We have been forced into Vacation Mode. I've found numerous threads with similar issues and know that I am not alone dealing with this issue.
We are a Star Seller Shop, with no billing issues, no shipping issue and no payment issues. With no prior email notification or messages to us in any way, our shop was places into "forced" vacation mode this afternoon! Our shop has now been shut down for 8-10 hours on a Friday evening, which is usually our biggest sales time of the week and still no idea when it will be open again???
Again, there are numerous threads on this issue, but Etsy has closed most responses, even some from earlier this week. Our chat feature was cut off so we could only send an email help ticket to Etsy, which stated that we would hear something back in 1-2 days. In the mean time, we are completely shut down and cannot sell or list items in our shop. This whole experience has been infuriating...
While still no response from Etsy through the email, I found this link on another thread to have them call me: Submit a request – Etsy Help.
They called within 2 minutes but the customer service rep had no information to provide and was basically just reading from a script. He acknowledged that my account was "under review" but couldn't tell me why and for how long and he also acknowledged that I didn't receive any prior warning about the freeze and said that it was because "this type of review usually doesn't take very long to complete"?!?! Seriously???
The worst part was, when I asked to escalate the issue to his supervisor, he put me on hold for a minute or two and then hung up on me!!!
20 ,minutes later he sent an email saying sorry we got disconnected and asked if I had any additional questions, I responded with my concerns and still haven't heard anything else back. That was over 3 hours ago.
This is obviously a widespread internal Etsy issue and it's negatively impacting our businesses and livelihood. Etsy is not admitting the issue or doing anything to expedite correcting it either...
In addition, I've read in the past that going into vacation mode significantly lowers your Etsy SEO placement level?!?! There have been many threads on this topic in the past. Therefore, I've actually skipped real-life vacations in the past, so I could avoid this from happening to my shop and have never ever put our shop in vacation mode status for this very reason! Now Etsy has forced this upon us, for a mistake on their end... I hope this SEO thing isn't the case for my shop and all of those other loyal Etsy sellers that have been incorrectly placed on vacation mode restrictions as part of this fiasco.
Fix this Etsy!!! Do better and make this right for your loyal sellers!!!
