Has AI Just Destroyed My Relationship With Whatnot? And All Over £200.

I've spent two and a half years championing a platform I genuinely believed in. It took two emails to make me question everything.

If you know me, you'll know I'm a huge advocate for small businesses finding new ways to make money. Not just the obvious ways, either. I love discovering something that works, testing it, sharing it and then watching other people take that information and run with it.

For the past two and a half years, one of those things has been Whatnot.

If you're unfamiliar with it, Whatnot is a live-selling platform where people can sell their products directly to an audience. And I bloody loved it. I loved the concept, the opportunities and, most importantly, what it could do for small creative businesses.

Through my Pink Gorilla Collective community, I've encouraged countless creatives to give it a go. I've helped people overcome their nerves, understand how live selling works and see that there are other ways to make a living from their creativity. I even teamed up with a hugely successful creative seller in the US to help introduce more creative businesses to the platform.

And the results? Some have been incredible.

I've watched people go from being terrified of pressing that live button to building businesses that have allowed them to give up their day jobs. Imagine that. Something you suggested, something you encouraged someone to try, genuinely changing their life.

That's the stuff that gets me out of bed in the morning.

I've promoted Whatnot in workshops, conversations and through my community, often without even bothering to use my referral link. Yes, there was an incentive available, but that was never why I recommended it. I recommended it because I believed in it.

Until this week.

Let me introduce you to Lou.

Lou runs Lou Buckland Ceramics, and she's a member of my Pink Gorilla Collective. She's a talented creative who had been working towards launching her own ceramics collection. We'd recently completed a Clarity Hour together, and I could see exactly what she needed to do next.

She needed a kiln. And kilns aren't cheap.

My suggestion was simple. Like so many creatives, Lou had a workshop full of unused craft supplies, materials and bits she'd accumulated over the years. Why not turn all that unused stuff into money? Clear the space, raise some funds for the kiln and take another step towards launching her ceramics collection in time for Christmas.

Whatnot seemed like the perfect solution.

There was just one problem. Lou was terrified of doing her first live show.

So I offered to help.

I suggested she sign up using my referral link. If she qualified for the referral scheme, I'd receive £200, which would help cover my trip to her home in Crawley. My time normally costs considerably more than that, but Lou was a Collective member, I wanted to support her, and quite frankly I was excited to see what she could achieve.

And off I went.

We spent three and a half hours live on Whatnot. I showed her how to list products, how the platform worked, how to present, how to manage the show and how to keep things moving.

She sold 63 items. SIXTY-THREE!

For someone who'd been frightened of going live, it was a brilliant result.

She was absolutely buzzing afterwards. She'd done it. She'd overcome that fear, made sales, cleared some space and was another step closer to buying her kiln and launching her ceramics.

That, to me, was a success story worth shouting about.

Whatnot had gained a new seller. Lou had gained confidence, experience and customers. And I'd done what I love doing: helping another creative business move forward.

Everyone wins, right?

Apparently not.

The email that changed everything.

A few weeks passed, and I hadn't received the £200 referral payment. So I chased it up.

What came back genuinely shocked me.

Whatnot informed me that, following a "thorough investigation", they'd determined I was attempting to refer myself. I was therefore ineligible for the bonus.

And then came a warning that further attempts to work around their guidelines could result in limited access to my account.

Sorry, WHAT?

I'd apparently referred myself.

Despite Lou being a completely separate person, running her own business, with her own verified seller account.

I hadn't created a second account. I hadn't pretended to be Lou. I'd physically travelled to her home and helped her learn how to use the platform because she was nervous.

Since when did helping someone else become evidence that you're pretending to be them?

I was furious, but more than that, I was genuinely disappointed.

I replied explaining everything. Who Lou was, why I'd helped her, what Pink Gorilla Collective does and the years I'd spent supporting and promoting Whatnot. I asked them to reconsider and, importantly, to explain exactly what evidence had led them to classify this as a self-referral.

Because surely a "thorough investigation" should produce something more substantial than an accusation?

Within an hour, I received another response.

They'd apparently completed an additional review, reached the same conclusion and stated that our accounts didn't meet their independence requirements.

Again, no explanation of which specific facts supported that conclusion. No detail about what had supposedly connected our accounts. No acknowledgement of the circumstances I'd carefully explained.

