Thursday 26 March 2015

Etshit

Life is full of surprises, not all of them good.

As many of you know by now, on Monday afternoon all our six shops disappeared from Etsy. We were still able to log in to see only an empty store front, but if you put any of the shop names in the search, you get that 'uuh, there is something wrong in the URL' thing.

Our first reaction was to think of some technical problem, but the rest of the Etsy world was alive and well. We checked all our convo's  (those are still open) and all our emails, but not a word from Etsy.
Finally, on Monday evening we placed a request to be called by Etsy.

A nice lady from Admin called us and asked if we knew somebody called Sandra (from Azulado) and told us that she had committed a violation of the terms of use and our accounts were linked, so that not only her shop, but all ours had been closed.
This lady didn't know how our shops were linked and we told her that the only possible 'link' was the fact that we had her password. When Sandra lost her husband, Estella helped as far she could answering her convo's, checking her tags and descriptions, etc. Her English is very bad and she was too devastated to do much but could really use the income from Etsy.
We last heard from Sandra about a year ago when she told us that she was being so pestered by the family of her defunct husband that she felt at the brink of a nervous breakdown. Short after that, she closed her shop, and we weren't even aware that she sometime in the new year, she had reopened.

We logged in her shop on Monday to try to understand what was going on. We saw a whole bunch of unread convo's, including several 'where is my package? ' ones, but no open cases  and not a word from Etsy. We heard from  an other team member that Sandra had recently moved house again and has no Internet connection yet.

We are now four days further. We have talked to several Admin members ranging from sympathetic to outright rude. One of them told us that Sandra has two non-delivery cases, but the rest said not to know or not to be able to talk to us because we are not the account holder!

The conversations follow all more or less the same pattern:

Etsy: your shops are closed because you are linked to Azulado.
We: What is the link?
E: It can be anything.
We: We are being punished for sins that we have not committed or even know that exist.
E: We are very sorry that you feel that way, but we cannot do anything, it is to Trust and Safety to determine if your shops can be reopened.
We: It is our livelihood you are messing with.
E: It was nice chatting with you, have a great day.


When the same thing more or less happened to Betti and Jeno last year, I said again and again that Etsy sellers need to renegotiate the terms of use with Etsy. The only way to be heard is through a lawyer or a consumers organization.
I got then several comments in the spirit of 'I don't bite the hand that feeds me'
Apparently in all these years, Etsy sellers never thought necessary to organize.

Etsy being by far our largest source of income, and having 11 doggies to feed, makes this very scary, of course. But we know that we are hard working and talented enough to start anew, if necessary.
Being dependent of an organization with many despicable traits, is the worst part of all this, believe me.

By the way, most probably, Sandra is in ignorant bliss of all this since she appears to have  no Internet and she doesn't keep up very well with her shop anyhow. What is of course why we tried to help her in the first place.

We felt the need to explain in detail to friends and customers what is going on. It is too bizarre to be real, but that is all we know.

Many, many thanks to all the team members who are trying to help in any possible way. You are the best!

We'll keep you informed. Etsy convo's can still be used, at least for now.
Esther and Estella

7 comments:

  1. I am sorry this is happening to you! As far as I can see your shops are open again. But this was a huge thing I know. Probably it happened because your shop has the link of azulado on certain of your items too?AriadnefromGreece!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh well...knowing you I assume you will take some action, because this was just so unfair! I stand by my idea: not guilty untill proven otherwise! Right?
    To me, your article is too kind compared to the whole situation! But at least you are finally back in business! Scary nonetheless! Xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm sadly not even surprised.
    I had to deal with them on a less awful case where they asked me to prove my work was handmade, basically asking a full tutorial of one particular item and that within just a few days.
    I more or less reminded them I had been a featured seller and gave them links to tutorials I had done.
    I may have insulted them as well a bit and I shouted about it on my blog, which I wasn't supposed to do either.
    At that point I didn't care if they'd close my shop or not.
    Incredibly they approved and my shop is still alive.
    They are a bunch of bullies and I truly have learned to despise them.
    If it weren't for the money I would have left years ago.

    I'm just glad your shops are all back and I hope you will finally get your own webshop!

    Many hugs!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very scary experience...the lack of the minimum respect for the life and work of a human being... Only, they don't consider us real persons, only numbers to be added up or discarded, they forgot it's our hard creative work they built their empire upon. And they still encourage people to "quit their day job", pfff and then they squash their dreams under their fancy foot.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sounds so unfair and happy to hear you are back in business.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm shocked about what happened and the way Etsy admins treat their sellers. I can't imagine what stress you've been through.
    I'm relieved to see that your shops are all back. Hugs!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Was checking and hoped for good news. Happy, that it looks the problem got solved. We can imagine how you both feel! And it's worst, when the whole thing is caused because you were kindly helping a team fellow out!

    ReplyDelete