Curious what you all think of this.
I am wondering how closing all of the forums except for announcements and TECHNICAL ISSUES (to the public) is supposed to help protect sellers. Scammers are most likely coming to this forum, specifically the technical issues board to plan their next social engineering campaigns. For those who have been paying attention, a lot of these scamming attempts are taking advantage of the fact, that Etsy has been closing/limiting/suspending sellers accounts very aggressively, not providing any real urgent sense of help, and in turn this is the methods scammers are using to try and phish their victims. They are capitalizing on the emotional limbo sellers are in when they believe their account is at risk.
Etsy is leaving sellers to come to these forums for any help or assurance, and not being very attentive when issues are raised. While scammers are providing "hope" to those who have been lead to believe their accounts are closed/limited/suspended by Etsy, by posing as Etsy in their messages and giving them "solutions" to get the problem fixed.
There is no doubt a lot of opsec all sellers must maintain nowadays, but the current climate of Etsy's AIs aggressive "moderation" (blocking messages, false non-handmade claims, etc) leaves sellers exposed and vulnerable when trying to get they help they need.
Would love to hear your thoughts ( :
