Unfortunately, I had to post this info here at UEN as Admin locked down a thread that was posted to call to Etsy’s attention a possible gap in their billing system reminders. Perhaps Lauren misunderstood my OP. I was not asking for specific resolution of my specific billing situation on the thread (I had already dealt with that via email via the Etsy channels). Instead, I was trying to inform both the Etsy people in charge as well as the Etsy users of the situation encountered.
In a nutshell, my account is not in arrears. I paid the balance on my account (Sept balance) on Oct 16. On October 28, I received this boilerplate email (I was not the only one to receive it):
Dear Soap-
[editorial not: one or more discretionary sentences added by relevant admin, the rest of the email is boilerplate] I’m an admin at Etsy, and I wanted to
thank you for running a successful shop on our site.
I’d like to remind you that as of October 15 your Etsy bill of $46.55
(USD) is currently overdue. It’s really important that you pay this
soon. As of January 1, 2008 we’ll be applying penalties to overdue accounts.To pay your bill, log in to your Etsy account, then go to Your Etsy >
Your Etsy Bill > Make a Payment Now. You can even make partial payments
to incrementally pay off your remaining balance. (If you’ve already paid
this off - thank you!)It is our driving goal to give all artists the tools and technology they
need to make a living making things. Your success is testament to ours.
That said, running Etsy costs money, and we depend on our users to
promptly pay our reasonable fees.I’m here to answer any questions you may have about your bill. Just
send me an email.Thank you!
[edited out specific admin name]
Etsy Admin
Emailed to me October 28. The issue? My account wasn’t in arrears when Etsy sent the above email out to me. I had already paid the balance showing on October 16, as is showing on my bill page (page 5 of 10), and consistently have a smiley-face on my account page.
As I suggested on page 2 of the thread Lauren locked down,
[m]aybe Etsy can append the current boilerplate with something like “If you have already paid your bill, please disregard this email.”
EDITORIAL:
If Etsy/Lauren doesn’t want me (or anyone) to post these sorts of legitimate issues - which I wasn’t sure was a bug (the title of the section IS called BUGS) - I gladly will take the issues off Etsy next time they occur. The OP clearly wasn’t asking for a resolution to my specific problem. The title of my thread was “Is anyone double-checking before sending out erroneous emails?” in case someone missed it. THAT was the purpose of my post.
I would think Etsy’s legal department would be concerned about and double-checking internal procedures and policies regarding billing issues. But what do I know.
UPDATE:
Someone’s comment reminded me. I forgot to quote from Lauren’s parting shot -
The reminder emails being sent were generated with info from October 15 — which is when the most recent bill was due. The email should have stated something to the effect of, “If you’ve already paid this off - thank you!”
UPDATE: edited because I missed the verbiage. “(If you’ve already paid
this off - thank you!)” is in the middle of the email in the paragraph on giving instructions on how to pay, which I skimmed because I didn’t need those instructions (already paid up), so I missed it. It might be more noticeable off-set by itself or brought to the top of the email, before people are told they are in arrears.
October 29th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
As for my previous month’s issue - that one was more serious. I made a timely payment of my full balance (approaching 4 digits) on Etsy’s new system. I was actually quite pleased - the system showed I made payment (yay!) and when I checked my bill page, the balance dropped down and showed the payment was made (double yay!). A few days later, I check my Etsy bill page and lo-and-behold, my rather large payment went *poof*. It looked as if my payment had never been placed, the entry for the payment was gone and the balance went back to a very large amount. Had I imagined I paid? Nope, screen shot. And CC was showing the charge.
I emailed Etsy billing, and they corrected it and apologized (I;m pretty sure). Payment restored.
Yeah, I didn’t post that to the Etsy fora.
This month’s issue is different. I paid, bill pad clearly showed payment and smiley, but Etsy still sends me an email saying I am not paid -up. I’m guessing this was sent out as a mistake due to a possible lack of internal safeguards (asking for money already paid).
October 29th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Good Lord. Guess it’s good to know we all ought to be screenshotting our proof of payments…?
October 29th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
I think screen shots, screen grabs and/or hard copy prints are a good idea. I’ve been doing them for a while. Just in case.
I don’t get how some people are blase about the mess-ups about bills. If an utility made similar mess-ups, people would be up in arms, I’m guessing. Or maybe other sellers don’t have much to risk with an accidental shutdown or some other ding on their Etsy account. It was disappointing to see the legitimate billing issue thread locked down - the irony, I wasn’t bitching about anyone, I wasn’t snarking and discussing about the really minor stuff that tends to get posted. So much for them wanting suggestion of any kind. Frankly, the issue wasn’t the Admin who sent me the email’s fault. I realized the issue was one at a higher level. Ah, well.
October 29th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
I think it’s a big problem for a website’s credibility when they can’t get the financial system straightened out. It ought to be straightened out by now. When you mess with the money, you lose your customer’s confidence. For Etsy, the Sellers are the customers.
October 29th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
It makes me nervous to have a credit card # on file with them.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
“As of January 1, 2008 we’ll be applying penalties to overdue accounts.”
I cannot help but wonder if it will be straightened out before the penalties start happening.
Why would they generate a late notice on the date the bill is due instead of a week or two later like every other place of business?
When she locked the thread she said, “The reminder emails being sent were generated with info from October 15 — which is when the most recent bill was due.”
It is not a payment due notice. The language used is for a late notice. Generating that on the due date is ridiculous.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Soap,
I got that e-mail in September for a bill that I paid before the due date… I should try to find it and see if it had the same verbiage…… I did e-mail them and say ,” uhhh I paid this.” and got a response saying that I could ignore the e-mail then… still annoying.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
I had NOT paid my bill by Oct 15, and I did NOT receive that late notice. I still haven’t received any email bill.
Soap paid hers in full, on time, and she DID receive the late notice.
It’s all very weird.
And yes I am going to pay, I just wanted to see what the reminders and the late notice emails looked like firsthand, and I decided to test it since there was no late penalty yet. It was just research, not anything malicious. I have already paid some increments to test that feature as well. My bills are very small, so maybe they don’t bother to send late notices for just a few dollars?