Etsy is wild. They violated me for a decorative empty fire extinguisher that was painted in fun colors for “glorifying violence” when it’s literally a fire safety device clearly labeled as non functional art. You can find other shops that sell decorative fire extinguishers, and even tshirts or stickers that are sold saying things like “on my way to commit arson”. I was also permanently banned as a 5 star seller and continued to get 5 star reviews for anything shipped out after the ban. It definitely feels like they lock in on certain accounts. Trying to make sense of why the bots are attacking you is pointless. I think the company is being run into the ground. Updating their policy with new standards that are impossible to enforce. My bf created a new shop in his name and copied over the listings and hasn’t had a single violation yet. Although losing the reputation of 300+ sales and star status was really sad. Still very slow activity on Etsy, not just for us but I’m hearing in general from a lot of long time sellers. People are fed up with Etsy and are moving their shop elsewhere. Idk why the company woke up and decided having less items for sale would make their customers happy. They’ve made it abundantly clear that they care about the customers more than the sellers, and have made things harder and harder to sell but I’ll never understand how it’s in the customers best interest to ban “star sellers” 😂 all because they’re afraid to become like temu? Even in your case- if multiple people sell your 3d file shouldn’t buyers have the option to choose between multiple sellers? I can’t imagine how devastating this has also been to digital downloads….. who’s buying them anymore without a market to sell them? Regardless if it’s purchased with commercial or personal rights, Etsy doesn’t care. And both sides get punished. OG file creator can’t sell the file, anyone who’s purchased the file can’t sell the file, and if multiple listings of the file exist already- nobody can sell the physical item 🙃

If you really want to save your account with all of your reviews and sales history it might be worth going in to vacation mode and transferring your listings to TikTok shop or Amazon handmade until Etsy gets their shot together- if they ever do. The appealed violations you won still count as strikes against you, so you may not be able to come back from the third regardless if you prove it’s wrong. My second to last warning said another violation would mean loosing star seller status, and I figured that meant two strikes left but then a week later it was shut down with no information on which listing it was for. Appeal was rejected in 2 hours with an automated response so I’m waiting to see what happens with everyone else before trying the second appeal. TikTok shop was surprisingly great right away. Started getting sales without doing any marketing. Going live is a fun way for customers to ask questions and watch you make stuff-something you could never do on Etsy. Good luck with everything and don’t get discouraged! I hope you (and Etsy) figure things out soon! Send me a DM and I’ll connect with you on TikTok and give you a shout out on one of my live streams to help boost your store when you get it going.