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Fun Times on Etsy
Aug. 11th, 2020 07:36 amDuring the past 24 hours, I've received three separate Etsy orders (each for one inexpensive item) that appear to be from spambots. The email addresses associated with the accounts are strings of random characters, as are the mailing addresses they provided.
I canceled and refunded each order with a short message to the "buyer" stating that I can't mail anything to a nonexistent address. I also blocked the users for good measure. I then sent a support request to Etsy for each order to report the account and notify them of suspicious activity.
I feel like I've done my due diligence, but I couldn't find any other accounts of sellers receiving orders from spambots. What I did find were reports of all sorts of other scams and misbehavior on the platform.
( Read more... )
In the cases involving individual people (as opposed to overseas businesses), the story generally included a lengthy lead-up in which the buyer raised all sorts of red flags in their conversations with the seller. I think there's a lot of pressure on people selling their creative work to be "nice" and "accommodating," and I think this pressure influences them to tolerate strange interactions with people who make them uncomfortable.
The take-away point from all of this is not that Etsy is broken (which is a different conversation altogether), but rather that setting clear boundaries is good professional behavior. The standard American customer service mentality that "the customer is always right" only makes sense as a social contract if both parties enter into it in good faith. If the customer is unbalanced, however, that level of accommodation is toxic, and sellers - especially young women selling their creative work - need to feel empowered to cut off communication and step away from bad transactions.
I canceled and refunded each order with a short message to the "buyer" stating that I can't mail anything to a nonexistent address. I also blocked the users for good measure. I then sent a support request to Etsy for each order to report the account and notify them of suspicious activity.
I feel like I've done my due diligence, but I couldn't find any other accounts of sellers receiving orders from spambots. What I did find were reports of all sorts of other scams and misbehavior on the platform.
( Read more... )
In the cases involving individual people (as opposed to overseas businesses), the story generally included a lengthy lead-up in which the buyer raised all sorts of red flags in their conversations with the seller. I think there's a lot of pressure on people selling their creative work to be "nice" and "accommodating," and I think this pressure influences them to tolerate strange interactions with people who make them uncomfortable.
The take-away point from all of this is not that Etsy is broken (which is a different conversation altogether), but rather that setting clear boundaries is good professional behavior. The standard American customer service mentality that "the customer is always right" only makes sense as a social contract if both parties enter into it in good faith. If the customer is unbalanced, however, that level of accommodation is toxic, and sellers - especially young women selling their creative work - need to feel empowered to cut off communication and step away from bad transactions.
