 | Attorneys sent a CLRA notice letter on January 2, 2026 demanding Depop stop the practice and make full restitution. Depop received the letter on January 6, 2026, and failed to remedy the violations, triggering this lawsuit. | high |
Profit Over People
Revenue prioritized over honesty · 4 points
| 01 | Depop collected the hidden fee on every single transaction processed through its platform, generating revenue from deceptive pricing at industrial scale across its 43.5 million registered users. | high |
| 02 | The complaint alleges there are no legitimate business purposes served by hiding the fee: Depop had a simple, available alternative, which was to include the fee in the advertised price from the start. | high |
| 03 | Depop’s checkout flow exploited consumer psychology by waiting until shoppers had invested time browsing and selecting items before revealing the true price, a tactic the Federal Trade Commission has specifically identified as manipulative. | high |
| 04 | Depop marketed itself as a secondhand and circular fashion platform used by budget-conscious younger shoppers, making hidden price inflation especially harmful to a financially vulnerable demographic. | medium |
Economic Fallout
Financial harm to buyers · 5 points
| 01 | Buyers paid prices that did not match the amounts they relied upon when selecting items, forcing them to either abandon carts and waste time, expand budgets they had already set, or accept overpaying. | high |
| 02 | The class complaint estimates total damages exceed $5,000,000 across tens of thousands of California buyers alone, with a nationwide class that could include millions more. | high |
| 03 | Had buyers known the true price upfront, many would have purchased from a competing platform offering a lower all-in price, meaning Depop’s deception directly cost competitors legitimate business. | medium |
| 04 | Buyers with modest budgets seeking affordable secondhand clothing, Depop’s core user base, were the most likely to be harmed by even small hidden fees that pushed totals past what they planned to spend. | medium |
| 05 | Plaintiff seeks restitution, actual damages, punitive damages, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees, meaning Depop faces the prospect of paying back every hidden fee it collected, plus additional penalties. | medium |
Regulatory Failures
How the law was ignored · 4 points
| 01 | California’s Honest Pricing Law took effect on July 1, 2024, explicitly banning the exact drip pricing scheme Depop operated. Depop continued charging hidden fees for at least six more months before this lawsuit was filed. | high |
| 02 | Depop subsequently added an information icon next to prices on product pages, suggesting it knew the practice was illegal and made a partial attempt to comply, but only after charging hidden fees to countless buyers first. | high |
| 03 | The complaint alleges Depop knew, or should have known, that its advertised prices did not represent the total price charged to consumers, meaning the violation was not accidental. | high |
| 04 | Despite receiving a formal legal demand letter in January 2026 warning Depop of its violations, the company failed to take remedial action, forcing plaintiff to file a class action complaint in federal court. | high |
Corporate Accountability Failures
No self-correction, no accountability · 3 points
| 01 | Depop’s website change (adding a small “i” icon near prices) came only after the hidden fee practice had already been used during all of plaintiff’s January 2025 purchase and countless others, and the complaint argues the icon is insufficient disclosure. | medium |
| 02 | Depop is incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, yet the harm fell disproportionately on California users who are entitled to the state’s stronger consumer protections, protections Depop ignored. | medium |
| 03 | Without a class action, Depop would likely retain all proceeds from hidden fees because individual claims are too small for most buyers to pursue alone, a structural dynamic that the complaint explicitly calls out as a reason class certification is necessary. | high |
Timeline of Events
Jul 1, 2024
California’s Honest Pricing Law (SB 478) takes effect, making drip pricing illegal for most businesses in the state.
Jan 10, 2025
Plaintiff Linsey Dinh purchases a $17 clothing item on Depop and is charged an undisclosed $1.55 “Marketplace fee” only at checkout.
Jul 20, 2025
Internet archive screenshot shows Depop’s website still lacked fee disclosure icons next to prices at the time of plaintiff’s purchase, confirming the fee was hidden when she shopped.
