Today Etsynews has learned of two successful Etsy shops that were deleted under seemingly strange circumstances. This is complete account deletion- the shop is a brick wall. It’s not the same as being muted in the forums. Etsy has warned users with bills over 3 months overdue that their shops will be deleted, but neither of these cases seems to be related to overdue bills. Both sellers have received emails from Etsy which state the reasons for their stores being closed, and they are not bill-related.
All of the information we have about these two cases comes from the sellers. Bear in mind that there are two sides to every story, but Etsy will never discuss the cases in public so we will never hear both sides. Certain facts can be verified using google’s cached pages and posts in public forums.
The first deletion we learned of was Thaidreams.
This is a cached page of her shop on January 12, 2008.
As of January 12, she had 100% positive feedback and had made 466 sales.
She wrote about Etsy closing her shop in her blog here, and she posted the email that Etsy sent her in her blog here.
The reason allegedly given was “a history of conflicts”.
The second deleted shop is still trying to get reinstated, so I cannot publish the shop name.
(update, January 22: Closedshop has posted her full story on page 14 of the comments on this article, and has revealed her shops to be heyprettycupcake and thepromoshop)
They did create a second account “closedshop” to post in the forums about their situation, and Etsy has since deleted that account as well. They (originally) did not publicly reveal their main shop name and UEN will not reveal it either, but I have verified by cached google pages that the shop had 100% positive feedback on January 16, two days ago.
This is their forum post.
They have multiple posts in the thread giving their version of events.
Other sellers in that thread (aorta, automaton, magicjelly) described having similar treatment from Etsy. (shops closed without warning for one lost package)
aorta says:
youstink, a buyer never got something so they filed a report to etsy. i never found out till my shop was closed- brick wall. i talked to admin who explained they send out 3 emails before they close a shop, but i never got those emails so i was shut down.
the admin i talked to did quickly reinstate my shop though.
magicjelly says:
Haven’t read the whole thread yet, but just wanted to add that this exact same thing happened to me last year - a former feature seller with 100% positive feedback, just like Aorta.I phoned NY & my shop was immediately reinstated. I was assured it was human error & that steps would be taken that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen again.
Both closedshop’s buyer and magicjelly’s buyer were told by Etsy to file cybercrime reports with the FBI.
The thread was locked with this admonishment:
RobWhite says:
We can’t discuss specific situations between Etsy admin and members of the Etsy community.For clarification, sellers who have bills that are 2 months overview will not be able to list, relist or renew items in their shops. Sellers who have bills that are 3 months overdue may be suspended. You can find that information in the Storque here: http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/billing-alert-a-reminder-about-the-new-policy-for-the-new-ye/858/ , which is also referenced in the most recent post about overdue bills here: http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/cant-post-new-listings-overdue-etsy-bill/1038/
We also ask that you do not make alternate accounts on Etsy for the sole purpose of posting in the Forums and/or chat rooms. The best and most expedient way to handle this situation is to contact Abuse at abuse (!at) etsy dot com.
Robwhite later in another thread explained he posted the overdue bill information to answer some general questions from the thread, but NOT to imply that the OP had been deleted for having overdue bills. (which would be a violation of their privacy if that was the case and he had discussed it in public)
previous UEN coverage of shop/account deletions
http://etsynews.com/73/unwarrantedaccidental-shop-suspensions-sellers-be-warned/
http://etsynews.com/75/another-case-of-erroneous-shop-suspension/
http://etsynews.com/80/how-does-admin-handle-shop-suspensions/
http://etsynews.com/312/etsy-says-no-double-billing-has-occurred/?cp=5
(see comments, not main article)
other users who have had shops deleted without warning, although most have been eventually reinstated:
moxierings
walkonthemoon
ScrapScrap
magicjelly
aorta/automaton
retroattic
thepromoshop
heyprettycupcake
Lesliejewelry
update, January 22:
Closedshop has posted her full story here:
Please note again, that this is the seller’s version of events, and UEN does not guarantee the accuracy of comments.
http://etsynews.com/?p=584&cp=14#comments
She has revealed her shop names: heyprettycupcake and thepromoshop. (both accounts are deleted/closed)
Etsy will not be reinstating either shop.
Update January 31:
another case of sudden shop closure: Lesliejewelry
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5444820
That shop has been reopened
January 19th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Just wanted to add that this makes SEVEN people I know who have stated that admin closed their shop without warning or due process. Most, fortunately, were reinstated (most, unfortunately, without apologies).
January 19th, 2008 at 5:42 am
There was a 3rd shop apparently deleted either tonight or recently, Soapyho. I have no information at this time as to why they were deleted. They posted on the forums as recently as Jan 17th.
January 19th, 2008 at 4:41 am
This is exactly what happened to us:
I have complained to Etsy about 4 or 5 different sellers for months, harassing me on the forums, telling lies about our shop, calling us resellers etc. Etsy always said they would stop it but they never did. Those sellers are STILL on Etsy, still selling and still abusing other sellers. Etsy passed our shop TWICE, Etsy admin even bought some of our pants TWICE, and left great feedback.
