Feedback extortion?

[Former_Member]

Theoretically, let's say someone bought a box of 50 glass jars, and two of them broke during transit. The buyer messaged and asked for a refund. I apologized and offered her a refund of the value of the jars. She responded that she wanted 5x the value of the jars returned because she had to go through the trouble of sending me a message to ask for a refund. I told her that I wasn't going to do that, and perhaps she should try filing a claim with the USPS. Her response was that something along the lines of 'maybe I'll just leave negative feedback.' She also made a reference to the fact that there had been a 3 star feedback from a buyer who purchased something similar & had some broken pieces (but didn't contact for a refund).

Anyway, is this considered feedback extortion? Is this something that Etsy will take action on, or not?

Thanks!

[Former_Member]

Yes, it sounds like feedback extortion.

You may want to read this help article
https://www.etsy.com/help/article/5616

[Former_Member]

Reported. Thanks!

[Former_Member]

Yup thats outrightly holding you to ransome. Had the customer simply asked for a refund and not got greedy with 5X refund, it would have just been just another transaction accident.

[CircusOfCelebrations]

Yes, Thanks Crochetgal! I always worried about that, but didn't know they had a way to report it.

[Former_Member]

That's crazy Jenny. So sorry this happened to you! I have wondered if a customer could do something like that.

[Former_Member]

Yes, thank you Crochetgal! That's happened to me before but I didn't know we could report it. Good link to have.

[Former_Member]

Hopefully this gets taken care of. I haven't had this experience, but as a buyer I left a review for an item that was mostly positive with 1 note of something that wasn't so great about it. This was when you could leave feedback for buyers as well, and the seller left me a negative completely trashing me for my review! Luckily, I reported it and Etsy removed the feedback from my profile.