Through comments here on UEN, and other communications, at least three cases [edited for accuracy] two cases we know of firsthand, and another on which we’re trying to get details, have come to light where shops have been suspended or almost suspended due to poor communication within Etsy, or arbitrary decisions made by Etsy based on no rules that we can find, or simple “technical glitches” that Etsy has acknowledged but for which they have not apologized.
Here are some excerpts of two of the stories, with links to the complete descriptions:
MagicJelly’s story (note: a former Featured Seller on Etsy):
A seller DID complain about me - a week & a half after the purchase date for not receiving their parcel, & I’m in Australia & he’s in the US! Instead of referring the buyer to me, giving me the benefit of the doubt or explaining on my behalf that assuming non-delivery was premature, Etsy banned me & issued the buyer with an FBI cyber-crime form to complain about me!
The fact that it was all an Etsy bungle because apparently they sent me warning emails that I never got because their system wasn’t working, & 2 people were working on the case & didn’t tell each other (one of whom I was in contact with), etc, is not the point. The point is, do Etsy, as a venue, have a legal right to basically force a seller to refund or re-send? Refunding to a dissatisfied buyer is a COURTESY, it is a discretionary policy that each seller must decide on, & nowhere in Etsy’s terms does it state that sellers must do so. If it did, we’d all be vulnerable to potential buyer dishonesty. Many of us do offer refunds, etc, but that is OUR choice & OUR policy, not something Etsy should be using standover tactics to enforce!
And if you think having a spotless record will save you, it won’t. I have over 600 transactions & 100% feedback, & one misguided complaint resulted in suspension. link
I’ve been told they issued me with system warnings once a week, but I never got them coz there was something wrong from their end. But I did get the email informing me I was suspended. I was told I was suspended because after the initial complaint, admin hadn’t heard back from “either party”…me, because I hadn’t received the emails, & the buyer because he was out of town. But someone else from admin HAD contacted me & the issue had been resolved…but neither of the two people working on the dispute knew about the other. The buyer returned to find his order had arrived, & all this drama had blown up. link
First of all I was told I was banned as admin assumed I was inactive as I hadn’t answered their emails (the ones I never got!). I pointed out that my shop was obviosuly active as I’d been fulfilling orders, giving & receiving feedback, etc, & they could have tried convoing me, but was told it’s not procedure to follow up on disputes by convo. Wouldn’t that be preferable to erroneously banning someone? And as it happens, the admin person who DID contact me, did so by convo…so procedural rules can be overlooked. link
ScrapScrap’s story:
I, too, was banned last week, albeit temporarily, over a “glitch.” I didn’t even get an apology, just an “Oops, we re-opened your account and are looking into why it happened.” link
I was banned last week as a ‘glitch’ according to Emily.
I was informed on Tuesday (the 10th) that unless I sent a specific buyer (one from hell, I might add) $8+ I would be banned permanently, as a repeat offender! Funny, there wasn’t any offense, let alone being a repeat offender. Fine, dandy. link
On the 5th, everything was hunky-dory. On the 10th, I received a notice that I would be permanently suspended if I didn’t prove the buyer had received an $8.31 refund.
After providing screenshots of my paypal account, and proof of payment to the buyer, Etsy says “No harm, no foul. And the buyer claims they still didn’t get their refund. You really should give them that money”
Anyone that sells is at risk of being suspended, through no fault of their own. And if you’re not already using it, add d/c or tracking to your packages. link
(I’m still getting details on the third incident.)If we know of these incidents only through people who know about the UEN and are comfortable posting here, imagine how many sellers this has happened to, the situations about which we will never know.
Etsy needs to get its act together internally, so the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.
For Etsy’s sellers and buyers, it needs to have clear, consistent, fair, and legal policies and steps to address disputes, so that no-one - buyer or seller - is ignored or over-zealously booted off the site.
Edit: (From Serena) As you read these accounts, please keep in mind that UEN only has access to one side of the story: the seller’s. We have, however, worked hard to verify that account, and this is far too important an issue to go unmentioned.
April 15th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Can I just pipe up & say, I actually did have contact with admin - by phone, & then by email. Rob & the support members involved took the time to write to me over the course of a few days. I didn’t realise how fortunate I was until I heard everyone else’s experiences…I thought that was normal! With me, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t get a response, but that I didn’t glean from it clear answers to my questions.
April 15th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Anda - I appreciate your comments and yes, only one side of the story is being told here. You however speak from inside Etsy and can get anyone’s ear as soon as you like. The majority of sellers are not privy to that contact and in the last two cases have had little attempt at personal contact. Of course you have a different viewpoint. As for not fact checking - as has been stated it is difficult to get info out of Etsy admin/customer service. In my own case I was given no information on what steps I could potentially take in the whole procedure.
The bottom line seems to be to sidestep Etsy customer relations and speak directly to Rob - is this an efficient way to run a company?
April 15th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Do you know this for a fact?
I was at Etsy Labs around the time this came to light and they were really struggling with him. Everyone was upset. They froze his shop so that he couldn’t sell and rip off future customers. He was “allowed” to remain on the site so that they could “work with” him to refund to customers or fill their orders.
