Last week a seller wrote to me. Lost more than five million roubles in a warehouse fire. He asks: “Yulia, be honest — is there any point going to court?” I ask: did you file a claim? No. Why not? The chat told him the contract couldn’t be challenged.
This is not an isolated story. It has a name: learned helplessness. And someone is cultivating it very deliberately.
What happens in WB seller chats
While some sellers are recording remaining stock through a notary, gathering documents, and filing claims — thousands of others are doing absolutely nothing. They film tearful reels, do roll-calls in chats of five thousand people. And in every one of those chats, the same thought appears, placed just so: “Guys, you signed the contract yourselves. It’s decided. Take the compensation package.”
This is not an accident and not advice. It is a strategy.
Silence is a signal: the marketplace hears it
While a seller sits in a chat collecting sympathy, the statute of limitations is ticking. Data is disappearing from personal accounts. Everyone who quietly accepted the package sent the system one clear message: this works. Next time the contract will be written even harsher — and the bots will be back to explain that fighting it is pointless.
The bitterest part: helplessness does not save your nerves. Your brain burns energy suppressing justified anger, while the right to compensation quietly expires. People stop seeing open doors — even when the law puts every card directly into their hands (Civil Code Art. 425, 428, 901).
A marketplace is not a force of nature
It is an ordinary commercial legal entity. It answers to the law exactly the same way you do.
Learned helplessness is a psychological prison whose doors stand open. But the person sits inside, because bots and their own fear convinced them that nothing can be done from the outside.
I say the same thing every time: one real step is worth more than a thousand sympathetic messages. Request your documents. File a formal claim. Then we will figure out the rest together.