Buyers getting charged twice for the same item

[TheCraftyLittleBug]

This is the second time this has happened to me in as many days. I hear my little cha-ching and check my order to find that I have two orders by the same buyer and for the same item. It has to be some kind of glitch.

These last couple of times hasn't been the first time, it's happened earlier, in April. I keep having to message the buyer to confirm it was an accident, and then cancel/issue the refund.

Is this happening to anyone else? Super annoying. And it probably doesn't look good for my shop to be cancelling all these orders.

[cindylouwho2]

I have one of these myself today, and haven't heard back yet. It's been years since it happened to me. 

[CanningCrafts]

I've had this happen numerous times over the years. Sometimes it's an accidental purchase. But I've also had times where the buyer placed two separate orders for the exact same thing, one after another. So I always confirm before canceling.

[ButterflyFeetDigital]

I've had it happen, if it turns out to be a mistake, I cancel. Once a woman explained she wanted to share it with her grandchildren. 

[SmudgePlant]

It happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I got a reply when I emailed the customer. Lately no one seems to answer my Etsy messages.

[NanaLetha]

When that happens to me I wait to hear from the buyer. Only once it was buyer error.

[LillyDaisybyEgirls]

OMG, this happened to me last month from one of my returning customers. She placed an order for 2 items, then about 30 minutes later, my cha-ching went off and it was her again with the another order for  one of the same items. I reached out to her to see why she placed 2 orders for the same item- she said she only placed one order . Then about 10 minutes later, the third order for the same item - then you are not going to believe this,,, yes, the 4th order came in for the same items.... I really thought I was going crazy. I had to deactivate the listings in order for it to stop... and I refunded 3 of the 4 orders- reached out to Etsy but of course they were no help, they just told me to refund the duplicates....... insane!!!

[BedazzledbyDebi]

This just happened to me this morning. It surely does not look good from a buyers standpoint. Hopefully this glitch gets fixed soon.

[CanningCrafts]

Wow, that is crazy! When I get duplicates, they are usually at the exact same time or a minute or 2 apart.

[SurnamePro]

When that happened to me I checked the order numbers on both orders. They were different and the orders were placed minutes apart. I contacted the buyer to confirm they ordered twice for the same item and offered to cancel one of the orders and this is what they wanted. So I made one sale and cancelled the other. Problem solved.

[cindylouwho2]

My buyer got back to me and asked to cancel, thank goodness. I have actually had people purchase through multiple orders, so I do always check instead of assuming. 

[michellepatterns]

This happens to me every once in a while and if they orders come with the same time stamp or off by one minute, I don't ask the buyer and just refund and cancel for duplicate order. It's not physically possible for them to checkout twice in that amount of time.

Even with two windows open and going as fast as they can, it is highly unlikely a person could submit two separate orders that arrive at exactly the same time. It's also unlikely anyone would be trying to do this so all the signs point to it being a glitch.    

I'm sort of surprised it doesn't happen more frequently when you consider that many thousands of orders are being processed at the same time every second of every day. If there is a momentary lapse in the connection or the systems just have too much to process the transaction is probably automatically run again which mistakenly results in two orders.   

[cindylouwho2]

@michellepatterns "Even with two windows open and going as fast as they can, it is highly unlikely a person could submit two separate orders that arrive at exactly the same time" Mine yesterday arrived 44 minutes apart. Someone above reports 4 orders from the same person, some as much as half an hour apart. Since I have had buyers decide to place a second order and not contact me before (more often than I get duplicate error orders, in fact), I would never, ever assume that a duplicate order should be cancelled. I always check. 

I haven't had duplicate orders happen in years, and the rise in reports here does seem to indicate a separate issue from the normal volume of sales. You'd expect this to happen more often during the Christmas rush if this was volume-related. 

[michellepatterns]

Yes, if it arrives at a different time you should check. But they can't submit two separate orders at the same exact time.  It's not possible.  

[AutumnHollowStudio]

I wonder if this is happening when the buyer uses the app, or web browser. Or it duplicates regardless

Sometimes when I get an order I hear two cha-chings, one right after the other from the app notification. But no duplicate orders as most of my stuff has only one quantity 

[irmaKdesigns]

@AutumnHollowStudio "I hear two cha-chings"

I get double cha-ching too sometimes, like two orders came in. I have quantities of one, so one order. I wonder if this glitch is connected to duplicate orders.