Archive for Site Terms
November 6, 2009 at 9:26 pm · Filed under Site Terms, policy change · By GreenMamba
Editorial Notice:
After a long and unplanned hiatus during which UEN experienced a serious loss of data going back about 7 months, I am attempting an update with a fresh article (and hoping it stays put).
~~~~~~~~~~
On October 20, 2009, Etsy announced a change to its DOs & DON’Ts (D&Ds), which are an extension of the Etsy TOU. In addition to a Storque article (authored by Etsy CustomerCare, stellaloella, and TechUpdates) highlighting major changes or clarifications, it also opened a dedicated forum thread in which community members were given a sneak peek at the new version, and invited to discuss and/or make suggestions, in advance of it going into effect.
Excerpted from the Storque:
As you will see, most policies remain the same. In many areas, we’ve just clarified existing information or elaborated upon current practices to include these items formally in the DOs & DON’Ts document. Below I’ll highlight the changes, but be sure you preview the updated DOs & DON’Ts in their entirety.
Membership: A few notable policies that apply to all members have been moved up to the Membership section, like our policy for linking from a shop or profile to another selling venue. Collectives (seller accounts involving multiple people) have been further defined with the categories of Collaboration, Sharing a Shop and Shop Management Help. We clarified our rules for younger Etsians; collectives that include minors under the age of 18 may not utilize community features unless otherwise stated.
Conversations: You may not use Conversations to interfere with a transaction (with details on this in the Transactions section, too). We’ve also elaborated on the definition of “spam” as it relates to Etsy Convos.
Transactions: We’ve added information to the Transactions section, describing the roles of the seller, the buyer and Etsy in a transaction. Additionally, we’ve detailed various concerns or scenarios in which a transaction may be disputed, including: non-payment, non-delivery, refusal of service, dissatisfaction and interference. We’ve also clarified the circumstances in which a transaction may be canceled. In general, the additions to this section outline in greater detail the processes and policies already in place for transactions.
Feedback: To better accommodate custom orders and international transactions, we will be increasing the timeframe for submitting feedback from 90 days to 120 days. (This will go into effect when the policies are “live.”) Additionally, we’ve clarified the circumstances in which Etsy will review feedback for removal, and we’ve lifted the 30-day limitation to requesting a feedback review for policy violation.
Shops and Listings: Formerly called “Selling,” this section has been expanded to include detailed policies about shop set-up, listing items, tagging and specific rules for handmade items, vintage goods and supplies. The section on Tagging is entirely new to the DOs & DON’Ts, but most of this information was available in Etsy’s Help section or through guides posted on Etsy’s blog, The Storque. Expanded sections on rules for handmade, vintage and supplies items should help sellers understand what can be sold on Etsy and how to list items for sale.
Charitable Shops and Listings: Etsy appreciates the spirit of giving back. Due to some laws and the existence of unsavory individuals who may try to take advantage of this spirit, we have added a section for charitable shops and listings.
Prohibited Items: In response to a variety of community concerns, we have clarified our prohibited items list. These items — though they may be handmade, vintage or a crafting supply — are not allowed to be listed for sale on Etsy.
Showcase and Treasury: Making a first time appearance in the DOs & DON’Ts are specific sections for participation in the Showcase and the Treasury. We have gathered information from other areas of the site about these interactive features to formalize as policies in the DOs & DON’Ts.
The DOs & DON’Ts of Etsy, Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy and the Help site all will be updated for consistency. Once we gather your feedback and make any changes, we will launch the final versions of everything together. At that time, we will send an email notice to all members. As stated above, we will also allow a grace period for all members to edit their existing content to comply with any changed policies.
One week later, on October 27, 2009, Etsy announced its fully revised and final version of the D&Ds, and started a fresh discussion thread:
| stellaloella says: |
| Today Etsy has put into effect updated policies for the site in the DOs & DON’Ts of Etsy, the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy.
You can read more about this annual policy update - including an overview of the changes - on Etsy’s blog, The Storque: http://www.etsy.com/storque/article/4974/
These are important changes that every Etsy member should review, so we’re sending out an email notification to all members (with millions of members in our community, it may take a few weeks for the emails to reach everyone).
