@Personalizedge
I know the help center as well as the live chat and phone support folks tell you to post here in this forum for issues with the star seller calculations but that info is not exactly correct. Etsy changed this to a peer to peer support forum a while ago (couple years at least) so it's just us sellers here. If you need help from etsy support you will need to contact them directly. I would skip live chat or phone call back and just go with email support options.
That said, they are not likely to "fix" anything and even say that they can't in the help center article. (the same article that directs you to post in this forum) https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403058372503-How-to-Become-a-Star-Seller?segment=selling
there is a highlighted bit that says "Etsy Support can’t make changes to your Star Seller data or manually award Star Seller badges. If you think your Star Seller score was calculated incorrectly, you can let us know in the Technical Issues forum ."
As far as the messages calculation....it's not wrong and there is nothing for etsy to correct. Etsy is pretty clear about how the message response rate is calculated in help center here https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403058372503-How-to-Become-a-Star-Seller?segment=selling
There is a highlighted bit under message response rate info that says "The Message response rate only applies to the first message in a thread. Initial messages from both buyers and sellers on Etsy are counted towards the Message response rate. "
That means ALL messages. It also means each individual message thread so if someone sends you 5 different messages with 5 questions instead of putting them in the same message chain you need to respond to all 5 of them. The system is completely automated and doesn't know if the message is from a buyer or another seller. It just sees a message and calculated the response time. That's just how it works.
The info is also right there on the Star Seller page in shop manager. Just go to shop manager > star seller. Once there scroll toward the bottom until you find "Questions? We've got answers." Then click messages. The very first question there says
"What messages count toward the message response rate?
Your message response rate is based on just the first message in a conversation, not ongoing conversations. This means you just need to respond to the first message within 24 hours. This applies to messages both from buyer and seller accounts. Messages from Etsy staff do not count toward your response rate, and neither do messages that you mark as spam. You can also now find a breakdown of your message response rate score by downloading a CSV."
You can try marking the message as spam now and it should be removed from the calculation in a few days.
If the star is important to you then it may be a good idea to read or review all the info Etsy provides about the star seller program.
Bottom line...you have to either reply or mark as spam.
