Recover of mistake

[fkq60l4pfy4m0pxy]

Hello, I am Emre

I was the owner of a shop on Etsy that had 38.xxx sales and 3,500 five-star reviews for 4 years. I closed my shop. Why?
One day I get 2 IP infringement reports, another day again two more. Of course, this happened by mistake. I talked to the lawyer, 3 days later I get email from Etsy, the title is ''Notice of Intellectual Property Infringement Withdrawn'' (thank you Mr Cherayath)

But i lost my star seller badge, and whenever i click Star Seller Badge page in my Etsy account i see this '' you received a final policy violation warning''.

I talked to Etsy support for a week and sent about 10 messages. They answered all my messages with things that were not irrelevant at all. They didn't help in any way. Finally they stopped responding.

One more fake report and my shop will be closed. It's so scary.
As a last resort, I closed my shop.

I don't know how many nights I worked until the morning. I'm sharing this post because I feel so alone and tired because of injustice. I don't care about the money I lose.

Thank you for your time, I hope you have a nice day.

[Hertfordweaver]

I can't imagine the heartbreak and agony and don't know what to say other than keep nagging Etsy to find a way to remove those dings since they were not valid. I'm sure this isn't the first instance of this situation and Etsy needs to find a way to correct it. I do see some images that may have caused a problem. They would need to be removed or changed

[JackisJustVintage]

Your shop is on vacation not closed. Your most recent reviews show the Grinch, which is also an infringement. It probably is best that you removed all your listings until you clean your store of infringement. 

[UniqueGiftOrnaments]

Looking at your reviews, you were certainly infringing on the Grinch. which is trademarked by the Dr. Seuss Enterprise.

[TheHomespunLoft]

@fkq60l4pfy4m0pxy 

So sorry this happened..agree with others to clean up the site first. 

[dorothydomingo]

I mean, your first page of reviews is "grinch, grinch, grinch, grinch".  What is fake about the reports?

[fkq60l4pfy4m0pxy]

Cow

[dorothydomingo]

Are you calling me a cow, or was that what the infringement notice was for? I'm a tad unclear.

[howtobooksandmore]

See his response below.  The item removed was a drawing of a cow.

[PlatypusDream]

"One more fake report"

In your feedback that your most popular items are illegal counterfeits.

There are more less obvious counterfeits, too, like Black Flame Candle Company, Big Bang, Vendetta...

You are lucky to have gotten away with so much so far without being sued.

[fkq60l4pfy4m0pxy]

I also had beautiful drawings on sports, hunting, fishing, mountaineering and camping themes, but those were the ones that sold the most. I uploaded 9000 listings.

[howtobooksandmore]

Since the reviews show a lot of Grinch items, the IP violations may not have been a mistake.  Your lawyer may have been able to have the items put back up but that doesn't address the fact that you have IP violations.  And the star seller works exactly as Etsy has said it will.  Too many violations and you never get another star for any reason.  It sucks but the stars don't have anything to do with the amount of items you can sell without them.  If you want to reopen your shop and not get another IP infringement notice, you need to get rid of the Grinch items, the Black Candle Company logo and other IP infringements.  No infringements, not problem getting suspended for it.

[fkq60l4pfy4m0pxy]

IP violations was from an unrelated cow drawing of mine. 4 times.

[BagmakerSupply]

@fkq60l4pfy4m0pxy: As @JackisJustVintage noted, your reviews show that you were selling LOTS of apparently infringing items. Perhaps some were withdrawn but there were probably many more that were not. Based on other posts, Etsy does not always send notifications of violations.

Did your listings contain the licensing information for all of the trademarked and copyrighted names and images in your shop? If not, buyers (and Etsy) may conclude they are counterfeits. And a buyer could file a not as described case against you and both get their money back and keep the item. Including the licensing information will show that you are not selling those items illegally since we are not supposed to help shops that are breaking the law or Etsy rules.

[sharonjenkins1]

I think that sometimes Etsy doesn’t give the accurate/correct reason for the punishment so it’s probably confusing to the seller.  I can’t imagine why they do this unless it’s just easier.

[JackisJustVintage]

@sharonjenkins1 I agree. If they would just give the reason it would benefit all. They would not keep getting messages from people wondering why their shop was shut down and the shop owners would know why. Etsy has never been very transparent. 

[audreytherese]

Even if it wasn't the Grinch, or many other infringing items that were removed, it's hard to have sympathy for you. You made a lot of money over the past few years by stealing the intellectual property of others. It's one thing to make a mistake, but you made tens of thousands of 'mistakes'.  

Besides many of the obvious infringing designs in your reviews, there's many designs that I've seen in places like Cricut's design space, so I'm skeptical that anything was original in your shop. Even if it was just a cow, were you actually the original designer of it? I'm hesitant to believe that you were. 

"But i lost my star seller badge, and whenever i click Star Seller Badge page in my Etsy account i see this '' you received a final policy violation warning''."

It clearly states in the SS program that in order to qualify you agree to not break the rules, and selling items that are infringing is clearly breaking the rules. You broke the rules. Doesn't really matter which listing(s) were removed and made you lose your SS, based on the rest of your shop you shouldn't have had it in the first place. 

[howtobooksandmore]

When Etsy introduced the SS program, there were a lot of comments that the people who could most easily qualify for the badges were the resellers.  This has proven true and I doubt that is what Etsy intended the program to show to buyers.