You can view Etsy’s policies in their entirety at these locations:
* DOs & DON’Ts of Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/dosdonts.php
* Terms of Use: http://www.etsy.com/terms_of_use.php
* Privacy Policy: http://www.etsy.com/privacy_policy.php
* Copyright & IP Policy: http://www.etsy.com/copyright_policy.php
The policies are live and in effect as of today, October 27, 2009; therefore, all your activities or content on Etsy from today forward must be in line with these new policies. We are allowing all members a grace period to bring their existing content (for example: account information, shops, listings) up to speed with any changes in the policies. We also wanted to take into account the timing with the busy holiday season. All members have until the end of the day on December 31, 2009 to edit their content created prior to today’s date (October 27, 2009).
Some of you may recall last week that we provided a preview of the proposed changes to the DOs & DON’Ts of Etsy, one of the main policy documents containing rules for using the site. A big sincere THANK YOU goes out to everyone who read the preview and participated in the resulting discussions in the Forums, email and Conversations. Your feedback was very helpful, and we even made a few tweaks based on your insights.
If you have questions or comments, please join us in the related discussion thread or send email to support [!at] etsy.com.
Discussion thread: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6330324 |
| Posted at 6:51 pm, October 27 2009 EST |
Since that time, a number of questions have been raised and some answers given, though several material changes to the policies have continued to generate a great deal of concern. In addition to the official discussion threads linked above, a sampling of threads by community members seeking clarification on two key issues – no more sale cancellations when there has been a return and refund; finished commercial chains being disallowed as a supply – can be found here:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6338766
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6339177
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6340010
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6330730
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6331770
September 28, 2008 at 9:16 pm · Filed under Privacy, Site Terms · By JB
Etsy updated their privacy policy on September 25.
In an effort to make the Privacy Policy easier to understand and more user-friendly, we have made a few revisions. We have also added information to the policy regarding how your personal information is used for Etsy’s email newsletters and the Invite A Friend feature.
For more information please see this Storque article.
Etsy also sent Etsy Alert emails about the change to members who are opted in to receive those emails, and they have a notice about it when you log in from the Etsy homepage.
Also see this past UEN article about the last change to the Privacy Policy. That time I went through the new policy line by line to find all the changes. If I have time I do plan to do the same thing this time, so check back for updates.
September 11, 2008 at 2:44 pm · Filed under Listings, Miscellaneous, Site Terms, Site Use · By GreenMamba
Today admin Matt, together with the Community and Customer Care Teams published an article in the Storque addressing the very hot topic of resellers on Etsy. It outlines the company’s plan for combatting the influx of infringing shops and goods, which will focus on the point-of-entry - or shop set-up - stage.
Dear Etsians,
With the exception of properly tagged commercial supplies and vintage, Etsy does not permit the reselling of items not made by the seller (see the DO’s and DON’Ts on Selling). We take this rule very seriously, and we share your frustrations when we see resellers intent on listing here. We know that this has been a growing concern of late, and we are addressing it as such.
So, what are we doing?
Creating Measures at the Time of Shop Creation and Product Listing
To a large extent, we created this issue for ourselves by defining in great detail what is and is not permitted for sale on the site, but at the same time establishing few, if any, barriers to entry to setting up a shop on Etsy (simply put a credit card on file). There is no doubt that more emphasis needs to be placed at the first point of contact with new sellers. Our focus must be on keeping these products from ever reaching the site. To this end, we have created an internal team that is focusing on developing and building these safeguards, as well as clarifying and highlighting our policies to new sellers who very well may just be confused. We have been following the many good ideas that have been raised in the forums and sent to community@etsy.com, and we are including them in our planning. We appreciate your input, and ask that you continue to share with us.
This will take some time. So…
In The Mean Time
We have also more than doubled the number of our employees who are trained to properly investigate and remove those in violation. The expanded team is already at work. Furthermore, we have taken steps to make sure that banned resellers are blocked from creating new accounts.
Flagging:
A far more robust flagging system is also already underway and will be implemented in the weeks to come. We are confident that it will allow us to handle flagged items and moderation more quickly and succinctly.
