Star Seller Affected by a Spam Message

[OriginOfHearts]

I've reached our to support a number of times about this issue and they've directed me here. It's really frustrating that while my star seller badge is missing this month due to 1 spam message from an auto-bot which we have obviously not answered, but deleted as we normally do - its now mid month and we have no solution to this. 

Customer service said they cannot do anything about it, and that I should have marked the message as spam and it won't count to the Star Seller Program, but HOW could we know that then? 

Etsy should be able to detect these messages and mark them as spam automatically, not allowing them to count as a customer message not answered. However, if they don't have the system for that yet they are obliged to get our Star Seller Badge back with utmost urgency. We have worked hard for it and it's clearly an issue from Etsy that allows such messages to count as customer messages. Lately they are becoming more and more requesting our email address in order to proceed and send us their order...The system is clearly failing, while our visibility and credibility, hence business and sales are being affected hugely in a negative direction from this. 

We have all supporting screen shots to proof all the other parameters have been made but this only BOT message that was not answered. 
We need a solution to this matter now, and Etsy support is only responding with the same copy/paste message that clearly shows the person is not even reading my email. Not to mention every time a different person answers, which makes it even more frustrating. 

[Marmalady · Accepted solution]

"Customer service said they cannot do anything about it, and that I should have marked the message as spam and it won't count to the Star Seller Program, but HOW could we know that then? "

Right on the Star Seller page it says :

Reply to the first message within 24 hours

Just the first message in the thread counts, not the ongoing convo.

Messages that you mark as spam don’t count.

Set up an auto-reply when you’re unavailable. It counts as a reply.

It has been this way ever since the Star Seller programme started 2+ years ago
ALL first messages must be answered or sent to Spam

Etsy will not "fix" anything -- there is nothing to fix. The system has worked exactly as it is designed to work.

You have lost the Star Seller badge for this month -- so you need to move on and hope you can get it back next month

[CraftyCornishMaids]

Etsy does not count spam messages as  spam, if you mark them as such

They say they don't, and I can testify they ones I marked as spam, didn't count against me.

You have to reply to all new message threads, or mark them as spam, it's always been the rules, etsy highlights them in blue, so you don't miss them.

There is nothing to fix, it is working as advertised

[CryzalisDesigns]

Spam has also not affected my stats.

[BagmakerSupply]

@OriginOfHearts: Etsy (and all platforms really) is place where one needs to read all the rules. Almost everyone on this forum can sympathize with you but as it says right on your Star Seller page, you need to reply to the FIRST message of EVERY NEW INCOMING THREAD within 24 hours. It does not matter who sent it, the subject matter, if it is a duplicate or blank or anything else. If it is SPAM then it should be marked as such.

If the unanswered new thread is not a Help Request, at least for the time being, it appears that marking an unanswered message as SPAM (even after the 24 hour deadline has passed) will cause your reply percentage to change in a day or two if the original message was within the current star seller period (but not retroactively). Note that subsequent messages from that account may go directly to the SPAM folder.

[ArtDollsbyJD]

I would not want Etsy reading my messages unless I asked them too or they had a logical reason for doing so.

Etsy cannot assume someone opening an account is going to send spam messages.

Just have to be alert and spam the message when you get one.

[HazelsSewingSupplies]

You are wanting Etsy to read all of our messages.  Thank goodness, they don't.

Hopefully for the sake of your badge, you will get a lot of messages this month.  It takes 19 replied to (or spammed) messages to offset 1 replied to message.

As @BagmakerSupply says, it's always best to read the rules before starting anything new.  

As a matter of fact, it would probably do Etsy sellers a lot of good to log into their shops daily and go straight to the Dashboard page and see what Etsy is up to.  I check that page before I do anything each and every day.

[bradgoodell]

If it's Spam, send it to Spam.  How is Etsy supposed to know otherwise?   Sending it to spam takes the same amount of time as deleting it.  Use the tools Etsy gave you to manage your messages, and this won't happen again.  Good luck.

[AnnaleasFinest]

@OriginOfHearts 

many sellers before you had similar misunderstandings. So you're not alone in this!

"but HOW could we know that then? "

If you're at the computer, you see links on the left side, and right under "orders and shipping", you have:

"Star seller".

Click it and read everything there, - it's kind of like doing our homeworks...! (And new tests keep coming every new month...!)

Etsy says that each and every message, whether from a seller or a buyer, needs a reply, or needs to be marked as spam.

And anything marked as spam will not be counted against us..... and since you received a spam message, go back to it and mark it as such!

Go to "messages" and it should still be in the "trash", the first tag above your messages. Mark the spam message as spam.

And then, it won't be counted against you anymore!

Give it a try! Next month should look better! Best wishes!

It may look different on the phone, so this is the computer version.

[TheFlyingHostess]

Same here, this needs to be fixed. I have had 2 spam emails and just learned that we need to mark them as spam, too late for me now! 

[CraftyCornishMaids]

mark them as spam, it's not too late, do it before etsy does the calculation at the end of this month

[bradgoodell]

@TheFlyingHostess There is nothing to fix.  Etsy set up Star Seller with the basic rules:  Reply or mark as spam.  It's unfortunate you were blindsided by it.  Sorry.

[ThirdStallWoodwork]

This happened to me and I argued that there is no "spam" button. They replied saying "sorry, this is currently not a feature enabled in our app". What a disaster.

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