Archive for Bills
March 16, 2009 at 8:20 pm · Filed under Bills, Bugs, Customer Service, Etsy Communications, Payments, policy change · By GreenMamba
Over the weekend (March 15), Etsy published a Storque article announcing some changes to the billing procedure, which included the removal of payment minimums, and the implementation of both an overdue notification process and the future plan to implement the use of a collection agency for accounts 90 days, or more, past due. In the course of these changes, it was mistakenly reported that the previous 15-day grace period had been reduced to 14 and, beginning on March 15 at 12:00 UTC, overdue notices popped up during logon, and in e-mail boxes, for those sellers with a balance in any amount that had been incurred in February (or earlier) but not yet paid.
The confusion led to a series of forum threads asking for clarification, eventual corrections by several admin, an amending of the Storque article that announced these changes, and, ultimately, an official apology from Etsy CEO, Maria Thomas.
Excerpt:
Dear Etsy Sellers,
This is the kind of note CEOs generally don’t enjoy writing. Because, this is the kind of note that says, “We messed up, and we’re sorry.”
Over the weekend, Etsy messed up. We prematurely sent out notices to sellers whose bills we had identified as “overdue.” This overdue notification was a change in our billing process. We did a poor job of fully explaining this change and consistently messaging it across the site and in other communications with our seller community. In addition, the change was poorly timed relative to the March billing cycle and poorly coordinated with our recent introduction of enabling sellers to pay their Etsy fees via PayPal. Introducing PayPal as a payment option for seller fees also allowed us to accept payments of any size, so we simultaneously eliminated the $1.00 minimum payment threshold. We now ask those owing less than $1.00 USD to pay their balances in a timely manner, just like other Etsy sellers.
Regrettably, we did not lay all these messages out in an easily digestible form, and we didn’t deliver them to you in a timely and clear way.
I am ultimately responsible for this poor execution, and I apologize. I know that Etsy sellers need clear, consistent, timely communication from Etsy in order to plan your businesses. That’s our goal, and we will all work harder to be more diligent and timely with future announcements affecting all sellers.
I asked Etsy staff to roll back the changes (that is, to go back to the billing policies and process in effect prior to March 14, 2009) until such time as we are able to more thoroughly and consistently email all of you about what we’re doing and why. Let me repeat, we have moved back to the policies and process that were in effect prior to this weekend’s communications about overdue bills. Please note that sellers will still be able to pay your Etsy bills via PayPal, and you will be able to pay your bill even if the balance is below $1.00 USD.
Read Maria’s full article here.
Editorial comment:
Kudos, Etsy and Maria, for handling this so quickly and professionally, and for owning and correcting the mistakes made during the initial rollout. This is a huge step forward in Communications, and is much appreciated.
March 10, 2009 at 9:54 pm · Filed under Bills · By JB
Source: this Storque article
After a short period of beta testing, all sellers now have the option to pay their Etsy bill with paypal. You can pay the full bill or make partial payments by filling in any amount, just as you did with credit card payments.
You will now see an option for PayPal under “Method of payment” when you go to Your Etsy > Your Etsy Bill > Make a payment.
When you select PayPal as your method of payment on this screen and click “Submit Payment,” you will be taken to PayPal. Log into PayPal to complete the payment. You will be directed back to Etsy upon completion of the transaction.
Paying your Etsy bill with PayPal is optional. You can still pay your Etsy bill via the credit card you have on file with Etsy. Regardless of whether you pay your Etsy bill with PayPal or credit card, Etsy sellers need to keep a valid credit card on file with Etsy because we require a valid credit card to become an Etsy seller at this time.
Etsy has also removed the one dollar minimum payment.
With this release we are also removing the minimum payment amount for seller fee payments, whether paid by credit card or PayPal. Previously, Etsy only accepted payments of $1 or more from sellers. This is no longer the case—Etsy sellers will be expected to pay their bills in full regardless of the amount. So, if you are billed $0.60, you can now pay $0.60, and you have the option to pay via PayPal
Please see the full Storque article for more information and for some Frequently asked questions and answers.