We do ask that you do not use the forums as a place to call out members as resellers (see the Community DO’s and DON’Ts). Oftentimes, these individuals are simply confused. Etsy admin need to treat each and every case (which often involve both buyers and sellers) as a private matter. Furthermore, many cases are not nearly as cut and dry as they may seem at first glance. This sometimes means that shops will not always be removed as quickly as we all would like.
Please continue to flag items that you feel do not belong on Etsy. We do fully investigate every flag, and this takes some time. I know this can be frustrating when it seems that there is inaction on the part of our Content Team, but we assure you that flagging does work. Can it be improved? Yes. Are we improving? Yes.
All of these steps are just the beginning. We will continue to work tirelessly to maintain the integrity of our marketplace. Tomorrow September 12, the Chatt with Matt will be on this subject. Please join us in the Treehouse room of the Virtual Labs at 1pm Eastern time. In anticipation of this discussion, we have closed commenting on this article so we can follow all your comments and suggestions in this forum thread
May 16, 2008 at 12:18 am · Filed under Miscellaneous, Site Terms, Site Use, policy change · By GreenMamba
In this Storque article by admins bethela, Community, emilybidwell, matt, SarahSays, stellaloella, TechUpdates, Etsy details changes to two core site documents, the D&Ds and the TOU. Here is the article in its entirety.
Dear Etsians,
It’s spring! Time to refresh and renew. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing here at Etsy — a bit of spring cleaning. We brought out the site policies and noticed they were looking a little dusty, rusty and rough around the edges. So we’ve polished up the DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use and are pleased to present some shiny, new and improved updates!
Last week we posted a sneak peek preview of the proposed updates to get feedback from the community. After a very positive reception and a few minor tweaks, we’re ready to put these into effect today.
For the most part, the policies are still the same. We’ve reorganized and clarified the existing policies to address some concerns expressed by members over the past year. We have made a few changes and additions. This update is in response to questions and issues raised by our community; our aim was to make the policies easier to understand and to address some of the preceived “gray areas.” For your convenience, we’ll outline the basic changes below, but we expect every member to read through the updated DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use in their entirety.
Both documents have been reorganized to provide a more logical arrangement of information. The Terms of Use has been tightened up as strictly the legal agreement for using the site. The DOs & DON’Ts contain all our site-wide polices that pertain to specific features and functions of Etsy. The DOs & DON’Ts have also been reformatted out of the constraints of the “Do/Don’t” list structure.
Below is the Cliff’s Notes version of the updates. (This will look familiar to those who participated in the preview last week.) Please follow the links to see the specific section where these policies are defined.
Collective shops: The definition and requirements for collective shops have been clarified. (These are the rules for shops with multiple people involved.)
Conversations: Sending a Convo to notify a seller that they are featured in a Treasury list is no longer explicitly considered “spam.” Instead, common sense prevails — do not use Convos for advertising or promotional purposes.
Transaction disputes: Buyers and sellers are encouraged to communicate and resolve matters on their own. Transactions may only be reported in three situations: non-payment, fraud and non-delivery. Issues should only be reported after there has been an effort to resolve the issue between the buyer and seller.
Shop Policies: Sellers now have a dedicated page in their shops to outline personal policies on payment, shipping, returns/exchanges and more. Please note that your shop policies may not contradict any of Etsy’s site-wide policies. You can read more about the Shop Policies feature in this article: Hello Policy.
Non-payment time frame: We have removed the “three days to pay” policy. We trust our sellers to use good judgement in developing their policies and provide excellent customer service. We encourage all sellers to post their payment terms on their Shop Policies page.
Feedback: We’ve outlined the specific situations in which Etsy will consider removing feedback for members. You have up to 30 days from the date feedback was left to contest feedback. Additionally, we’ve expanded Kiss and Make-Up to allow members to resolve neutral (as well as negative) feedback issues on their own. Another feedback change we’ll be making soon: the ability to leave feedback will expire 90 days after the transaction date. That change will go into effect on July 1, 2008, so get your backlog of waiting feedbacks cleaned up before then.
Rules for listings: We’ve clarified a few of the long-standing gray areas, such as: defining vintage and supplies, conditional listings/upgrades, graphic design services and explicitly prohibited items.
