Stop the scammer scum.

[TDKJdesign]

Etsy, block new sellers from sending messages for 3 months or 100 items listed and everything is verified. New sellers have no need to send messages. This should at least slow the scum right down. This should stop new accounts popping up 1000s a day just to scam. 

More needs to be done to protect sellers and buyers. 

[CryzalisDesigns]

So far all the scam messages I have received have been coming from buyer accounts and I am sorry as I make everything myself I will never have a 100 items listed.

[Marmalady]

Scammers are generally buyer-only accounts

Genuine buyers can and do open accounts to ask legitimate questions

Banning new accounts from sending messages for x amount of time could seriously affect the number of new buyers coming to Etsy

[JHFWBeadsAndFindings]

Unfortunately, the approach of excluding new buyers and sellers doesn't seem to be the right solution. For now, the best strategy is recognizing such emails and marking them as spam. It's challenging to restrict new participants on the platform. Rejecting new buyers and sellers initially could pose challenges as it may discourage potential users. People may seek alternative platforms if it becomes too difficult to establish an account. Balancing security measures with user-friendly policies is key to maintaining a positive user experience.

Additionally, it's worth noting that Etsy is already making strides in recognizing and excluding scammers. For instance, attempting to send a message asking for your email address to settle the transaction resulted in the account being closed.

[CryzalisDesigns]

Yes they are attempting, but there are several accounts with the ETSY name in them which have been reported and are still active 2-5 weeks later and counting.

I dread to think how many sellers they have managed to contact in that time when they could have been removed 5 weeks ago

[JHFWBeadsAndFindings]

@CryzalisDesigns 

I share your concern about reported accounts, some featuring the ETSY name, remaining active for weeks. This delay in removal poses a risk as scammers may exploit the time gap to contact sellers. Etsy should expedite the review and removal process for reported accounts, particularly those misusing the platform's identity.

It's alarming how cunning these scammers can be, especially when using Etsy's logo. Their aggressive tactics, such as threatening to close a seller's account within 24 hours, are particularly concerning. Etsy needs to address these issues promptly.

At present, it seems challenging to pinpoint what Etsy could do better than educating sellers about potential scam messages.

Some sellers receive more than 20 messages a day

[ZenCatPottery]

@TDKJdesign  WTH?  It’s the internet-user’s responsibility to learn the skills necessary to be on the internet w/o getting scammed.  My adult kids learned internet safety protocol in elementary school.  There are red flags all over these scammer messages and Etsy even created a “From Etsy” section under messages. Why should all new sellers be punished because a few haven’t boned up on internet safety practices?

[StarfishCollectibles]

Yep, even an older guy like me (74) had developed the acumen to know a rat when he sees one.  

[BlaqKat]

I doubt that would work - what might help is when someone is creating a new shop, there is a short (people won't read long) message that you have to read and then tick that tells sellers about scammers and some of the common scams and how Etsy messages will be in the Etsy folder.

Then a tick box at the end that says "Yes I have read this and know it is about helping to protect my shop from scammers" so few sellers read any of the Ts and Cs so adding scam info to that might not work. But maybe a very specific part about scammers would help at least some of the sellers.

[AnniebelloPaper]

There are things that Etsy could be doing but isn't (or it appears they aren't).

The app needs to be fixed so the 'from Etsy' section shows in the message page and messages can be marked as spam.

The warning pop up on the message page can be x'd out but will reappear every single time the message page is accessed or a message is opened. Annoying yes but may protect sellers from responding to scam messages.

Create a short walk through tutorial for all accounts that are trying to open a shop. Include info about scams but also basic info like how you're notified of a sale, how payments are handled, and where to get assistance. Yes, people will most likely just click through at least they will have possibly seen the information.

Actually police their own IP and not allow 'Etsy' or any variations of the word as shop names or user display names. My daughter just opened a shop and within an hour had three scam messages, all of which were Etsyxxxx as usernames. Two of which were varied spellings, symbols over letters and such. To a novice (and how our brains work), they all look like 'Etsy'.

It's on the user to educate themselves and be aware of what's happening every time they go online. Not just here but everywhere. 

[StarfishCollectibles]

I don't know; it seems to me that perhaps people are just too used to the idea that somehow it is someone else's responsibility to protect them.

With over 4 million sellers, and 70 million+++ buyers, what chance does Etsy have of weeding out all of the bad actors.

It is more vital than ever for people to educate themselves about all of the boons and pitfalls of the internet, before venturing into e-commerce.

[PieceByNumberQuilts]

I'm sorry, neither of these proposed solutions (3 month hold on messages and/or 100 items in shop) will address the problems and will merely penalize legitimate new sellers.  All legitimate sellers need to be able to send and respond to messages from legitimate buyers, potentially from Day 1.  Also many sellers never will be able to have 100 items in their shops - why make that any kind of criteria?  It took me 6 or more YEARS before I had over 100 items in my shop.  But I certainly needed to respond to customer messages during my first few months here.

It's not at all clear that the scammers are creating fraudulent seller accounts - they can do the same shenanigans with a buyer account.  There are other potential solutions that would be much more effective.  

The problem almost certainly stems from one or more API (application programming interface) "partners" who are scraping Etsy data (or being surreptitiously fed scraped Etsy data by an API partner). This must be how scammers know almost instantaneously who the new sellers are and send out a message within minutes of a shop opening.  At least some scammer operations have fairly sophisticated coding and bots to be able to do this. I'm surprised Etsy isn't looking more carefully at the security and data sharing on the back end of things, and their criteria for vetting potential API partners.  A different, but really easy step would be preventing accounts from using anything remotely like "Etsy Support" in their screen names and Etsy logo avatars.

Yes, we all need to have our antennae up regarding scammers but Etsy should be doing their part to keep the platform safe for all users.  Other posters have noted that eBay has nothing like this same level of scammer infestation Etsy does, so clearly they are proactively doing something that Etsy is not. 

[PieceByNumberQuilts]

The whole data scraping thing is also why I will never use an Etsy app.  Downloading an app gives the app developers far more legal opportunity to collect and share data with "partners" (because of those pesky user agreements they all require to be "read and understood" before using any app).  Etsy already has plenty of my info without getting more via one of their apps.

Which is not to imply that this scammer inundation is directly related to the apps, or that only app users are targeted.  It's the back-end data sharing that's potentially problematic, and apps are just a way for more data to be scraped from users than maybe they're aware of.

[OmasFabricStash]

So if my shop had just been open and I got a message about fabric I couldn’t respond? This did actually happen, my first sale was within hours of opening. I would have lost out on sales my first week because I wasn’t able to respond to questions because other people are trying to scam new shops. Why would you punish new sellers and put their shops at risk because of the scammers?