Etsy took my star seller badge because I did not respond to the same message twice!

[WoodpeckerTrCrafts]

My client requested to cancel his order  with help request at 1.12.2022 12:40 PM EST. She messaged me about his request at the same date at 12:43 PM. I responded at 12:46 PM (3 minutes later) and canceled the order immediately as she said the order was accidental. But in my Star Seller stats, it says that I did not respond to his message within 24 hours because I did not write anything to the help request. To sum it up: Now I am not able to earn my Star Seller Badge because of not responding to a message within 24 hours but I responded to it within 3 minutes!

I do not understand why Etsy has such a policy that the sellers have to respond to duplicate messages and I can not see the reasoning behind punishing the sellers just because they do not respond to the same message twice! I have been spending months managing my shop in a near perfect way, responding to every message almost instantly, shipping all products within 1-2 days, 100% delivery success rates, getting great reviews from my clients (almost all of them comment about how great my response time and communication has been)...

Etsy is telling me that I had to respond to a message (that I responded within 3 minutes!) twice to be a star seller. This is so unfair and has no logic behind it. This is such a poor classification of the sellers.

Etsy must have the technical capacity to understand that the seller responded to the buyer and resolved the issue (by cancelling the order). Why I am being punished Because of Etsy' lack of technical capacity to come to this conclusion? 

[CraftyCornishMaids · Accepted solution]

You have to reply to each new message thread once

they are highlighted in BLUE, so you can't miss them.

It's always been the same,

It's the simplest thing etsy has ever implemented

....

the ordinary messages, and "help request" messages are separate threads, as the "help request" ones start he 48 hour clock for a case to be opened, so have to be separate

[WoodpeckerTrCrafts]

Thanks for replying. Yes highlight in blue helps to not miss unresponded messages but help requests has a different icon next to them.

Don't you think It is weird to respond to the customer twice?

Other than that, the customer starts a help request 'to cancel an order'. And you do cancel the order immediately. Why does a resolution not count as a response?

[CraftyCornishMaids]

order responses are not linked to messages,

even if you put comments in the order, they are not linked to messages, it's a separate program.

You can always reply - responded in your other message

or just with an emoji,

[ClassX · Accepted solution]

Just mark the second message as spam and you will get your star seller badge back within a day or two.

[WoodpeckerTrCrafts]

Thanks for replying. I now did mark the help request message as spam.

I hope it helps but I think It will not work because I replied it after finding out I had to.

And also I dd not respond to the help request message rather than the normal message. Does it matter?

[ClassX]

It won't matter.  Marking it as spam, whether you've replied or not, will remove it from your message board and give you your star seller badge back.  It may take a day or two.  

I had a similar issue and received my star back.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

@WoodpeckerTrCrafts 

as you refunded, it doesn't matter you did not respond to the help request message,

however, if you hadn't responded, and they opened a case, etsy would automatically refund, and claim back from you, as you HAVE to respond to those help request messages for seller protection

[ClassX]

@WoodpeckerTrCrafts 

Don't forget to mark the message I sent to your shop as spam too, or respond with something. 

[JeweletsNewYork]

It doesn't work, it's not possible.

[TinCupHappy]

Tbh I hate this star seller thing. I would have it if only some buyers hadn’t come to collect from me instead of shipping it. If someone in my town buys one of COURSE I am going to give them the option to collect. It’s ridiculous. I also hate getting into messages and feel like saying ‘please let me be the one to wrap up this convo - don’t reply again because I have to keep replying!’ 
I do feel your pain! I almost don’t want SS now so I don’t need to obsess about losing it!

[CraftyCornishMaids]

@TinCupHappy 

you only have to reply ONCE to each new message thread, you don't have to keep replying

[VintageGiftsEE]

Yes , you just have to respond every message but mark message without respond as a spam and your score will restore in few days  

[WoodpeckerTrCrafts]

Thanks a lot ClassX, the Star Seller information menu is just updated now within less than a day.

The help request message I responded after 24 hours (after learning I had to) is now not taken into account in message response rate calculation after I marked it as spam.

[1960sDollHouse]

Sometimes on my cell phone only, a message does come through twice. I have no idea why? but I do just send an emoji to the duplicate message. 

[JackisJustVintage]

If you just marked as spam, it may not count for this month. It is the last day, and it can take a day or so to update, but it will help for next month.