Nov 26, 2025
Plaintiff’s attorneys access Depop’s website and document the checkout process, capturing evidence of the drip pricing scheme.
Jan 2, 2026
Formal CLRA notice letter sent to Depop via certified mail, demanding cessation of the hidden fee practice and full restitution to all affected buyers.
Jan 6, 2026
Depop receives the legal demand letter but fails to take remedial action.
Feb 6, 2026
Class action complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (Case 3:26-cv-01173-VC). Plaintiff seeks damages, restitution, and injunctive relief on behalf of a nationwide class and California subclass.
Direct Quotes from the Legal Record
QUOTE 1
Describing the scheme’s core mechanism
Core Allegations
“Defendant adds mandatory fees on items purchased through its Website, charging a ‘Marketplace’ fee with each transaction… The Fee is not disclosed in the initially advertised prices, misrepresenting to consumers the total price of the products they intend to purchase.”
💡 This is the core of the fraud: Depop knew every advertised price was a lie, and chose to keep lying on every single transaction.
QUOTE 2
The psychological trap of drip pricing
Profit Over People
“Defendant’s omission of the mandatory Fee until the very end of the process is an unfair practice designed to string consumers along with the false impression of lower prices.”
💡 The complaint confirms this was not an oversight. Depop’s checkout flow was deliberately designed to maximize the chance buyers would pay the hidden fee rather than abandon their carts.
QUOTE 3
What California law actually says
Regulatory Failures
“Hiding required fees is nothing more than a deceptive way of hiding the true price of a good or service. Transparency and full disclosure in pricing are crucial for fair competition and consumer protection.”
💡 These are the words of the California Legislature’s own bill authors. Depop had no excuse for not knowing what the law required.
QUOTE 4
How the scheme exploits committed shoppers
Profit Over People
“A shopper may have put so much time into the shopping process that by the time additional fees or charges are disclosed they have already made up their minds to make a purchase.”
💡 The FTC identified this exact manipulation years ago. Depop used it anyway.
QUOTE 5
Direct description of the “nickel-and-diming” tactic
Core Allegations
“At no point prior to the end of the checkout process does Defendant disclose the mandatory Fee. Instead, it nickels-and-dimes its consumers one hidden fee at a time.”
💡 Across tens of millions of users, those small hidden fees add up to an enormous sum extracted through deliberate deception.
QUOTE 6
Plaintiff’s direct experience
Core Allegations
“Plaintiff was not browsing in search of legal violations. Plaintiff was instead browsing because she sincerely intended to purchase a clothing item from Depop, and she in fact did purchase a clothing item.”
💡 This matters: she was just a person trying to buy clothes. She was not looking to sue. Depop’s scheme caught an ordinary shopper.
QUOTE 7
Why this harms the entire marketplace
Economic Fallout
“Defendant’s failure to disclose its mandatory Fee on its Website until a customer reaches their cart directly violates the CLRA… Defendant’s dishonest drip pricing scheme is a direct violation of the CLRA’s Honest Pricing Law.”
💡 This is the bottom line: it is not an allegation of a technicality. It is a direct violation of a law designed specifically to stop this exact behavior.
QUOTE 8
No legitimate justification exists
Corporate Accountability Failures
“There were reasonably available alternatives to further Defendant’s legitimate business interest such as disclosing the Fee charged along with the initial advertised prices of the products. There are no legitimate business purposes served by Defendant’s hidden Fee.”
💡 Depop had a simple option: just show the real price. It chose not to. That choice was not an accident.
Commentary
What exactly did Depop do wrong?
Depop advertised clothing prices on its platform without including a mandatory “Marketplace fee” in those prices. Buyers would browse, select items, and commit to a purchase based on the displayed price, only to discover an additional fee when they reached the checkout cart. This practice, called drip pricing, has been explicitly illegal in California since July 2024. Depop continued doing it anyway, collecting fees that were never part of the price a buyer agreed to pay.
Is this actually illegal? Could Depop argue the fee was disclosed somewhere?
