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[ChillwolfArt]

Sorry you got hit with this. I posted the following to another Seller earlier:

"Any Message which is not Initiated by you, must be Responded to or Marked as Spam.  It could be a Message from a different string.  If that is the case, you could say "Heading on over to answer your other Message."  If it's a Help Request, you must Respond.

You may receive a Message from another Seller about your Order.  That still counts, as it is not Initiated by you.  I've only had one Account for both selling and buying.  Before the SS Metrics, I would Reply, "Thank You." The same would apply today.

You may receive a Message from a Seller that you know, "How's it going?"  This still counts, you did not Initiate that Message.
A Message which says for example, "Buy my gems, 30% off"; boom, goes in Spam."

Hope this is helpful to you.

[ChristmasIsLove]

All messages count. Etsy does not read the content of messages. The rules are clearly stated on your Star Seller Dashboard. Etsy will not re-evaluate your status, and they do not entertain requests for re-evaluation from Forum posts. You can write to them to ask, but I think they will tell you the same thing that I just did.

[GieseDeseiGns]

ALL initial messages must be answered, the bots do not read messages, they just see ones that haven't been answered, this is the way it has been from the beginning. Any message that is from another buyer, your seller sending duplicate message, or from new post, your best friend saying hi. All first messages must be answered. You can mark this as SPAM and it will go back up in a couple of days, but, unfortunately it will not give you the star. FYI you may want to have a buyer only account so this does not affect your star, although I think it causes more angst than its really worth which isn't much.