Community: We’ve added an official anti-spam rule for the Forums and a policy prohibiting solicitation for donations in the community spaces.
Teams and Storque: Making a first time appearance in the DOs & DON’Ts are specific sections for participation in Teams and The Storque. Nothing here is really new; these polices just have a new home alongside all the others now.
Terms of Use: The alterations to the Terms of Use have been mostly cosmetic, so we won’t get in to the nitty-gritty here. We cleaned up the language to make it easier to understand and reorganized some information to more appropriate sections. We added a new section on Meetings and removed the section on Feedback (as this info is more appropriate for the DOs & DON’Ts). In general, the Terms of Use and DOs & DON’Ts complement one another.
The updated DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use are effective as of today, May 15, 2008. However, there are some changes that will impact existing sellers and shops, and we want to give everyone a fair amount of time to adjust and edit. As such, we are allowing everyone a grace period of seven weeks. The deadline for full compliance is June 30, 2008 (by the end of the day at midnight EDT, for those of you who are sticklers or procrastinators). The grace period only applies to compliance with the changed policies as mentioned in this article.
Be sure the email address in your Account Info is up-to-date; we use this address to send vital messages about your account. An email will be sent to all members about this policy update, as well as the recent Search and Category changes. We are revising the Help section (FAQs and Help Guides) to be consistent. If you’re interested in getting other important news sent directly to your inbox, subscribe to our Etsy News Alert emails.
If you’d like to comment, ask questions or discuss these updates to our policies, please join us in this Forum thread. Etsy Admin Beth (aka bethela) and Lauren (aka stellaloella) will also be hosting office hours in the Virtual Labs on Friday, May 16 at 3pm EDT to chat about the site policies.
May 8, 2008 at 3:00 pm · Filed under Site Terms, policy change · By quirke
In this Storque article, admin gives a preview of upcoming changes to site policies and rules.
Dear Etsians,
One of the things I love most about working at Etsy is that, as a company, we strive to work with our members. We actively engage in discussions with our community, listen to your concerns and use that insight to help us shape the site.
The DOs & DON’Ts of Etsy have been in place for about a year now, and during that time, we’ve gotten a lot of feedback from our community on these site policies, through the Forums, Virtual Labs and emails. Internally, we’ve spent several months gathering that info, discussing and reworking our policies to make them clearer and more balanced — and we’re now ready to share that work with you in a sneak preview.
Why a preview? As I mentioned, it’s important for us to get feedback from the community, to build the site together with you. We’ll be taking a few days to get your reactions and make any necessary final tweaks before we go live with the new DOs & DON’Ts.
For the most part, the policies remain the same, though we’ve reorganized things a bit. There are a handful of substantial changes, which I will highlight below. We’ve also published a special page where you can preview the updated DOs & DON’Ts in their entirety.
Reformatted: The most notable difference in this version is the format, and this is one of the key things we’d like your feedback on. The DOs & DON’Ts are no longer literally “Do/Don’t” statements. It became clear to us that this rigid format was not as helpful as we had originally anticipated. We’ve also added direct links to Help resources for each section. (Although the document isn’t literally “dos” and “don’ts” anymore, we’re keeping the name “DOs & DON’Ts” because our members already know this as the name for our site rules.)
Collective shops: The definition and requirements for collective shops have been clarified. (These are the rules for shops with multiple people involved.)
Conversations: Sending a Convo to notify a seller that they are featured in a Treasury list will no longer explicitly considered “spam.” Instead, common sense prevails — do not use Convos for advertising or promotional purposes.
Shop Policies: With the updated D&D, we’ll be launching a new feature; each seller will have a dedicated page in their shop to outline personal policies on payment, shipping, returns/exchanges and more. Please note that your shop policies may not contradict any of Etsy’s site-wide policies. (More info on this to come soon!)
Non-payment time frame: We’ve removed the site-wide “three days to pay” policy. We trust our sellers to use good judgement in developing their policies and provide excellent customer service.
Feedback: We’ve outlined the specific situations and time frame in which Etsy will consider removing feedback. We will also be tweaking the feedback system’s functionality: Kiss and Make Up will be available for neutral feedback and the ability to leave feedback will now expire 90 days after the transaction date.