The Storque article is closed to comments but this forum thread is currently open.
December 3, 2008 at 3:18 am · Filed under Bills · By JB
Etsy will begin using a third party collection agency to collect on overdue bills.
Source: This Storque article
Following our November close and beginning this week, Etsy will be emailing a reminder to those sellers who have overdue bills. The email will outline how to pay and the consequences for non-payment. We want to provide everyone the opportunity to settle their account balances. We do realize that this is a busy time for everyone but think that it is important enough of an issue to address it with the November billing cycle.
Two weeks after the initial email referenced above, Etsy will begin to send seller accounts with bills over 90 days past due to a third-party collection agency. This means that if a seller still holds an unpaid balance from August 2008 fees or prior, then that seller may receive a letter or other communication from a collection agency on behalf of Etsy about settling his/her outstanding balance. Before sending a seller to the third-party collection agency, Etsy will attempt to notify him/her a final time by email. This new step of involving a collection agency as a regular part of our collection process is the only change to our billing procedure at this time.
…
NOTE: Sellers who have a balance of less than $1 (the payment of which can’t be processed) will not be sent to a collections agency.
(This change was also mentioned in the Etsy Success email for Dec 2, which only goes to those who have opted in to that mailing list, but there was no separate Etsy New email sent about it.)
August 3, 2008 at 12:10 pm · Filed under Bills, Bugs · By GreenMamba
Some Etsy sellers are reporting a processing error when trying to pay their Etsy bills.
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5742842
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5742843
Credit cards are being declined, or said to be expired, on Etsy’s end when they should not be. Several users reported being charged more than once after making multiple attempts to submit payments (verified through their CC companies). In some cases, Etsy does not record or credit the payment, even after payment has been completed and independently verified.
CAUTION:
Be sure to submit your payment only once. If the payment does not register on Etsy, then verify the payment with your CC company before making any further attempts.
If paying via debit card, submitting a payment more than once could result in overdrafts and accompanying fees.
update by JB, Aug 4
Stellaloella has posted this update
Yesterday (Sunday, August 3) from approximately 4:00 AM to 11:30 AM EDT a small percentage of our sellers experienced a problem paying their Etsy bills. This was due to a malfunction at one of our third-party credit card processor’s gateways. As a result, these sellers were informed that their cards were not charged, when in fact they had been. Some sellers attempted to pay their bills more than once and subsequently were charged more than once.
The malfunction was resolved by 11:30 AM EDT Sunday and all subsequent Etsy bill payments have been recorded and processed correctly. At no time were any credit card numbers or sellers’ personal data exposed.
In order to clear up this problem, our credit card processing company is crediting back all impacted bill payments that occurred during this time period. We are contacting the sellers that were affected to let them know what happened.
We apologize for the inconvenience. Since this is a billing matter, we will work privately with the sellers who were affected. Please contact billing [!at] etsy.com if you have a concern or question regarding this matter or your Etsy bill. Thank you.
Posted at 7:09 pm, August 4 2008 EST
See also: This storque article
March 20, 2008 at 4:59 pm · Filed under Bills, Miscellaneous, Payments · By quirke
According to this Storque article, sellers can now download their sales information in CSV format to spreadsheet programs on your computer.
Sellers who do their own accounting will be excited to hear this: you can now download your sales information to your computer in CSV format ( Here here! for “comma separated values”)!
A CSV is a type of file that can be opened by programs such as Microsoft Excel or Open Office Calc (a free spreadsheet program). If you go to Your Etsy > Sold (orders) you’ll now see a link at the bottom to “Download this sales data as a CSV.” By selecting the month and year near the top of the page, you can download sales info from your shop for each month you’ve been in business.
Did you know CSV files are also available for your monthly Etsy bill? To download a month’s worth of billing information, click on the appropriate month in Your Etsy > Your Etsy Bill and click “Download this entire monthly statement as a CSV file.”
Comments for this article are open.
December 14, 2007 at 10:33 pm · Filed under Bills, Payments · By quirke
Some very important changes to the Etsy billing process are outlined in this Storque article:
Attention sellers! This is an important message about your bills!
