Singapore dollar sellers beware! Etsy canceled and refunded already completed order

[monoPLUS]

Due to the recent May 8 2022 error which saw Singapore dollar sellers significantly overcharged in fees, Etsy has now started to cancel and fully refund orders. Even on Singapore dollar accounts with completed orders which were not affected!

I woke up today to find that Etsy canceled and fully refunded a SGD $231.21 order that had already been completed and shipped off to the buyer! So now the buyer has a free item and I have that outstanding amount in my payment account page!

Even the listing which originated the sale has been completely removed. It can no longer be found anywhere on my Shop Manager nor through search.

Additionally, the threads started here by other sellers related to this May 8 2022 issue have been locked.

[SecretHelper]

Oh dear this is terrible! We don't need Etsy to refund the orders - we need Etsy to charge us the correct amounts in fees (eg. the 20 cents that is the renewal fees). This is very worrying news and I'm planning on emailing Etsy about this

For my account I haven't seen any refunds and I'm still currently -$14,000 in debt to Etsy at the moment. The even more worrying thing is Etsy sent me an email telling me that my account has been "fixed" but it clearly hasn't!

[monoPLUS]

It seems like Etsy did not look at individual seller accounts to confirm that their finances were actually in order. An easy 'fix' for them which is to their benefit!

[Jewels2at]

This is really scary!

[DKVintageandBeyond]

SELLER SUPPORT DOES NOT EXIST it's such a joke yet expected of us. I give them 0 stars.

[MemoriestoYou]

Etsy wouldn't even qualify for their own star seller award!

[GiftzOfHeart]

I think they meant they fixed the problem from happening again but I don't think they've corrected the existing wrong charges. I still have -$42k debt for 3 new listings which are not fixed yet but the new listings after these 3 listings are ok. Hope they can fix the existing errors in our financial account asap.

[monoPLUS]

They seem to be taking the easy way out and doing blanket rollbacks instead of looking at individual accounts and orders to make sure the finances are all correct.

[monoPLUS]

My account was fortunately not affected by the May 8 error, really likely just by luck that the items purchased were only one available of each.

Everything on my account looked to be running with no issues as per normal. The funds transfer for this order went through on Monday 9th as usual, so I shipped the order out yesterday Tues 10th. I wake up this morning Wed 11th to find that has Etsy cancelled and refunded the order...

The email I received from Etsy was:

Reason for issuing this refund:
Account Adjustment

Message to buyer:
We recently had an issue with some orders that has since been resolved, however, as a result your order was not completed. We apologize for any inconvenience. If you would like to make the purchase, we ask that you please re-order from the seller.

How could Etsy just unilaterally decide the order was not completed, when it was already on the completed orders page with tracking info? It seems Etsy did not actually check accounts and orders before doing a blanket roll back.

[SecretHelper]

Oh gosh this is even more shocking then! They literally refunded your order when you weren't even affected by this issue in the first place

[monoPLUS]

Yep that's exactly what happened!

[VibeEnvy]

That message is speaking to you as a buyer, sounds like the email you're customer should have gotten, not you.

[monoPLUS]

Indeed, but that's the email I got.

[Kurafuchi]

I had a similar thing recently where Etsy refunded an order on suspicion of fraudulent payment method, after I had already shipped it.

So I emailed them and demanded they credit me the amount back me since the transaction was honored on my end. They asked for the tracking number and ended up re-crediting me for the sale. Can’t believe they didn’t check the shipping status before refunding.

Make sure to show them the tracking info !

[monoPLUS]

I emailed them and got an instant reply containing completely unrelated text about "Thank you for writing to us regarding the removal of one or more of your listings from your shop. Your listings were removed in accordance with our Prohibited Items Policy."

Furthermore, the automated email reply contained coding script...

Total facepalm!

[hopeandjoystudios]

They owe you that payment back. I would keep trying to contact them. 

[mommawhazelsquilts]

@monoPLUS  You seem to be ignoring this message from Etsy.

"Thank you for writing to us regarding the removal of one or more of your listings from your shop. Your listings were removed in accordance with our Prohibited Items Policy."

All of your items are counterfeit and infringing on other's property rights and they should all be removed, imo.

That is the message you need to be concerned about - it appears that the money issue will be resolved.  You are blatantly using other's ideas in order to sell your "stuff".

[Kurafuchi]

@mommawhazelsquilts Sit back down & learn to read properly before attacking people. They’re selling vintage toys which is 100% permitted.

