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 31st, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Thanks Halflyng.
It looks like Etsy has reinstated Lesliejewelry. Thank goodness for that at least, but I still don’t know why they are closing accounts without first trying to work with the seller. She says the shut-down notice was the first she had heard about the problem. (the customer never contacted her either)
She also seems to be telling the truth about her spotless history:
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:WnTcb1GKBbQJ:lesliejewelry.etsy.com/+lesliejewelry+etsy&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
This was her account on Jan 16 and she has 100% positive feedback. also, she only had 51 sales which means she must have BOUGHT over 75 items on Etsy.
Her current feedback on the reopened shop is also 100% positive.
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5152781
January 31st, 2008 at 9:34 am
It’s happened again - http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5444820
lesliesgems says:
my shop “lesliejewelry” was deactivated yesterday so now i cant get to addresses to ship. Aparently there was a customer who didnt recieve a poackage and reported it rather than convoing me, so my shop was shut off with no notice. i emailed twice yesterday and im still waiting. Whats going to happen?
Posted at 8:31 am, January 31 2008 EST
January 25th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I admit, I’ve not had time to read all 200+ responses. But, also consider how many positive feedback are the result of “kiss and make up” transactions. What might have been an awful negative can be turned into a positive just through that (and a refund of the cost, or whatever). The customer may still be disappointed, but since the money was refunded (or whatever), it’s turned into a positive.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:39 am
The reason Heyprettycupcake was removed because one of the members affiliated with it became in bad standings with her shope. This person ran thepromoshop, paperzombie and heyprettycupcake. Thepromoshop had over 21 negatives and some people never received refunds or items as late as August. As per esty’s rules, if one account goes in bad standings they all get deleted.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I just wanted to pop in one last time and sorta second what RitaN had said - I realize that no one is aware of the shop I ran and I completely agree with what she said (and JB for that matter): take these things being said with a grain of salt. It *is* just one side of a story, even when it’s my story. I wasn’t putting it out there to start more problems, just to add to the debate. I literally just popped in to UEN after months because I was bored/curious and I saw this thread and thought what had happened to me might be of interest to some. But again, this is MY side of the story and to be honest, as I stated before, my shop was closed and I had no chance to check my own feedback - granted, I was not made aware of any further issues with my buyers via email, but that doesn’t mean Etsy wasn’t seeing something that I wasn’t…
Just sayin’. That said, I do appreciate the feedback here and regardless of how these shops were closed I think it is important to discuss the way that Etsy handled the situations as I think it’s clear to everyone that it was done hastily, improperly, inconsistently, and maybe unprofessionally on their part…
January 25th, 2008 at 10:22 am
JB Says:
January 25th, 2008 at 8:03 am
If heyprettycupcake had written in the etsy forums “I had 21 negative feedbacks and admin closed my shop over 1 non delivery” I think the hysteria over there about this issue would have been reduced
I am wiling to guess that if Etsy had TOLD Vanessa on Friday that both her stores were closed due to the 21 bad feedbacks on thepromoshop, she never would have created the “closedshop” account and never would have posted on the forums at all, so there would have been NO hysteria.
Her post said that she’d been closed over 1 non delivery.
Because that is what her email from Emily said. Why would Vanessa think Emily was lying? She took her at her word.
Hi JB, My thought is just that unless a shop owner hadn’t visited their shop at all in a while, they would know that they had a big amount of negative feedback, by not disclosing that in the forum, it seems disingenuous. Yes etsy gave 1 reason for the closure, but a shop owner with that much negative feedback would have to realize that admin saw a pattern in their transactions. That wasn’t explained in the forums and people got really nervous about their own shops and “OMG what happens if someone doesn’t get their package, can they close me?”
January 25th, 2008 at 10:13 am
meg9, that’s exactly what i think. Having that kind of feedback and acting like cupcake did seems disingenous to me. Additionally, i guess i would suggest that in this like in all things, we don’t know what exactly happened. We know what has been told. In this case we know that cupcake was some less than forthright, so we can’t be sure precisely what Etsy did or did do.
The situation could have been very different–she emailed etsy and said, but that was two months ago…and they said they’d take care of it. then they went to check her feedback, etc. and saw the other store, went there and said, wow. we need to deal with this immediately.
i think that one of the issues is that people had items up and were continuing to sell.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:03 am
I am wiling to guess that if Etsy had TOLD Vanessa on Friday that both her stores were closed due to the 21 bad feedbacks on thepromoshop, she never would have created the “closedshop” account and never would have posted on the forums at all, so there would have been NO hysteria.
Because that is what her email from Emily said. Why would Vanessa think Emily was lying? She took her at her word.
I expect this was just a case of admin being in a hurry to get out of the office, it was late afternoon on a Friday before a long weekend, and people are just mentally checked out. Not paying attention to detail.
January 25th, 2008 at 7:27 am
If heyprettycupcake had written in the etsy forums “I had 21 negative feedbacks and admin closed my shop over 1 non delivery” I think the hysteria over there about this issue would have been reduced. Her post said that she’d been closed over 1 non delivery. When you look at the feedback, admin had every reason to close the shop, a long string of negatives during the same time period indicates a big shop problem. I understand that personal life takes first priority over a shop, but if heyprettycupcake had refunded everyone’s money as soon as she saw that it was going to take much too long to fill the orders, I’m sure etsy would have been more understanding about the situation. Feedback from one person who got their order said it was of poor quality and looked rushed.
I just feel like heypretttycupcake wasn’t completely straightforward on the etsy forum, and now people are freaking out because they think 1 problem with a 3.50 item can get you kicked off of etsy. In reality, this 1 item was the continuation of a pattern, and admin was right to shut a shop that looked like it was unable to provide service.
January 25th, 2008 at 3:47 am
Well that is completely up to Samjoe if they want to reveal their former shop name or not. They are not included in the top level article, and people can say (pretty much) whatever they like in comments, within reason. UEN makes no guarrantee that comments are accurate, they are the opinion and responsibility of the member who posted them.
The same applies to anyone’s posts on the Etsy forums or the Storque, as well. Admins are responsible for the Storque articles and for their own forum posts, but are not responsible for user comments and do not research the validity or accuracy of user’s forum posts. i.e. if someone said their dog just died or their sister is on crack or they got fired from their job, Etsy doesn’t verify any of that.
Caveat emptor, here and there.