Change of birth year on Etsy

[casecore]

Hello everyone, please help me. I was put into vacation mode, provided my passport, and they released me from it. But after my first sale, I was put into vacation mode again and asked to submit my document once more. However, the birth year there has to be different from the one in my passport.

I suspect this information comes from my Payoneer account, which I created long before opening my Etsy shop. Most likely, I entered a random birth year to speed up registration. As far as I understand, changing the birth year there is not possible.

What should I do? If I submit my passport with my real birth year, it won’t match the one on Etsy. Additionally, it says I need to provide a document that includes my residential address, but I’m from Ukraine, and our documents don’t contain addresses—only the city and country of birth. What should I do?

[BagmakerSupply]

@casecore: Did you provide Etsy with the correct data when you opened your shop? Then the documentation needs to match that.

Not sure how the verification process will consider an incorrect birth date on your Payoneer account. Look at it from the perspective of the governments who drafted the anti money laundering rules that are forcing all of this verification - you set up an Etsy shop using fake personal data submitted to your financial institution.

As for the personal address, do you not have something like a driver's license or other identification that includes your residence address?

[casecore]

Thanks for the reply, I'm not sure why my year of birth is incorrect, I probably entered it wrong while creating a Payoneer account a few years ago (I was under 18 at that time), it was a long ago before I opened Etsy shop. About the docs, I only have my passport (ID card) ukrainian one and international, they both don't have my full address on the face side

[PlatypusDream]

"I probably entered it wrong while creating a Payoneer account a few years ago (I was under 18 at that time)"

Trying to avoid the law has come back to bite you.

EVERYTHING must match or Etsy will think you are trying to commit fraud (again).

Start all over. Get another REAL Payoneer account with your ACTUAL details.

[casecore]

How can I do this? And please, don’t make me out to be some kind of huge fraudster. I’m still not sure why my birth date doesn’t match my real birth date; the difference is 3 years, and it could have just been a simple mistake. Payoneer was set up on my phone a long time ago for completely different purposes with an account created and a VERIFIED PROFILE through a photo of my passport, which was manually checked by Payoneer support

[PlatypusDream]

If the dates were verified by Payoneer with your passport, then how can they not match now?

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@casecore "I suspect this information comes from my Payoneer account" You are in Ukraine and have Etsy Payments so it is doubtful that anything on yourt Payoneer account will "speak to " Etsy Payments. You may have received money via Payoneer before Etsy Payments became available for Ukraine, but no information on this was recorded in Etsy Financial Pages. Where, exactly, can you see the incorrect DOB?

" I entered a random birth year to speed up registration" Let us hope that this serves as a warning to others reading this Thread that Financial information must be true and current. Nothing to do with Financial and ID verification should be taken lightly.

[casecore]

That's what I'm trying to figure out. It’s possible that this is not related to Payoneer at all.

[CarpetCollectionAU]

Where, exactly, do you see the incorrect DOB in your Shop? How do you know that the DOB differs? Is it possible that you "faked" the DOB when you set this Shop up as you were under age? 

[casecore]

My shop requires me to upload a photo of my passport in the 'Finance, Legal, and Tax Information' section. It says that the document must show a birth year of 2000, but I was born in 2003. The first time I was sent on vacation, I uploaded a photo of my passport, waited for three days, and it got confirmed, and my shop was taken out of vacation mode. As soon as I made my first sale, my shop was put back on vacation mode, and they requested the information again. It says that the birth year of 2000 must appear on the photo (the name, surname, month, and day of birth are correctly written) and the document must show an address. However, such data is not included on documents in our country. I want to add that I am not the only one facing this issue. There are various Etsy Ukraine groups, and nearly everyone has the same situation as mine. All of us were taken out of vacation mode, but after the first sale, we were put back in. No one understands which document to upload that shows the address, but I now have the added issue with the birth year. I still don’t understand where I might have made a mistake

[casecore]

At the time of creating the shop, I was 21 years old, so there was no reason for me to falsify my birth date. That’s why I think this is related to Payoneer. My shop is only a couple of months old

[CarpetCollectionAU]

OK, after thinking about this a bit more it does seem that the "random" DOB on Payoneer may have caused the problem. Did you open your Payoneer account before you turned 18 and that is why you used the 2000 year on DOB?

This is from the TOUs

"In Argentina, Chile, China, Egypt, Georgia, India, Japan, Pakistan, Peru, Serbia, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, & Ukraine, you will link your Etsy payment account with a Payoneer Payment Account to access Etsy Payments".

As only one Payoneer account can ever be linked to any Shop, even if you close this Payoneer account and open a new one, you will not be permitted to link a second Payoneer account to this Shop. Ans, as you have had one Shop permanently closed for TOU violation, it will probably be impossible to open another.

[GroundZeroCreations]

@casecore 

If any of the required identity documents for Etsy contain incorrect information, your identification cannot be confirmed. Everything must match exactly.

