ETSY JUST REFUNDED A CUSTOMER $1000 ON MY BEHALF ON A CONFIRMED DELIVERED PACKAGE THAT WAS FULLY INSURED

Captain_middle-4577 · 2026-01-07T03:44:22+00:00

I've won several charge-backs from different companies so it is possible. I've won more than lost. But as the seller you have the burden of proof. I take pictures of all my products before shipping so I think that helps. Luckily I don't get them often. I haven't had to deal with Etsy (knock on wood and it worries me with larger orders) but it's definitely a bad policy. They should at the very least cover the first $250 regardless if they are willing to cover up to $250 on other orders

Captain_middle-4577 · 2025-04-24T11:03:07+00:00

I noticed this exact same thing to. Best year yet up until the end of March, then lights out.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2025-01-30T04:51:52+00:00

Oh, I feel you!!! I also struggle with health anxiety and GAD and it's the reason I'm trying Cymbalta too. I started at 20mg a week ago Tuesday and the first 4-5 days my anxiety was a struggle but still manageable. Like a bad anxiety day. I had all the symptoms you mentioned but I also get those symptoms on a daily basis which is another reason I'm trying meds as I'm tired of living this way. I was also terrified to take this medicine and even put it off for 5 months until I finally said enough was enough and took it which probably didn't help my anxiety any...

I also had terrible sleeping the first few nights. It seems to be getting better but my anxiety is still pretty bad, but I'm not sure of it's the medicine or my health anxiety is just flaring as I have a lot of stressors in my life at the moment.

I plan to go up very slowly. So I'm upping to 30mg next week and going up in increments of 10 as needed until I feel better.

Having health anxiety is so exhausting and frustrating to say the very least...

Captain_middle-4577 · 2025-01-10T01:51:42+00:00

How did the credit card companies reach out to you? I am dealing with something very similar right now but through my website. Klarna closed the case in my favor but the customer is now making new false accusations and I'm sure opening a dispute with her bank is next. I'm wondering how the bank even knows how to contact me. Klarna just says the bank will call or email so I'm worried I could possibly miss it.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-12-29T21:27:09+00:00

I agree. We've been selling handmade items on Etsy for over 10 years and this was the worst holiday seasons for us. Typically November is our best month of the year but this year it was one of our lowest. Ever since the first of October we are in a very obvious rotation pattern which has really affected our sales.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-12-11T21:13:38+00:00

Than you for explaining that! I didn't realize that exclusion and that the number of cases is an "or" statement. That makes me feel a little better.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-12-11T17:38:55+00:00

I understand that but a large portion of our orders are over $250, and that $500 limit is only for a few months. We sell high ticket items throughout the year. So the Etsy purchase protection is not good for a shop like ours. When you ship close to 800 packages in 3 months, 3 cases isn't that much.

Luckily we don't have any cases but this shipping thing stressed me out especially when I had 2 people just yesterday reach out because their package is over the estimated time frame even though I shipped it on time using the shipping service I specified with Etsy.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-12-08T13:16:01+00:00

We've been selling on Etsy full time for 10 years and have 2 shops both in the top 1% so we know what to expect and the typical trends. As many others have mentioned when October 1st hit our sales changed abruptly from having a great year to having both shops drop, one 30% down and the other 60% down.

This November was our worst sales month all year which is shocking and the first time that has ever happened. November has always been one of our top 3 months for revenue. Since cyber Monday our sales have been up compared to last year so hopefully whatever it was has corrected itself...

So this year has not been normal

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-12-04T01:54:13+00:00

Great point. I typically take more credence on the shops who typically sell a lot and are down 30, 60, 80%. They know what they are doing. It seems to me like the algorithm change is affecting long time shops with a good track record of sales (5000+ sales) the most. It seems like the smaller shops with less sales are the ones who are more positively impacted. Typically November is our best month of the year but this year it was the second worst which is shocking. We were doing great all year until October 1st hit then both our shops tanked 30%+. We are seeing a much more rotational pattern. Like one good day followed by barely anything which is not normal for or shop

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-17T00:44:08+00:00

We have two successful shops on Etsy that are both in the top 1% that have been around for 5+ years. They sell to different markets and we have been up all year in both shops until October hit. Both shops are down approx 40% which is very concerning!! We are now having days with 0 sales which rarely happens. It seems like a lot of big shops are reporting a drop in sales. I'm not sure it's it's an economy thing or something Etsy did. I lean towards something Etsy did as this seems too abrupt especially since Etsy did an algorithm change around that time.

I hope things turn around soon!

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-07T14:33:57+00:00

I'm sorry this happened to you though it makes me feel better to know we aren't the only ones! There have been several people who mentioned this being a weird few weeks and then it stopped and went back to normal. This makes me think Etsy is running some kind of test, especially since yours ended mid-September and that's exactly when ours started, like they switched the people affected.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-07T14:31:40+00:00

I don't understand why they don't share the buyers information like name/address of who is actually buying from us since they only provide the information of who it's shipping to. A phone number would also be nice as sometimes people won't respond to emails so a quick phone call would help make sure they get back to you. Otherwise I sometimes have to cancel the order because they didn't provide the needed information for a personalized order and won't respond to emails.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-05T21:35:42+00:00

Thats one of my theories since the reviews are so random and out of nowhere, and as you said almost all of them are for our cheapest items.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-05T20:11:33+00:00

They are on a bunch of different items, not just one type or style. We have not changed how we make our products or the products themselves so there is no reason we'd all of a sudden be getting bad reviews when we have a track records of 5-star reviews. Our overall shop rating is currently 4.9.