In order to keep Etsy growing, we rely on the fees we collect from sellers. This is vital to the success and future of Etsy. As of January 1, 2008, a new Billing Policy will be put in place to motivate sellers to settle overdue accounts. The following is a description of how this will affect sellers who have not been paying bills.
If you did not pay your September bill when it was due on October 1st, that bill became overdue on October 15th. On November 15th, it became one month overdue. On December 15th, it became 2 months overdue. On January 15th, three months over due.
If you do not pay the overdue funds accrued in September or before, your account will be suspended on January 15th.
If you just do not pay the money from your bill that was accrued in October (overdue on November 15th, one month overdue on December 15th, two months overdue on January 15th), then you will not be able to relist items until you pay that amount incurred during October.
So, the policy goes into effect on January 1st and you should pay before January 15th, or you will have to deal with these penalties.
Please, please pay your bills. If you do it now, you will save yourself a big hassle. And you will save Customer Support many, many headaches (and time not spent helping newbie shoppers!).
You can find our previous coverage of Etsy bill issues here.
update, December 18. Edit by JB
This new Storque article attempts to clear up the confusion about bills.
Dear Sellers!
Your Etsy bill is due on the 1st of each month and you can pay it at any time. It becomes overdue on the 15th of the month, at which point you may start to notice some nagging reminders popping up in Your Etsy.
In order to clear up some confusion about billing, we’ve extended the payment grace period until 12:00 am on the 16th of each month, meaning you will not see any nagging overdue notices until then. Our billing time is in UTC (UTC is Coordinated Universal Time), so that’s midnight for folks in London and 7:00 pm on the 15th for the East coast of the USA.
And don’t forget, starting on January 1, 2008 we’ll be taking action on overdue accounts, so make sure you’re current!
The article is closed to comments.
edit Dec 24 by JB
Dec 21 Storque update:
As of January 1, 2008, a new Billing Policy will be put in place to motivate sellers to settle overdue accounts.
This is how billing works:
* Your balance from the previous month is due on the first of the following month.
* Your balance must be paid in full by 23:59 UTC on the 15th of the month.
* Accounts not paid up by that time are considered overdue.
* Accounts 2 months overdue will automatically be suspended from listing, relisting, and renewing items.
* Accounts 3 months overdue will be suspended.
The article is closed to comments.
November 14, 2007 at 11:27 pm · Filed under Bills · By JB
Etsy bills are always due on the 15th of the month, but today, November 14, many Etsy sellers were surprised to discover their accounts are marked as having “overdue” bills one day before they were even due.
The alert states:
Alert! You have overdue fees.
The problem was reported in the bugs forum here.
Etsy did not acknowledge that marking bills overdue before they are due is a bug, but RD did state:
RevolvingDork says:
There is no mention of “late fees” on the site, anywhere.
There are, however, lateness penalties. For more on those, see here: http://www.etsy.com/billing_how_billing_works.php
The link he posted states:
If the 15th passes and your Amount Due has not been met (or exceeded), we will send you an alert, and you will see a notice when you log into your Etsy account. If your account becomes 2 months overdue, your ability to list new items will be automatically suspended. After 3 months, your account will be suspended entirely until it is brought back up to date.
The 15th has not passed, in fact has not even started yet, even in the Eastern time zone. But people are seeing the “overdue alert” when they log in.
For more information about billing and overdue penalties, please see this article
http://etsynews.com/500/etsy-changes-policy-about-overdue-bills-unannounced/
The policy has changed three times in the past 6 weeks.
policy on Oct 5, 2007 :
Starting in January of 2008, accounts with fees that are 3 months overdue will not be able to list new items, and having fees 4 months overdue (or greater) will lead to account suspension.
policy on NOV 3, 2007 :
If your account is between 31 and 60 days overdue, your ability to list new items will be suspended automatically and you will receive an email to let you know that your account is overdue. If your account becomes more than 60 days overdue, your account may be suspended.
policy on Nov 14, 2007:
If your account becomes 2 months overdue, your ability to list new items will be automatically suspended. After 3 months, your account will be suspended entirely…
UPDATE by Soap:
According to Chris,
[I]t is the 15th now, so unpaid bills are now due . . . .
