Refund requested by Buyer -- First Time Ever -- Immediately Replied to Seller -

[DayoftheDeadMaskbyCJ]

I had my first request for a refund by a potential buyer.  She inadvertently purchased a mask, but then immediately contacted me to retract it.  I responded within a couple of minutes.  I wasn't sure what to do, so I took approximately 20-30 minutes to research and finally figured out that I could just hit the refund button.  I wasn't sure if it had gone through or not and the buyer wasn't answering my messages to confirm on her end.  Eventually within a few hours, my "Finances" confirmed it was refunded.  I immediately reposted my item.  The problem is, it was the next day when I got an email telling me I needed to cancel her order.  I immediately went in and hit the "cancel" button.  I believe by not cancelling the order before refunding the money, that I inadvertently caused my problem which Etsy is now saying I didn't respond within 24 hours which is totally incorrect.  Now I'm trying to get back my star seller rating.  Not at all happy that I can't reach someone on the Etsy end to clear up this issue.  Has this happened to anyone else the first time they had a request for a refund -- merchandise was never even packed nor were any labels printed.

[UppNorthEh]

refunding in this case isn't enough for star seller.  You also have to respond to the message sent requesting the cancellation.  Mark it as spam and your star seller status will be restored.  I answer those now with a simple - done.

I have never heard of getting a message telling you to cancel too.  

[PillowDetails]

This just seems like an issue with responding late to the message.  Even if you did the one-step cancel option that refunds at the same time, you should respond to any message with a blue heading (on desktop) or a blue dot on the app.

Nothing you can do about it now - just be on the lookout for it next time.

[VintageRescueSquad]

You have to literally respond to that help request AND cancel/refund. Just cancelling doesn't fulfill answering the request. Seems silly, but that is how it is set up

[DayoftheDeadMaskbyCJ]

You hit the nail on the head though in my case I refunded, but assumed that would automatically cancel the order since I immediately relisted the product..  Too bad Etsy doesn't explain what steps the Seller needs to follow to make sure all bases are covered.  My good business practices got me dinged!

[2TrickPony]

I don't know if this'll make you feel any better but I've canceled and refunded many orders over the years, and I know all about the star seller rules, but I forgot to respond, too, to the actual convo during a change of mind cancelation and the system does ding you for that. It's kinda silly, because you are obviously responding. OH well. We live to fight another day. 

[DayoftheDeadMaskbyCJ]

Thanks for the note.  Too bad there isn't something a little clearer for the steps the Seller must go thru whenever a potential Buyer cancels.  Makes sense though, cancel the sale and then refund the monies.  I just wanted the buyer to get her money back as quickly as possible.  My good deed got me dinged!

[AAANativeArts]

If you are refunding everything, in the future just hit the Cancel button to begin with, and that will also issue the refund, too. You have to  cancel to make it disappear from your orders. If they sent you a Convo, you have to respond within 24 hours IN the same convo, no matter what. Just putting a note with the refund isn't enough. I just copy the same note to the Convo.

[CryzalisDesigns]

There are so many flaws with the star seller program, it is a shame that it has caused sellers with stellar service and products to go into complete panic trying to figure out why they have been unnecessarily dinged.

This pretence that it was designed to provide customer service needs to stop. 90 days has nothing to do with customer service, the amount of sales or volume has nothing to do with customer service. There are plenty of outstanding sellers with top notch customer service will never reach the star seller status as it is flawed. 

[FeltOnTheFly]

But you didn't respond to the buyer's message asking for a refund.  

You needed to do two things:  1) Respond to the message and 2) cancel/refund the sale.

You only did one of those things.