[monoPLUS]

I received an email reply from Etsy as shown below. Etsy should be taking responsibility for their mistake (after mistake), and rectifying their own errors at no cost or action from affected sellers.

Thanks for reaching out to us about this concern. I'm a member of the Etsy Support team. I’m sorry to hear about the situation and this is not the kind of experience we want you to have on Etsy!

On 8 May 2022 there was an issue with our third party exchange rate provider that caused inaccurate currency conversions for some shop payment accounts set in Singapore dollars. As a result purchases made during this time period were refunded and canceled.

We emailed buyers to alert them of this, and have asked them to re-purchase the item. As a first step, we’d recommend reaching out to your buyer directly and if you aren’t able to get in touch with them or able to receive repayment for the order you’ve shipped out please let us know.

[SecretHelper]

But this doesn't make any sense at all - why would the buyers want to re-purchase the items if they have already been shipped them (in your case), or they have already downloaded them (in my case for digital sellers).

This is just the quick fix method for Etsy that allows them to "solve" the problem without having to do the work of actually properly solving the problem.

And it's only harming the sellers too in all of this which is very unfair as this glitch was not our fault in the first place!

[monoPLUS]

Exactly. This is Etsy passing the buck off to us. Zero responsibility for their actions

[monoPLUS]

It is really telling that Etsy's solution was to cancel and fully refund all May 8 orders even though the problem didn't directly affect any buyers. They were charged the correct amount upon purchase. And now they are all going to get free orders, depending on if they want to do the right thing and resend payment or not!

From what I've heard from other affected Singapore dollar sellers, this issue has been marked as fixed in emails received from Etsy. Yet we all still have outstanding negative balances in our payment accounts ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars!

[SecretHelper]

Everything about this is very poorly handled. Etsy needs to 

1. Stop doing a blanket refund of all orders made on 8th May
2. Manually check the ledgers for the 8th of May and manually identify sections which contains issues (Etsy can ask sellers to provide this information, we will gladly do it for them)
3. Correct the incorrect portions by manually issuing us payments or by striking out the incorrect sections
4. Only send out an email  telling us the issue is "resolved" after the issue is indeed resolved
5. Undo any refunds they made because this is literally scamming us - the sellers are being scammed by Etsy quite literally!

[monoPLUS]

Got another Etsy email stating that "Thank you for your response and we appreciate your patience through this process. We can guarantee you that you will not be charge to your account as this is a known issue. That being said, we highly recommend to keep in touch with your buyers to re-purchase their orders and the process will be normal."

Are Etsy going to rectify the negative balances in our accounts? I don't know, they don't want to say. Also conveniently ignored my questions about why all May 8 orders were cancelled and fully refunded, no matter their status.

And Etsy wants me to get my buyer to re-purchase the item again. When it's already been shipped out. When he has already been refunded. When Etsy has already deleted the listing, and I would have to recreate it all over again, and then get charged listing fee and tax again for it.

UGH.

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[SecretLoveNotesTribe]

This is just beyond ridiculous. In every email from Etsy, there is a striking lack of empathy also. So much for "keeping commerce human"? There is nothing "human" about this at all. Everything spells inhumane. Yes, and it is blatant disregard to ask you to contact the buyer on your own to try and get your money back for a fault that's clearly theirs?

Yes, we are all receiving emails that the negative 5,6,7 figure balance issues have been resolved with a "credit" to our payment accounts. But this is definitely not the case and our accounts are still sitting at huge negative balances due to their technical glitch. While we are getting new sales, for which we won't be getting paid as all that will be debited against this negative balance.

This can be classified as cheating/scamming. So it is crucial that Etsy resolves these issues immediately and gives us accurate information.

We aren't even able to contact them via chat or phone. We can't even reply to their emails; there is no option for that. If we want to respond to their email to state our concerns, we would have to start a new support ticket and wait all over again. Wow, this is really pushing it. How will sellers and customers have faith in Etsy if this is how such issues are handled? And also, Etsy is locking down all discussion forums on issues that have yet to be resolved, including our huge 5,6,7 figure charges for listing renewals.

Today, it is affecting only SGD sellers, but these same processes can affect anyone. I hope this issue is resolved soonest with utmost urgency, integrity, and sincerity on Etsy's part.

Our last resort would be going to the authorities and media with our negative 5,6,7 figure balance screenshots for what's supposed to cost USD$0.20 and also to report of Etsy refunding from sellers' accounts the full sale amounts for completed orders due to Etsy's own glitch and asking sellers to go after buyer's to repay them.

This seems completely unethical. And we hope for better support from Etsy regarding this.