Purchase Protection Program Eligibility

[FoundAndFlogged]

Good morning everyone. We've just received news this morning about goods that were sent from France to the US that have arrived damaged in transit. The customer sent us a message along with three photos to support the fact, and I'm sure that his claim is legitimate.

I've been reading through all the blurb about the purchase protection program for about an hour, to make sure that the order qualifies for a payout from Etsy with no wriggling...

The initial discoveries were that firstly a help request should be sent to the shop, then 48 hours later a case must be opened against us for resolution (hopefully) by Etsy. This of course inconveniences the customer to some degree, more so if they sent a message rather than a help request initially. If this is the case I'm already not liking it - cases against your shop don't look good on you, and in my view the customer should not be having to jump through hoops to retrieve their money.

I spent considerable time trying to get my head around everything, then read that if it was a "guest purchase" (it was), the customer has to create an Etsy account before being allowed to submit a help request & thereby gain access to the program.

Before this discovery, I was already feeling uneasy about asking our customer to start a help request and a case against us. If he also has to create an account here before Etsy rather than ourselves will take good care of him, I imagine that he may well consider all these things together too much of an inconvenience and refuse - or at the very least be very upset, and this will probably be reflected in a negative review - after all this is not his fault in any way.

Does anyone know if there is a way for a guest to claim against the program without needing an Etsy account they may well not want?

Thanks for the help, Ed Short

[Spellbinderie]

There's no way around it, the guest must first get an Etsy account then proceed thru the steps.

The protection policy is, in my opinion, set up to help sellers when the buyer can't be prevented from opening a case.   Otherwise it seems to me that Etsy wants sellers to work out the problem on their own -- hence all the hoops.  Etsy just packaged it up as something sweeter than it really is in reality.  

I'm assuming you didn't send the item insured so there is no recourse with La Poste or whatever company you used? 

[MyOrganisedHome · Accepted solution]

Etsy’s Purchase Protection is very much set up to favour the buyer, not the seller.

If there is even the slightest chance that Etsy may not pay out of their own pocket then I would steer clear of directing your customer from using it. If Etsy reimburse the customer from your funds, not theirs, then it will likely count as a strike against your shop.

As you were shipping internationally there is a high probability that you had some kind of insurance cover included - make sure to check this. If you have any cover whatsoever, even if only for the postage itself and not the goods, Etsy will say the order is ineligible for Purchase Protection.

As the order has arrived damaged and your customer has provided photographs Etsy will ensure they get a refund if a case is opened. As you have noted, the hoops the customer is required to jump through are considerable. This is deliberate. A Case is a last resort appeal to Etsy, a formal complaint about your shop, and Etsy would far rather sellers reimburse customers directly without them having to get involved.

I doubt Etsy would allow a customer to be given a workaround to open a case without an account as Etsy keeps a log of the interaction and that’s easier for them if both parties have an account.

[FoundAndFlogged]

@Spellbinderie @MyOrganisedHome Thanks for the input. The Laposte economy service for professionals that I used will reimburse just 5 Euros per consignment under any circumstances, and the form-filling plus all the obstacles they throw at you before they will even do this much makes the whole thing a complete waste of time and not worth the effort.

@MyOrganisedHome I am both surprised and disturbed by Etsy not paying out if you have any insurance cover at all...

So the whole thing is as I imagined it would be, and similar to the obstructive and difficult attitude of insurance companies these days.

Are you sure of what you are saying? Almost everything you send out with any shipping carrier has at least a minimal/token amount of cover, I think they have to give this by law.

If what you say is true, nothing is actually covered by Etsy for either damage or loss. I can't see why they would do all the trumpet blowing and tell sellers that they are helping us if this is so. Surely they would not mislead us and waste our time like this?

I'm curious to know where you got this information. Cutting to the chase, I think I've wasted enough of my day on this nonsense & I am going to refund the customer from our own pocket.

Have a good one, and thanks again for the help.

[MyOrganisedHome]

As @CraftyCornishMaids has quoted, Etsy’s choice to refund is very much at their discretion, and as such I wouldn’t wish to rely on this whatsoever.

If you have €5 cover as standard Etsy would expect you to claim that first. Then, they may choose to cover for the rest of the order value. However they would expect you to refund the buyer that €5 so it’s anyone’s guess if they felt inclined to ‘top up’ the insurance that, on the face of it, you chose not to obtain. If the order arrived damaged and your carrier refused to honour their insurance then Etsy may well cover you.

I believe the main value (to the seller) lies in cases where tracking shows the item has been delivered but the buyer claims not to have received it. Etsy is more likely to refund from their own pocket in these cases than where an item has arrived damaged as obviously the carrier would not pay out for a lost item when they have tracking to prove they delivered it.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

@FoundAndFlogged 

If the item arrived damaged, you should claim against your insurance, and refund the customer.

The purchase protection for the buyer, is for when the seller refuses to refund the buyer, so the buyer is forced to open a case

Whether Etsy will then refund out of their pocket, or recoup from you, depends on circumstances, but etsy definitely expects you to claim from your shipper.