I’m not sure exactly what that entails, but that’s what I was told directly when I was present. And if they were doing the same kind of putting the pressure on Reckon as they did to MagicJelly and scrapscrap, then I may be more sympathetic to Etsy’s methods when applied to a seller who has ripped off and been abusive towards 100 customers, whereas I am NOT okay with Etsy strongarming sellers who “ripped off” 1 or 2 customers out of 400+ or 600+ sales. (100 customers who don’t receive their orders is obviously a problem with the seller. 1 or 2 customers who don’t get their items may be the fault of the seller or may be the fault of the postal system or interior theft at an apartment or office building. It’s not obvious abuse, no matter how it’s looked at.)
Anda, it’s not easy to speak with Etsy customer service. You clearly have a different experience from working with them and being in the same building.
It took sixteen days to get any acknowledgement at all of the questions I asked about how the case of my stalker/harasser was handled. (They were not answered, but acknowledged.) That’s obscene. And that was after I was promised that certain aspects would be “taken care of” which never were.
As I said to you personally, when the communication is so bad that people can’t get answers to their questions from Etsy (and often don’t get any acknowledgement) then those people are going to assume, not unjustifiably, that Etsy is “doing nothing.”
April 15th, 2007 at 11:02 am
I added an edit at the bottom of the original post. I had been meaning to do so since I first read it. A small disclaimer is an appropriate statement when it’s true we only know part of the story, though we have worked very hard to verify that side. I was just re-writing our policies last night, and true to those, we need to be forthcoming from where and how we get the source of each article.
Anda is right, we do only have one side of the story. That said, it’s not possible for UEN to do more fact checking and get another side of the story, because Etsy (rightly) won’t give us details, and we don’t want to encourage anyone to call out the buyers in question either.
Also, if anyone has evidence that one of our posts is not accurate, please DO send me an email, convo, or tip about it, and I will hear your side of the story and try to do what is fair for everyone.
Let it also be said that personally, I do believe Kate and Karena’s stories. And the reason that this post exists is because cancellation of sellers’ accounts absolutely qualifies as important news.
Aaand, I like the idea of Rob’s signing off on account cancellations. This is to protect Etsy.
April 15th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Soon etsycorporate will expect all Sellers to provide a detailed shop policy.
But the point may well be moot if etsycorporate chooses to template their own mysterious policy overtop of a Sellers.
This needs to stop NOW.
If he doesn’t already, Rob should have to sign off on EVERY shop closure after getting a detailed report from staff.
As well, corporate had better clarify whether or not my policy means jack squat if it doesn’t line up with their policy, before I go to the trouble of editing all my listings to include it.
And Buddha only knows what their policy manual looks like.
My guess is it is see through and as light as air.
This needs to get to the membership, imho, first thing Monday morning and for my two bucks etsycorporate has some ’splaining to do…
April 15th, 2007 at 4:53 am
I’ve already sent my most current chain of emails from etsy to Elizabeth. That was prior to Anda’s post.
Karena and I have been more than honest, forthright, and truthful regarding our situations. How is it possible that multiple users all had the SAME EXACT experience, yet somehow it’s still OUR fault?
In regard to SPEAKING to Etsy support, I have tried and tried. I was told in no uncertain tems that I would not EVER get a phone call or be able to actually make contact with anyone from etsy in any form other than email. I have left countless messages for Rob over the past week and a half. No response.
As far as our accounts differing, that is probably the case. But that doesn’t mean that the buyer’s account is accurate. Personally, I’ve had no direct contact with my buyer since their paypal complaint was filed AFTER their items were delivered.
I’ll be up for another hour or so. Feel free to give me a jingle jingle.
April 15th, 2007 at 4:14 am
“Has anyone spoken to the buyers in question? Or to Etsy support?”
Would etsy support actually comment on details of a transaction gone bad to an uninvolved third party liker UEN? I predict their reply would be (and should be) that they cannot divulge any details because it is between the buyer and the seller.
I don’t doubt there are two sides but in one of these cases, action was taken by Etsy after hearing only *one* side and before they ever spoke to the seller. So your admonition to hear both sides before making a judgement is a good one, and equally applicable to etsy support.
April 15th, 2007 at 3:53 am
I have been totally honest in my account of events. As far as what I know of the buyer in my circumstance, I only know what he told me, not what he told support…all though he did send me a CC of his email to Rob.
If anyone doubts my integrity, I am happy to provide a copy of all emails between me & admin relating to this matter. I didn’t think it would come to that…adding insult to injury to my wrongful suspension that I might be suspected of dishonesty too.
April 15th, 2007 at 3:44 am
Everyone, we’ve only heard one side here. There are always two sides, and in these cases, I know for a fact there are two VERY differing accounts of what occurred.
I loved the UEN when it first appeared, but I’m really dismayed these last few days with the complete lack of fact-checking. Has anyone spoken to the buyers in question? Or to Etsy support?
April 15th, 2007 at 2:48 am
I Reckon almost everyone feels the same way on the subject Simone raised. What a farce that was…
With regards to the unfounded suspensions, all-too-often we’re seeing examples of Admin stepping on each others toes. Two people handling the same ‘case’, opposing views in the forums….it’s one thing for the founders to comment on their vision or reason for creating various elements of Etsy, it’s another entirely for an Etsy employee to post in a thread their opinion of something in the TOU - that conflicts with a condition. It creates a LOT of confusion.
Plus, there’s the emails/convos from Etsy staff that appear to be more ‘opinion’ than ‘rule’.
Is it any wonder that many of us are a little over it at the moment? It’s also one of the reasons many of us have been placing our eggs in more than one basket.
I want to remain on Etsy because I do love the concept…….but Etsy HQ needs to get seriously organised.