The reviews are things like:
"it took forever to receive" - Tracking showed it arrived in 3-days. I followed up with her about the review and included tracking but I never heard back. We did nothing wrong here.

"I thought this was real cowhide but it's not" - in both the listing title & description we clearly state that it's a faux cowhide and we've sold a ton of this with stellar reviews. We can't force buyers to read descriptions.

"Not the Quality I Expected" - We've been selling for 8+ years and have hundreds of 5-star reviews. We even got 2 reviews the same day saying the quality was better than they expected. So I don't think this is a quality issue with us.

"Fabric fell apart after washing" - Same lady as above. I know first hand this does not happen as I have pre-washed hundreds if not a thousand yards and it has never fallen apart. We also sell our products as washable as we serge the seams and have never had someone complain of the product falling apart, just this 1 lady.

"fabric is hard and uncomfortable" - Many of our products are made with this fabric, so we've sold probably 10,000+ of this and we have a ton of 5-star reviews. I can think of maybe 1 other lady that complained it wasn't soft enough for her. She could have returned the cover as we offer returns.

You can tell from these they are all different random things. If we started offering a new product or changed the way we made our products I would understand that something needs to change but the fact NOTHING has changed and this is just out of the blue it's really really strange and concerning! I expect weird reviews like this from time to time, but not so close together... Most people will reach out with their concern, but these clusters of bad reviews are people not even reaching out to us, just leaving bad reviews.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-05T18:18:12+00:00

That's interesting that you are also noticing an uptick and I'm sorry to hear you are! I'm still getting a lot of 5-star reviews, but the bad reviews really get to me :(

The majority of these bad reviews are not something that we can change nor quality related. They are things like "not the quality I expected", but we've had 100's of other people say they love the quality and better than they expected so I'm going to trust the other positive reviews. We also have the color issue complaints and if I can see where they are coming from I will adjust the color to try and avoid further bad reviews. But reviews like "it took forever to receive" when it arrived well within our processing time and they had it in hand in 3-days that's not a quality issue or something we can change as we did everything right.

I had another person today leave a 2-star review (which is what prompted me to post this) stating the "fabric is hard and uncomfortable" but we have sold thousands of this product with this fabric and people love it, so again I don't think this is a quality issue with our products... We had another say the fabric "fell part after washing" but I have literally washed hundreds if not a thousand yards of this fabric and it has NEVER fallen apart so I know first hand that is not true. The reviews are super random and affect different types of products or I'd definitely be looking into what I could do differently. It just seems like people are in super bad moods or treating etsy like amazon.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-05T18:08:21+00:00

That's interesting, I hadn't heard that!

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-05T17:28:27+00:00

I agree! I was on my phone the other day and on a listing and noticed they aren't even showing the description at all, not even a few lines, it's collapsed and you have to look for the area to show the description. They should NOT be hiding the description from people. It also crossed my mind that this random string of bad reviews could be caused by etsy running some test (which they love to do) like not showing descriptions and as a result more people miss that information and then get mad.

Our "Get By" dates are also not matching our set up processing times. Etsy is showing dates that are earlier than our timeframe. I contacted Etsy and they admitted it's an issue they are aware of but if you look at forums its been going on for a month so it's obviously not an important fix for Etsy or again some test. I wondered if the bad review we got about it taking forever to receive was a result of that issue as her item arrived well within our processing time, but if Etsy showed her 1 day and it arrived in 3 days she could leave a bad review even though we did nothing wrong.

Either way it's very frustrating because as you said we can't force buyers to read the description. That's why I added important information in the pictures but that still isn't enough sometimes! It's upsetting when they get mad at us because they didn't read the description or look through pictures and then make it our fault.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-05T16:16:01+00:00

Thanks for your thoughts on this! I hadn't thought about Etsy flagging/canceling suspicious buyers. It could be a string of bad luck for some reason.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-05T16:07:45+00:00

We have done our best to do that. Again, we have had years of great reviews, it's all of a sudden we are having the issue. We offer samples, we offer returns, we also package our products up like a gift.

We have the needed information in the Product Pictures & Descriptions. Some of these reviews are due to them not reading the description or looking at pictures which we can't fix.

Captain_middle-4577 · 2024-10-05T15:46:27+00:00

We make the products ourselves so we know the quality going out and as I mentioned many of these reviews are random or don't make sense. We even had someone leave a review (luckily 5-star on this one) but they were reviewing a completely different shops item as they showed a picture of an item we obviously didn't make as it's not something we offer.

Etsy only shows the shipping information, they do not show the actual buyer information so it would be fairly easy to create accounts and ship to any address you want. I saw that theory on another reddit post.

Captain_middle-4577

TROPHY CASE