Rules for listings: We’ve clarified a few of the long-standing gray areas, such as: defining vintage and supplies, conditional listings/upgrades, graphic design services and explicitly prohibited items.
Community: We’ve added an official anti-spam rule for the Forums and a policy prohibiting solicitation for donations in community spaces.
Teams and Storque: Making a first time appearance in the DOs & DON’Ts are specific sections for participation in Teams and The Storque. Nothing here is really new; these polices just have a new home alongside all the others now.
The Terms of Use, Help Guides and FAQs for the site will also be updated to reflect the changes in the DOs & DON’Ts. Those pieces will launch along with the final version of the DOs & DON’Ts. Once we gather your feedback and make changes (if needed), we will launch everything together. At that time, we will send an email notice to all members. We will also allow a grace period for all members to comply with the any changed policies.
You can see a preview of the revised D&D on their own special page here.
The accompanying forum thread is here.
April 21, 2008 at 5:31 pm · Filed under Listings, Site Terms · By GreenMamba
In this Storque article Etsy admin bethela announces a change in listing times for all items renewed, from today (April 21, 2008) onward.
Excerpt:
Currently, when you renew an item, 4 months are added to the end of your existing listing.
Example: An item listed on February 9, 2008 will expire on June 9, 2008. If you renew today, April 18, 2008, your listing would expire October 9, 2008. Renew again, another four months are added and the item will expire February 9, 2009, and so on.
As part of our ongoing initiative to upgrade the site’s ease of use and improve everyone’s experience, we want to avoid this problem and have made the following change: if you renew an item, four months will be added to the item listing from the date of renewal.
Example: An item listed on February 9, 2008 will expire on June 9, 2008. If you renew today, April 18, 2008, the listing will expire on August 18, 2008.
Current listings with expiration dates beyond four months from today will not be affected. This will only impact listings renewed from today forward. You can read more about this and other upcoming changes in Rob’s summary of our recent Town Hall meeting.
March 6, 2008 at 12:04 am · Filed under Customer Service, Etsy Communications, Site Terms, Site Use, The Future, Uncategorized, policy change · By quirke
In this Storque article, Matt provides a summary of Monday’s discussion on Etsy’s policies and practices.
There is a direct link to the meeting minutes here.
edit by JB:
The posted minutes only contains the written portion of the chat and not Matt’s voice comments.
This past Monday I invited members of the Etsy community to join me in the Virtual Labs to share their comments and concerns. My intention was to give the community an opportunity to speak directly and candidly to us here at Etsy.
We were there to listen, and listen we did.
Over the past couple of weeks, we clearly made some missteps in the forums and customer support. We are sorry for anyone who was affected by our mistakes, and we’ve been reaching out directly to the people involved.
Our aim now is to take action by formulating clear and consistent policies and practices to make sure our community, and our company, will continue to be healthy, helpful, and supportive as we grow.
Here are the key issues raised during Monday’s meetings:
Issue 1: Buyer /Seller Disputes- What Role should Etsy play? What is a venue?
Issue 2: Shop Closures:- What are Etsy’s policies? What due diligence measures are being taken to make sure that mistakes are not made?
Issue 3: Relationship between Etsy’s Policies and a seller’s.
Issue 4: Feedback System - improvements and limitations.
Issue 5: Improving policy documentation: TOU, Dos and Don’ts.
Issue 6: Forum: Policies and environment. Muted sellers.
Issue 7: Admin tone, behavior, and accountability.
The entire Community & Support team is in NYC this week and we’re discussing the these issues. I invite you to email me directly at matt@etsy.com if there are other issues regarding customer support and forum policies that are important to you that weren’t discussed.
One quick note:
Monday’s discussion was rather spur of the moment. I realize how important it is to make sure everyone’s voice is heard, and I apologize to all who did not learn of Monday’s talk in time. I do assure you, however, that they were just the start of what will be regularly occurring conversations.
FYI: The comments as currently posted accidentally repeat the minutes from the morning meeting twice. The minutes for the second session start approximately three-quarters of the way down the page.