So, yesterday I started a topic about “Why we are successful on Etsy”, thought it would be a good topic to help other sellers. It was going really well with lots of nice people, and then 1 woman came on and accused me of lying and 2 people couldn’t possible do all that. She also mentioned we sell “HUNDREDS” of things a week - if anyone bothered to take a look at our shop you would see we sell about 65 items A MONTH and ooh we’ve sold 3 items on Dawanda in 4 months.. Then this stupid woman said I must be lying because I hadn’t replied to her. Hello? I’m in Bangkok, it was Friday evening here and I was out with my boyfriend.
I got back home at 1:30am and many etsy sellers had convoed or emailed me to tell me about this woman’s nasty comments about our business. So I emailed Etsy to ask them to tell her to stop and also to complain about another woman who has been harassing me for months (she has been muted from the forums several times for doing it).
I was told by Emily from Etsy admin that she would forward my email onto the correct people to deal with it. This was at 2;30 AM my time. At 7AM when I got up, our shop was gone from Etsy and the email I posted on our blog from Emily was in our email box - so in 4 1/2 hours we were kicked off permanently.. They kicked us off because we had “too many conflicts with other Etsy users”, never mind that these users have been allowed to abuse and harrass us for almost 6 months and Etsy has done NOTHING.
If you don’t believe me I am happy to send you the e-mail from Emily as it shows the history of my complaints to her about abuse in the last month and a half and her responses.
So THAT is how you get kicked off Etsy. You get abused for months, Etsy does nothing to the people who are the abusers, and then after too many complaints YOU get kicked off.
Oh and to Hyena (who is one of the people who has abused us, been kicked off Etsy forums for lying about us, and has lied about us for months!) get your facts straight - I’m Asian and so is my sister. I’m 30 years old and there’s a photo of me on our blog. My friend Michelle who you are talking about is British, she’s 45 and there are many photos of her on her blog. She’s a teacher, a writer and she has an Etsy shop selling her paintings and an ecrater shop selling t shirts, she also writes on associated content. If she has time to do ALL THAT AND run our shop too, then we MUST be the same person. Please Hyena get a life and stop lying about things you know nothing about.
January 19th, 2008 at 3:15 am
I know the first instinct (mine normally would be too) is to be skeptical and think, well this is only one side of the story and of course the person will tell the story to make themself look innocent.
I know lots of people said that about me when I was permanently muted. They either didn’t believe my story or thought I was slanting it or embellishing.
But the similarities in the emails and the bizarre Kafkaesque treatment that Thaidreams claims she received, and the treatment i KNOW I received, makes me believe her description of her case.
I understand other people being skeptical but I have been through the Etsy ringer firsthand and truth is stranger than fiction. They really truly ARE that messed up.
I hope that none of you have to go through this in order to learn for yourselves.
January 19th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Deleting sellers for being the victims of ongoing campaigns of harassment is wrong, plain and simple. From what I understand the seller mentioned above is quite likely to be not the only shop to vanish in similar circumstances in the last 24 hours.
If the shop was deleted due to reselling, then that would make it a different story with a different set of arguments. But that’s not the case.
January 19th, 2008 at 3:07 am
These Etsy people are such mega idiots to the extreme.
I’m about totally ready to just say F(*)&&*) it and have nothing to do with their stupidity ever again.
January 19th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Are you sure that isn’t her friend/roommate you are referring to?
But actually the race issue would be irrelevant to me anyway. I am sure other Etsians lie about their age, marital status, jobs, possibly even their gender. I don’t see what bearing that has on Etsy deleting a shop. Etsy should just be enforcing their written rules, impartially.
I am more interested in the pattern of abuse by Etsy and their failure to provide due process. My opinions aren’t based on who I like or dislike or who are my friends. Sometimes, I can disagree about an issue with someone I like very much. other times I can find myself in the icky position of agreeing with someone I dislike very much! (even a broken clock is right twice a day)
I try to base my judgment on the circumstances and not the personality. If I made all my decisions just based on who I liked better, then I’d be no better than Etsy. :(
January 19th, 2008 at 2:43 am
She was a reseller, and not the person you all think she was. White and brit and called Michele. Lie and contruction.
Now if I disappear and someone get a sniper after me, you know who is behing!
January 19th, 2008 at 2:17 am
jimchesters says:
of course he does say “generally speaking”, so that does not contradict the specific cases described above, where the shops were deleted by Etsy with no warning, while the seller was already communicating and cooperating with Etsy the whole time.
January 19th, 2008 at 1:56 am
re: the sockpuppet rule, technically you only have to reveal other existing accounts you own. Closedshop’s original account no longer exists, so do they have to reveal it? At the time they posted, closedshop was their ONLY Etsy account. So therefore they were not violating the sockpuppet rule.
I hope they can get this sorted out before Tuesday. It seems a rather extreme reaction for a lost item costing $3.00 that had already been re-sent.