Just another reference to the policy and another warning about restrictions on my account.

And that's when I started wondering whether I was actually communicating with a human being at all.

Is this what AI customer service has become?

Now, I want to be very clear about something. I have no proof that AI made this decision, or that the emails were written by AI. They may well have been handled by a human support team using standard templates.

But that's almost beside the point.

Because the experience felt completely devoid of human understanding.

Two responses. Two references to policy. Two warnings. And not one meaningful explanation of why a legitimate business owner helping another legitimate business owner had apparently breached the rules.

I use AI. I teach people how to use AI. I think it's one of the most exciting tools available to small businesses, and I'm constantly encouraging people to embrace it.

But there's a difference between using technology to make your business more efficient and using systems that leave customers feeling unheard.

AI should help us build better businesses, not become an excuse to stop listening.

And whether this was AI, automation, rigid internal processes or simply poor customer service, the result was exactly the same.

A relationship built over two and a half years was damaged in the space of a couple of emails.

It's not about the £200. Well, not entirely.

Of course I'd like the £200. I earned it, as far as I'm concerned, by referring a new seller and helping her get started. Whether the referral qualifies under Whatnot's rules is something I'd be perfectly happy to discuss if they'd actually explain their reasoning.

But the money isn't what has upset me most.

It's the accusation.

It's being told I've attempted to circumvent a policy when I know exactly what happened.

It's the complete lack of curiosity about why two accounts might have had some interaction during a first live show.

And it's the fact that nobody appears interested in the wider picture.

Here is someone who has spent years bringing new people to your platform. Someone who has actively encouraged creatives to use your service, built relationships with sellers internationally and celebrated the success stories that followed.

And when there's a disagreement over £200, instead of a conversation, I'm treated as though I'm trying to cheat the system.

I don't expect special treatment because I've promoted Whatnot. I don't expect anyone to bend the rules for me.

But I do expect a fair explanation before being accused of breaking them.

And I think that's a perfectly reasonable expectation for anyone, whether they're a long-standing supporter or someone who's only just joined.

There's a much bigger lesson here for every business.

I've spent years telling small business owners that your customer experience matters just as much as your product.

People remember how you make them feel.

They remember when you go the extra mile. They remember when you take the time to explain something. They remember when you treat them like a person rather than a transaction.

And they absolutely remember when you don't.

It's why I encourage businesses to follow up with potential customers rather than complain about being ghosted. It's why I tell people to make their websites clearer, answer questions properly and build genuine relationships with their audience.

Because business isn't just about getting someone through the door.

It's about what happens once they're there.

And I think that's something larger companies are in danger of forgetting as they rush towards automation.

We can automate emails, responses, enquiries and entire customer journeys. We can make things faster, cheaper and more efficient.

But if we remove the ability to recognise context, listen to someone's explanation and make a fair judgement, what exactly are we improving?

Efficiency for the business? Perhaps.

Trust from the customer? Absolutely not.

So where does this leave me and Whatnot?

I'm genuinely sad about it.

Because I still believe live selling can be brilliant for creative businesses. I've seen it with my own eyes. I've watched people transform their confidence, their income and sometimes their entire working lives.

And Lou's story is still a wonderful one. Nothing about this experience takes away from what she achieved that day, or how proud I am of her for doing it.

But I now find myself questioning whether I can continue recommending a company with the same enthusiasm when my own experience has left me feeling so dismissed.

I've asked for evidence. I've asked for clarification. I've explained the circumstances. And so far, I've received little more than repeated conclusions and warnings.

Maybe someone at Whatnot will eventually read this and take the time to understand what actually happened. I hope they do. If you are I've now deleted my account after numerous attempts to speak to someone further and I'm now championing Tik Tok and Ebay live selling. 

Because this is about more than a referral fee.

It's about what happens when businesses forget that behind every account, every support ticket and every transaction is an actual human being.

And if AI is going to play an increasingly important role in how we run our businesses, we need to make absolutely sure it doesn't come at the expense of the very people those businesses exist to serve.

Two and a half years of goodwill shouldn't be so easy to throw away.

And if you're a business owner reading this, here's my question for you.

Are we becoming so obsessed with making our businesses more efficient that we're forgetting how to make our customers feel valued?

Because I think that's a conversation worth having.

Same person 

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