I had a customer message me two different ways at the same time. She had an issue with an item arriving broken and messaged me through Etsy and then immediately message me through the “contact seller” button on the order email, a second message with the same information as the first. I saw them both and responded to one of the messages, which made sense. I lost Star Seller for the month for not responding to the duplicate message within 24 hours, even though I replied to the customer and provided service to her immediately.
Apparently the algorithm isn’t set up to detect or identify messages being sent from the same person in different email chains.
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Sadly, my very first message was a scammer. As soon as I opened my shop, he messaged me with a well known scam line, so I ignored and that started me off in a negative way.
Move messages to spam if you believe them to be a scammer.
@ExemplarBoutique: "Apparently the algorithm isn’t set up to detect or identify messages being sent from the same person in different email chains." Unfortunately, as it says right on your Star Seller page and elsewhere, you need to reply to (or mark as SPAM) 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. While most new messages are appended to the default thread with that account, Help Requests always start a new thread because they also start the clock ticking on a potential claim against the shop.