Did Etsy specifically tell you that the issue was with your birthdate? You can check your documents yourself to ensure they all match.

I noticed your shop has been open since at least December 2024, based on a review from that time. Were you able to receive payments until January 2026?

Just a note—if you’re attempting to transfer your shop to someone else, Etsy does not allow that.

Unless Etsy explicitly stated that the birthdate is the issue, try these steps:

1. Go to Finance > Payment Settings and verify all the information.
2. Then, go to Finance > Legal and Tax Information and ensure everything matches.

Finally, compare all this information with the passport you submitted. This should help you pinpoint the issue.

[casecore]

Thank you for the reply. At the second thought, this probably wasn't a Payoneer account because they verified my ID and if there was a wrong information it should have been rejected. So, does anyone know if it's possible to change birthdate on Etsy? I saw an option to change month and day, but cannot find a year change

Today my ID on Etsy have been accepted, but right after the first sale it got back to the verification process. Maybe it's not even about birthdate, but I'm not sure honestly

[CraftyCornishMaids]

Thanks for the reply, I'm not sure why my year of birth is incorrect, I probably entered it wrong while creating a Payoneer account a few years ago (I was under 18 at that time),

you have to be 18 years old to open a payoneer account - you falsified your DOB on payoneer, so you could illegally open an account there

it has come back to haunt you.

etsy is checking your dob on your ID, and it does not match your dob on payoneer, so you will never be verified

.......

Not sure how you can unravel this,

but you will have to close your current payoneer account, and beg payoneer to allow you to open another account, which is legal

you will not be able to link it to this shop, as only 1 payoneer account can ever be linked to  etsy shop

so this etsy shop will have to go.

whether etsy allows you to open another etsy shop, and link it to your new payoneer account - who knows

in future, don't lie to get around financial safeguards

[hopeandjoystudios]

It needs to be in US format of month/day/year. I have read that has caught some up.

[Marmalady]

UK passports do not give birthdate in the US format but are  day / month name / year -- and this was accepted by Etsy for my verification today

But I have no idea where my birthdate is entered on Etsy anyway so don't know what format that is in

[Marmalady]

I  had to verify my information today -- and UK Passports also do not show residential addresses -- but Etsy accepted it as my proof of identity despite saying my proof had to match name address and birthdate

Of course, this does not help with your birthdate issue but if you are able to change the birthdate on your Etsy account to the correct one then your Passport should be fine for verifying your ID

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@Marmalady I think the address issue is covered when on-boarding when Sellers are required to provide Utility Bills / Bank Statement etc with a physical address.

It looks like the re-verification of existing accounts is concentrating more on ID of the Account Holder and that is why DL / Passport are the only documents needed.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

I think the problem is, they put an incorrect birthdate on payoneer, to open that account, when they were actually under 18, and not allowed to open one

so the ID entered here, with dob, will never match the false dob on payoneer

basically, etsy thinks they are not the same person, because of the fraudulent payoneer account

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@CraftyCornishMaids @Marmalady I think I have ben here too long!. I cannot remember where I had to enter DOB on Etsy System. Of course, DOB is on Government issued ID such as DL / Passport, but where can we see this in Etsy?

[Marmalady]

I have been on Etsy so long I can't remember what happened back then -- but I don't think we had to provide any ID at all

We could optionally add a day / month of birth (but no year) and we used to get a message on our shop front wishing us a Happy Birthday!

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@Marmalady I thought it was only US Sellers who were exempt from the Documentation requirements when onboarding. Of course, with the Plaid verification process, this has changed.

I know I had to provide a copy ofa  Bank Account Statement and Utility Bill to prove residential address / Country etc. I also had to provide a Government issued ID. These do have DOB but not residential address. I only know this because I found Folders saved on my Computer with the PDFs of the Documents I used when opening Shops back in the day.

But I cannot recall ever entering a DOB into Etsy itself. That is why I was asking the OP how she knew the DOB was incorrect? Because I cannot see my DOB anywhere in Etsy.

However, apparently, the OP got a notification that the DOB had to be 2000. I am just wondering where Etsy is drawing that information from?

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@Marmalady  " We could optionally add a day / month of birth (but no year)" Yes, I recall that but it was "optional" and I do not think it had anything to do with ID Verification.

I cannot even find the place I entered that day and date now!!

[CraftyCornishMaids]

@CarpetCollectionAU 

Etsy says you need to enter your dob here, to open an account

I can't remember entering mine, but it doesn't mean I didn't do it

not even sure, if they just take it off the ID docs,

but if payoneer has a different dob from Etsy, whether it's an entered dob, or from the ID, it's not going to work.

at the least, they need to delete the payoneer account, which is set up with an illegal dob, as docs will never match

.....

there is a month and day in the public profile, but I haven't filled mine in