If a seller has obtained third party insurance, or has carrier, and/or payment processor coverage, we ask that they first submit a claim to their primary coverage. Etsy reserves the right to process a refund only where other coverages do not apply.

[LeLightFantastique]

I always buy the LaPoste/Colissimo optional insurance purchased at the time of paying for the shipping label.  There is some inbuilt cover depending on the weight of the parcel, but it is usually way below the item value, so I purchase insurance for the true contents value as shown on the customs form.  The insurance cost varies depending on the value of the contents, and although LaPoste takes time to refund, they have always eventually paid out on receiving photos of the package with shipping label on, photos of damaged items and the invoice to the customer.  Last pay-out I received was for 260€ for a parcel to Canada which arrived crushed. It took a year of them requesting electronic and snail mail proof before they paid out in full, but I had immediately refunded the buyer.  if I had another item arrived damaged, I would not bother with the Etsy protection thing - it is full of hoops and hurdles and is not there to help the seller.

[FoundAndFlogged]

@LeLightFantastique Thanks for the info - I'm unsure if extra insurance is available on a "paquet prioritaire" though, which is the service we all generally use in France for reasons of economics.

The standard insurance on Colissimo is pretty good @ 23€ p.k; but I have found that they create unnecessary delays and are very obstructive when it comes to a claim. Perhaps they behave a little better if you pay for extra cover, but if you consider the cost of this on all your consignments vs the number of claims you make, you're probably going backwards anyway.

The last time I tried to claim, after months of seemingly irrelevant requests they asked for a photo of the delivered box before it was opened. Obviously, this kills almost all claims - hardly anyone photographs the box before they open it, even if it looks like it's been in a war.

If you've had claims honored by them, you're doing very well. I'm pretty good at form filling, and I have my dad for advice - he was an insurance underwriter for most of his life, and has told me at great length how disreputable his industry has become over the years since he retired.

Very disappointed now after all I have heard about the payment protection program. It sounds similar to most, if not all insurance policies, put simply it's not worth the value of the paper it's printed on.

[MyOrganisedHome]

@FoundAndFlogged  Your father is a very wise man.

You definitely need to obtain cover for shipping as you sell some expensive items which would not be eligible for Purchase Protection due to their value. Etsy will only consider covering orders where the whole cost, including shipping and taxes, is under $250. With current fluctuations in currency you have to assume that anything close to the upper limit will be over it at the time a Case is opened.

[OmasFabricStash]

I know Etsy is playing around with policies so maybe I just couldn’t see them but without policies, or incorrect policies, Etsy will give you no seller protection. I thought I read that a shop needs to have their shop legal in order to use the protection plan and without policies your shop isn’t legal. I would check into this first. 
If I am wrong will someone please correct me. 

[MyOrganisedHome]

@OmasFabricStash The OP does have policies, however their shop is showing the new ones which come into effect on the 31st October.

If you look on their homepage in the section which used to detail a shop’s policies you will see a comment to ‘see item’ for returns etc. Clicking on an item shows Returns Accepted and their return policy as 30 Days. These are both clickable and open a pop-up which gives a little more info.

These are the new policies which Etsy is apparently immensely proud of, in their entirety. The fact that you cannot easily find them gives an indication of just how difficult this will be for buyers with no experience of selling here.

[OmasFabricStash]

This is one of the stupidest things Etsy has done. When I click on the button to see shop policies it says,   
See item details for return and exchange eligibility.

When I click on the item and then click on policies it says,   
See item details for return and exchange eligibility.

So where are the policies? They accept returns but nothing shows the timeframe. Most of the shops I looked at have the details with the item. 
If I can get confused then I don’t see how most customers will figure it out.   
I know this will affect my buying because I won’t go hunting for the policies and I don’t know how many customers will. 

[MyOrganisedHome]

Quite.

I’m using a tablet but I imagine the layout will be similar on a desktop:

If you look at one of the OP’s items, you’ll see, from the top on the right-hand side, the following:

• Listing title
• price
• ‘Add to basket’ button
• Rare find / star seller / arrives by blurb
• Highlights
• description (part of which is hidden and needs to be clicked)
• Delivery and return policies (the text showing the numbers is the link - in this case the word Accepted and 30 days)
• Cost to deliver
• Returns And Exchanges / Return Window
• Etsy purchase protection logo and blurb
• Deliver to UK / Delivers from France
• View shop policies (clickable)
• Meet your seller

The bold bits are the ones with the return policies. I see them as clickable - I believe on a desktop you have to hover over them to see the pop-up.

It isn’t obvious at all that a customer needs to do this and I think it will be an issue as we head towards Christmas and people start buying in a hurry.

[hopeandjoystudios]

You may as well just refund and move on. It is more buyer protection that they are spinning as seller protection but really there are so many hoops to qualify as a seller that would put your customer through more baloney and then Etsy would take it from you anyways. They have said they don't mark it against you if they refund, but I never saw where they said they don't mark it against your shop if they DO take it from your account.