Etsy admins and engineers have known, for at least a month, that there is a bug, or programming oversight, which allows Etsy to take a .20 listing fee without delivering the 4 months of contracted listing time.
This bug affects those listings which are in inactive or edit mode and are beyond their expected expiration date. Unlike active listings, these items are bypassed by the ‘expiry bot’ and when reactivated and renewed/relisted, it causes the listing time to be calculated from the original expiration date, not the current relisting date - which in turn actually subtracts listing time, rather than adding it. In some cases, the entire 4 month listing time has vanished, requiring an additional .20 renewal/relisting.
There have been several threads (here, here, and here) detailing this bug, each of which has been closed to further comment and discussion. The latest thread to get the invisible lock was shut down with this comment by admin stellaloella:
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December 14th, 2007 at 4:07 am
“The Engineers are aware of this concern; it’s on their list of thing to improve.”
That’s such a joke. Do they ever actually fix anything? No, I think they are too busy working on the 50 Grand Suprises.
‘Conversations’ has had the same various bugs since I signed up, almost a year ago. That’s just one example.
Probably instead of fixing this ‘version’, they’ll completely redo everything with a new ‘version’, with it’s own, new errors.
December 11th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
They need to fix the whole expiration thing.
I added some items to my shop that had been in inactive for a few months.
I want to renew these right away - get exposure and start selling them!
Instead, they are in my shop, saying they expired three months ago. And I can’t renew them until tomorrow or it’s a waste of money…
Theres just no reason I should ever have an item in my shop that expired three months ago, even for a second. Why should they be taken out daily by a script? The programming should be a bit more robust, so that once a listing passes it’s date, it goes STRAIGHT to expired. That would help this whole issue, too.
I have to say, I’m not overly impressed with the design and programming skill of the Etsy staff.
December 10th, 2007 at 11:50 am
….. and there’s still no information posted by admin despite valiant attempts to keep the news of the glitch/bug/fraud at the top for other etsy sellers! see here for the latest attempt at provoking RD into another of his helpful customer service announcements http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5362298
December 10th, 2007 at 6:06 am
I encountered this bug the other day and had no idea what was going on. I re-activated a listing, renewed it… it moved to the top of my shop and then it disappeared, but the renewal charge was on my bill. (I did write support and my fees were quickly refunded but still…) I check in to the forums usually every day and had never read anything about this. I guess I have to remember to check UEN for this kind of info huh :P
December 8th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I’d just like to make a quick request to keep comments as on topic and constructive as we can.
December 8th, 2007 at 6:55 am
If they know about it and keep locking threads so sellers are kept in the dark they can keep collecting (stealing) the fees. Perhaps that is the point.
*It is only my personal opinion but I think the real reason that Etsy does not fix the search engine is because they want the sellers to keep relisting over and over again. If search worked sellers would not have to do that.
They cannot see that if it actually worked then buyers like myself could actually enjoy shopping there and they could get their percentage. They must think they will make more on relisting.
*This is my point of view as a buyer. I do not sell on Etsy because I have seen nothing but problems when it comes to money from the billing fiasco’s to this “bug”.