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
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