California’s Honest Pricing Law is unambiguous: mandatory fees must be included in the advertised price from the moment an item is first shown to a shopper. Burying disclosure in a tiny icon that did not even exist when plaintiff made her purchase in January 2025, or revealing the fee only at checkout, does not meet the legal standard. The complaint documents that Depop’s website lacked even the icon disclosure during the period when the fees were being charged, using archived screenshots as evidence. The law was written specifically to close these kinds of loopholes.
How much money are we talking about?
The complaint places the minimum amount in controversy at over $5 million for the class as a whole, the federal threshold required to bring this case in federal court. Depop has 43.5 million registered users. Even if a fraction of them made purchases during the period the hidden fee was active, the aggregate hidden fees collected could be enormous. Individual fees ranged from $0.90 on a $4 item to $1.55 on a $17 item in the documented examples, representing percentages of the purchase price that add up quickly at scale.
Why does this matter beyond the dollar amounts involved?
Depop positioned itself as a sustainable, budget-friendly platform for young shoppers buying secondhand clothing. Its core users are often people with limited income who choose secondhand specifically to stretch their money further. Hiding fees from this demographic is not a victimless corporate line item. It is a deliberate extraction of money from people who can least afford to be deceived. Beyond the individual harm, drip pricing distorts the entire market by making it impossible for honest competitors who display full prices to compete fairly.
Did Depop try to fix this after the law passed?
The complaint presents evidence that Depop eventually added an information icon near prices on product pages, which could be clicked to reveal that the displayed price includes a Marketplace fee. However, this icon did not exist when the named plaintiff made her purchase in January 2025, confirmed by archived screenshots. Furthermore, the complaint argues that even the icon disclosure is insufficient because the law requires fees to be included in the initial advertised price, not buried behind a clickable icon. Depop also failed to respond to a formal legal demand letter sent in January 2026, triggering the class action filing.
Who is in the class and am I included?
The complaint defines two classes. The Nationwide Class covers all people in the United States who purchased items from Depop’s website and paid the hidden Marketplace fee during the applicable statute of limitations period. The California Subclass covers the same group limited to California residents, who have additional protections under state law. If you bought something on Depop and were charged a Marketplace fee that was not included in the price shown when you first viewed the item, you may be a class member. Monitor the case filing (Case 3:26-cv-01173-VC) for updates on class certification and potential claims processes.
What does this lawsuit ask for?
The complaint seeks actual compensatory damages for every buyer who was overcharged, restitution of all fees collected through the hidden pricing scheme, punitive damages given the deliberate nature of the conduct, injunctive relief requiring Depop to include all mandatory fees in advertised prices going forward, and attorneys’ fees. In plain terms, the goal is to force Depop to pay back everyone it deceived and to make it legally impossible for Depop to run this kind of pricing scheme again.
Is this part of a larger pattern of corporate junk fee abuse?
Yes, and deliberately so. Drip pricing is an industry-wide strategy used by corporations across ticketing, travel, hospitality, and e-commerce. The practice works precisely because it is ubiquitous: consumers have been conditioned to expect hidden fees and may not bother to challenge them because individual amounts are small. California’s Honest Pricing Law was passed because state legislators recognized that voluntary corporate compliance was not happening. This lawsuit is one front in a much larger accountability fight over whether corporations can continue to systematically deceive buyers through pricing opacity.
What can I do to prevent this from happening again?
If you are a California resident who purchased from Depop during the period covered by the class definition, document your purchase and monitor the case docket at PACER (Case 3:26-cv-01173-VC, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California) for information on how to participate in the class. Share this case with other Depop users so they know their rights. Contact your state legislators and support the proposed federal Junk Fees Prevention Act, which would extend the California protections nationwide. When shopping online, always scroll to checkout before committing to a purchase, and report hidden fees to your state attorney general’s consumer protection division. Collective action and public pressure remain the most effective tools for changing corporate behavior.
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