Non spam ends up directly in Spam folder!

[#1]

Wonderful, Etsy is doing something against all the spam we receive...

Sadly it is now completely getting out of hand as messages from potential buyers asking for serious information, can end up directly in the spam folder.
I just found a 2 day old message in the spam box from someone wanting sizing information about one of my items. 

Please be aware of this. 

[botanicallampshades]

Two legit customer messages were mistakenly sent to the spam folder and I did not notice until the next day. I just chatted with support and was not assured that my perfect score would be restored. Just that this issue was still being investigated. Not good enough. 

[BloemLinen]

Not much change I fear. I just found two messages in my spam folder again.

Strangely, all messages that ended up automatically in my spam folder, are written in German... 

[ChillwolfArt]

@BloemLinen  May I ask you something. I usually Sign In once a day anyway. And have checked my Spam Folder just in case. *When you find a Message which Etsy has moved into the Spam Folder, is there any "notation" of that Message (as with other Messages) a "1" for example?

Another thing I don't understand. Etsy is putting some Legit Messages in the Spam Folder (obviously due to a glitch). And yet, I've seen Sellers report getting Messages which are from Scammers. Yet hose have not gone into the Spam Folder.

[BloemLinen]

@ChillwolfArt 

Yes, the messages in the spam folder also have a notation. 

The settings for incoming messages to directly go to spam, are clearly not fine-tuned. 
I've also received a share of true spam messages in the past in my inbox, and non spam messages in my spam box. 
As said, in my case all non spam messages in the spam box were in German. Polite, hello, goodbye, asking for sincere information about the sizing of my clothing. But in another language than English. 

[GouldsCollectibles]

I only found about this when a customer made a purchase and said she had been messaging me for three days!  Until I began to investigate this I had no idea her messages were going into the spam folder.  After explaining to her and reassuring her all was good she was happy to know it wasn't intentional.  Now every morning I am checking the spam folder for any new messages.  Sorry for any of you who have lost sales, I was just fortunate the customer proceeded with the sale and gave me a heads up.  Hopefully Etsy resolves this issue soon.  

[ChestnuttVintage]

Ah, another job on the to-do list - check spam daily.  I've just found a set of messages from a prospective customer who was getting increasingly annoyed at no reply - and I don't blame her!

[MurphyGardens]

Thank for asking @FunkyJunkyVintage Yes, if the message was marked as spam by Etsy and you subsequently move the message out of the Spam folder, your message response rate for Star Seller will not be negatively impacted. We are working to make sure this is reflected in your Star Seller dashboard moving forward.

[GrizzlyWorksRC]

This is only true if it's caught within 24hrs. If you reply after 24hrs it does affect the score. I went from a 100% response rate down to 90% after replying to messages from my spam folder. Because of that I will not be getting star seller for June as the scores from March will be used. 

[MagpieVintageJewelry]

Hi, I’d like to gain clarification about the spam messages in relation to star seller? I was under the impression that if Etsy marks it as spam, not responding doesn’t count towards star seller. We discovered legitimate messages in our spam box, and marked them as not spam so that we could respond properly. Please advise because star seller really does impact visibility on Etsy, and this feels unfair when we didn’t mark the messages as spam in the first place, and therefor it is not fair to count them in the 24 hour response window after we moved them from spam. 

[GrizzlyWorksRC]

What was said by an Etsy rep, in this thread (which is why it's marked as "solved"), is if Etsy auto sorts a message to your spam folder not replying or replying late would not affect your star seller rating. However, that is only half true. In reality not replying has no effect as stated, but if you reply to new messages from your spam folder or mark them as not spam more than 24hrs after receiving the message it counts as a late reply and affects your message response rating. Also, not addressed is the other issue of ongoing message threads ending up in the spam folder after a customer reply. Both issues were/are especially problematic for mobile users as they don't actually have access to the spam folder from the app. That said, it looks like Etsy may have either disabled or modified the sorting bot. It's been a while since anything has gone into my spam folder. I'm still checking it multiple times a day though. 

[MagpieVintageJewelry]

"What was said by an Etsy rep, in this thread (which is why it's marked as "solved"), is if Etsy auto sorts a message to your spam folder not replying or replying late would not affect your star seller rating. However, that is only half true. In reality not replying has no effect as stated, but if you reply to new messages from your spam folder or mark them as not spam more than 24hrs after receiving the message it counts as a late reply and affects your message response rating. Also, not addressed is the other issue of ongoing message threads ending up in the spam folder after a customer reply. Both issues were/are especially problematic for mobile users as they don't actually have access to the spam folder from the app. That said, it looks like Etsy may have either disabled or modified the sorting bot. It's been a while since anything has gone into my spam folder. I'm still checking it multiple times a day though. "

This part, to me directly contradicts what the representative said! This is not fair, Etsy. We respond to people and tried to do the right thing by moving them to the main inbox. This is so frustrating, and I wish they would restore our star seller. We have a 98% response rate. These spam shenanigans dropped us down to 73%. 

[CherishedBlessings]

Read my comment below, it very much does ding your % rating.

[FancyTogs]

It looks like Etsy's fix is to delete the contents of the Spam folder.

I wonder if this means that user accounts whose messages were blocked by being placed in Spam are now unblocked?

Lawrence (Clare's other half)

[JMOldeVintage]

@FancyTogs  - Yes, it appears literally All spam boxes have been emptied??

A message I'd placed in spam (from a scammer) is gone. This wasn't a recent message, it was over one month old. 

[CherishedBlessings]

I want to warn everyone, if you have a message in the spam folder, that ETSY put there and you were unaware of, if you rely to it a few days later, it will ding your start rating greatly. I had 2, I responded a few days later, as I found out they were sitting in my spam folder, and now my % went to 96% from 100%.