The moment it becomes the 15th, bills are considered to be overdue.
November 3, 2007 at 11:55 pm · Filed under Bills · By JB
In this Storque article from Oct 5, Etsy explained their policy for overdue payments.
Starting in January of 2008, accounts with fees that are 3 months overdue will not be able to list new items, and having fees 4 months overdue (or greater) will lead to account suspension. We’ll always contact anyone with overdue fees several times beforehand to make sure things are OK and see what we can work out.
Please see the handy chart below for a reference guide to overdue-ness.
notice the “overdue x3″ period begins when you are 2 months and 1 day overdue (61 days), NOT when you are 3 months overdue.(90 days)
by this chart, April 15 is paid on time. (for fees incurred in March)
May 15 is 30 days overdue.
June 15 is 60 days overdue.
June 16 is 61 days overdue and your ability to list is suspended.
July 15 you are 90 days overdue
July 16 (91 days overdue) your account is suspended. This is not 4 months overdue as the text states. 4 months would be 120 days.
so even their original statement was wrong, according to the chart.
this policy has drastically changed, without any announcement that I am aware of.
In the CURRENT ( NOV 3, 2007) billing page, it states:
What are the consequences of not paying my bill?
As soon as your bill becomes overdue, we will send you and email to let you know. If your account is between 1 and 30 days overdue, you’ll see a notice on Your Etsy Bill and will not be able to enroll in Auto-Bill until your account is current. (Note: Auto-Bill is not currently available.) If your account is between 31 and 60 days overdue, your ability to list new items will be suspended automatically and you will receive an email to let you know that your account is overdue. If your account becomes more than 60 days overdue, your account may be suspended.
NOTE: Because we’re playing a bit of catch-up with this new billing system, all sellers have until January 1st, 2008 to pay all their fees before any action will be taken by Etsy.
so according to this new policy, now you would be suspended from listing on May 16, and banned on June 16. (for unpaid March bills)
Also note the change of “will be suspended” to “may be suspended”.
edit Nov 14 by JB
the policy has changed again, without notice. Today the billing page states
If your account becomes 2 months overdue, your ability to list new items will be automatically suspended. After 3 months, your account will be suspended entirely
So now, it says you are suspended from listing new items if you are 2 months overdue (60 days) and your account is suspended when you are 3 months overdue (90 days). This is more lenient than the Nov. 3 policy and more strict than the Oct 5 policy. It still doesn’t start being enforced until January 2008, but the policy may change again by then.
previous coverage of the billing issue
http://etsynews.com/457/what-will-happen-if-your-etsy-bill-is-overdue/
October 29, 2007 at 4:18 pm · Filed under Bills, Customer Service, Email Notifications, Etsy Communications, Laws & Regs, Payments · By The Janitor
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 6, 2007 at 11:57 pm · Filed under Bills, Email Notifications, Etsy Communications, Payments, Site Use · By The Janitor
Read full info here.
See related UEN post here.
Your Etsy Bill
Article Header Image
Story by CustomerCare, Dillinger, RevolvingDork, TechUpdates
Published on October 5, 2007 in Etsy News
We’ve just implemented our reminder system about paying your bill. You’ll now see an alert bar just below the header and, if you have fees more than 3 months overdue, an interstitial screen letting you know.
Until the end of this year, reminders are the only consequence of having overdue fees. Starting in January of 2008, accounts with fees that are 3 months overdue will not be able to list new items, and having fees 4 months overdue (or greater) will lead to account suspension. We’ll always contact anyone with overdue fees several times beforehand to makre sure things are OK and see what we can work out.
Please see the handy chart [in the Storque article] for a reference guide to overdue-ness.
[chart not displayed here]
Once again, until the end of this year, reminders are the only consequence of having overdue fees. The text in the image above that’s light grey & italics show what will happen in 2008.
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