February 23, 2008 at 1:32 am · Filed under Etsy Communications, Miscellaneous, Site Terms · By quirke
Seller ArtfulMarket is the latest shop to be shut down under confusing circumstances, according to this forum thread started by ArtfulMarket using another account. ArtfulMarket is one of Etsy’s most successful sellers, with close to 15,000 positive feedbacks, and who makes regular appearances on EtsyTools top sellers lists. At the time of this article’s publication, the ArtfulMarket shop is the “brick wall” indicating a closed account.
lynn61056 says:
I just wanted to let everyone know that I am trying to find out why my shop is gone. I have tried to contact Etsy about it and they sent me an abuse report from a customer who says they never received their order. Funny thing is I can’t find any record of the order in my PayPal account. So it appears they may have shut me down over an order that was never paid for. To all of my loyal customers I will continue to get all of your orders out from the invoices in my PayPal account until I can get this resolved. I am in shock that Etsy would shut me down considering I have almost 15,000 positive feedback. It appears there has been a BIG misunderstanding. I have sent several more emails to Etsy and have not received any response. Please be patient…I am still around!
Please note that Etsy’s version of this incident is not currently available, and ArtfulMarket’s post cannot be verified by UEN at this time.
edit by JB February 25
artfulmarket’s Etsy shop has been reinstated
As well, earlier today, seller Whatyoumacallits reported on the forum (via another account) that her shop had also been closed without warning. Their shop has since been reinstated. Whatyoumacallits has over 140 positive feedbacks and no negatives.
Edit:
A THIRD shop has been reported as closed without prior notice: Thatsmycharm, according to this thread posted by the sellers’s girlfriend (who is a top seller herself). As of February 11th, Thatsmycharm had over 1300 positive feedbacks and no negatives.
Thatsmycharm’s shop was reinstated on Saturday.
According to a statement by admin Kfarrell in this thread, this is Etsy’s notification process:
kfarrell says:
Transaction report emails go out automatically whenever a customer files a nondelivery report. The seller receives an email to let them know a report has been filed, and the buyer receives an email advising them to contact the seller directly. The emails do not assign blame to either party.
If you get a notice of a nondelivery report filed against you, contact both the buyer and support ASAP with any information on when you mailed the package, how it was shipped, where it was shipped from, etc.
for previous coverage of this issue of shop closures without warning, please see these previous articles:
http://etsynews.com/584/two-seller-accounts-deleted-under-strange-cicrumstances/
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)
Edit by Serena 2/22 1:30 ET:
Etsy admin daniellexo recommends the following steps to ward off surprise account closure:
1) Please make sure your email addresses are correct on file. If this address isn’t correct - we can’t contact you and neither can buyers.
2) Add support [!at] etsy.com, abuse [!at] etsy.com and billing [!at] etsy.com to your address book. This way it will not be forwarded to your spam/junk mailbox.
3) Keeping open lines of communication with Admin. We will try to contact you numerous times.
Source: Fora.
January 19, 2008 at 1:52 am · Filed under Customer Service, Forums, Site Terms · By JB
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
November 28, 2007 at 11:36 am · Filed under Images, Listings, Site Terms, policy change · By GreenMamba
Reported in the Storque. This article, quoted in its entirety, can be found here.
In order to clarify Etsy’s policy concerning the use of language and images on the site, Etsy has updated the wording of the DOs & DON’Ts slightly. (Please note that these are not policy changes; these are the same policies that were implemented at the time the DOs & DON’Ts were launched Spring 2007.)
People on Etsy come from many different walks of life; we’re an international, multi-cultural marketplace. These policies are about keeping this community healthy – and growing. Reaching a diverse audience is essential to the success of our marketplace.
New under Member Accounts:
- Don’t use profane or racist language in your username and/or public profile.
New under Selling:
- Don’t use profane or racist language or images in the public areas of your Etsy Shop, such as: username, public profile, item title, first image of a listing, tag, avatar, banner, announcement, and/or shop section.
The rules for listing Mature Content items have not changed.
Please brush up on these policies and make sure your shop is up to date.
An older version of the Etsy D&Ds, dated November 22, 2007 15:49:22 GMT, can be found here.
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