Help request isn't working correctly.

[EccentricHandbags]

I've had this happen twice now.  I send a help request.  When I get a response it is blank.  The orange circle is there, the thread is at the top of the page.  I click on it and there isn't a message.  The smaller circle that shows the number of messages in the thread does not match what is really there.  There are messages missing.  Sellers are responding to me, but they are not coming through.

[NanaLetha]

Are you talking about chat? Etsy help works with chat or email not messages 

[EccentricHandbags]

No.   

[hopeandjoystudios]

Is there any way they are just spamming a help request to avoid it because they know it blocks the buyer? CAN you spam a help request??

[EccentricHandbags]

What?

[hopeandjoystudios]

If when you send some seller a help request, can they push the spam button on it to not have to deal with it or to duck the 24 hour reply? ..and if so, what do you as a buyer see? I know Etsy recently changed it to if you spam a message, it blocks the person sending it.

[BagmakerSupply]

@EccentricHandbags: "I send a help request." You mean a Help Request to a seller, correct? "When I get a response it is blank."You are referring to the response from the seller?

Are you experiencing this using an Etsy app or via browser?

[EccentricHandbags]

Correct.  Browser.  

[TheVintagePineapple]

The same thing happened to me last week.  There was a '1' (a reply) on my dropdown for Help messages, and the message did have '2' on it, but there was nothing there except for my initial Help Request.  The next day there was a repeat and now the message total said ''3''.   It occurred to me that the seller was having a problem, but since she also never sent the thing I bought 3 weeks earlier, it could be that she wasn't monitoring her new shop.  

My only option after another week was to open a case and get a refund.  Got the refund and then the seller sent me a new regular message outside of the Help request.  So could the problem just be happening on Help requests?  idk

[EccentricHandbags]

I think this is a glitch.  I replied to the nothing there asking if she had sent me a reply and she responded this time.  Her original reply still isn't there.     

[CarpetCollectionAU]

Is is possible that the Seller replied with a . (dot) and nothing else?

I received a similar "empty" reply to a Help Request recently and, when I looked closely, there was a reply, but it was just a  . (dot)

To my knowledge, a Help Request cannot be spammed. But anything entered into the message reply counts as a response, 

[TheVintagePineapple]

@CarpetCollectionAU  No, there were no empty reply boxes either.  The regular message that I did receive from the seller said she wasn't even aware she made her first sale or read the Help request.  She apologized, because she actually ''forgot'' she had a shop!  Why the HReq said there were '2' replies to mine, idk.

[hopeandjoystudios]

@TheVintagePineapple  For cornsake..no wonder I got a "Are you and active seller?" question this week!  I replied Yes I am! And she said Great I will place an order then! Is this what we have come to??