AIBU to ignore this email?

[JacobElordisCreamyBathWater]

About a month ago, I ordered an item from Etsy. It was a gift for a friend with some element of personalisation. The Etsy shop started their location as an EU country (I’m in a different EU country).

I had some communication with the vendor and it was all fine.

About ten days later, I received an email from Etsy (as in the platform, not this specific shop) saying that there was a problem with my order, the vendor had left the platform, and telling me that unless I had received the item or dispatch information already, I was unlikely to get it and could raise a refund request.

I went into the Etsy app and tried to contact the vendor via the last message they’d inboxed me but it failed as their shop was gone.

Etsy refunded me very after I went through the refund process, and I found another Etsy store that made the same item so ordered with them and received the goods this week.

In the meantime, I have also received the first order having had no dispatch confirmation email. It came from China, not an EU country but wasn’t picked up in terms of custom charges. Cost, including delivery, was around £20.

So now I have two items and don’t need both as they were personalised for a friend and not the kind of thing you’d need two of (imagine it’s a t-shirt that says “Happy 4th Birthday Brenda!” with a picture of Brenda. It’s not, but imagine something along those lines).

Today, I received this email from the original vendor.

AIBU to ignore it because-

• I assume her store was shut down by Etsy for a reason.
• I don’t use Paypal, nor do I want to.
• I’ve already been inconvenienced enough having to order, go through a refund process, and then find another supplier.

Or should I just suck it up and pay for what I received?

I kind of feel bad for them given the email, and the fact that they actually made and sent the gift. But that's just me, I'm soft 😄

I don’t think they actually made it - looks like they were dropshipping from China rather than making it themselves which is against Etsy’s T&Cs.

If you've paid for the item once but got 2 due to their error I don't think you should pay again

if you've got your item but not paid then I would pay

Op I would contact etsy and tell them you've received the original item and you have been asked to pay for it , let them provide guidance because you don't even know if this email is a scam or not . Just let the platform manage the issue. It's their job to resolve this.. don't send anyone any money. Let etsy manage the payment if it's due back to them.

If it came from China then YANBU - it sounds a little scammy. A bit like that “homemade” Jewellery store that advertises on FB saying they’ve made the hard decision to close down and everything is super cheap at £5 but RRP is £70+

Turns out the items come from Temu. And cost about £2 each.

So be careful OP - possibly report the email to Etsy? It could be a scam

Nope they've breached the selling regulations and been shut down, which is why you received the platform message. Probably why your item arrived from China when they've claimed EU.

Either ignore or reply and tell them, you received it after you got the refund and bought a replacement when their store was removed from Etsy and you were advised to process a refund request. They can contact Etsy and get them to process a returns label for you and you will return the item otherwise no you will not be making a transaction outside of Etsy, which I'm sure is also against their rules.

I'd ignore it though. You didn't cause them to get suspended.

Ignore it. They aren't a small business making their own items in Europe, they're a drop-shipper sending you cheap mass-produced tat direct from China. That's why Etsy shut down their shop.

As someone who sells on Etsy, I would ignore this. Yes, sometimes shops get shut down when the owners did nothing wrong but, in this case, they violated Etsy ToS by either drop-shipping (doubtful as you can't personalise drop-shipped items) or lying about the location of their items.
Reporting to Etsy will do nothing. Etsy already removed them, there is nothing more they can do.
If you really feel like replying, you can ask them to send you a return label and you can send their product back. For what it's worth, if there is another shop on Etsy making the exact same item, neither of the two are handmade, are they...

Ignore it, if they'd communicated in the first place you would not have had to place a second order or claim a refund, which was hassle for you. They made the problem.

I had this a Christmas with a personalised stocking and I just ignored it!

But the seller was an absolute knob in the run up to being really evasive and rude when I asked when he’d dispatch and then poof he was gone from Etsy!!

Got the same just after Christmas but ignored

If you hadn't bought the second item, I would say pay for the first. But now it's too late really.

Also it probably cost them peanuts if it was made in china.

Ignore it. Their Etsy account was suspended because they were trading fraudulently, maybe for being based in China and pretending they were elsewhere.

Regardless, it’s not your problem.

The begging email is designed to pull on your heart strings - I doubt it’s a small individual seller - they’ve been banned for a reason.

Ignore and block.

Drop shipping is actually allowed on Etsy these days as far as I know. You can sell designs/products that are printed and dispatched elsewhere. No one can really say why their store was suspended so there's no point trying to make assumptions.

At the end of the day, you ended up with two items, it wasn't your fault and you're under no obligation to pay for the original item again so you wouldn't be unreasonable to ignore it. You could chose to give them some money if you feel like being sympathetic to them but it's not a blot on your character if you don't.

No I would not send them the money.
Drop shippers are what has fucked Etsy up for those of us who actually do make our own stuff.

It's a drop shipping company. Can you not just say I don't need it now as ordered from someone else, but I will send it back.
Maybe it's not much use to anyone else if it's personalised but that's not your problem. Offer to send back, but if the cost of sending back is same as the cost of item I guess I probably would just pay them.

Ignore.

Their issue is with Etsy, not you. You just complied with what you were instructed to do by the selling platform, and you couldn't even get in touch with the original shop when you tried because it was closed down.

I would absolutely not be getting into a situation of privately sending money to these people via paypal now. You didn't request the refund, Etsy granted it. They need to take this up with Etsy, not customers.

This.

Don't get sucked in OP!

Drop shipping is not allowed on Etsy. Etsy allows manufacturing products externally (something designed by the artist and printed by manufacturer on demand) in which case the seller has to declare production partner and the location. Drop shipping is when the seller buys a ready-made product and then sells is with white label (think, Amazon-style shit from China) without any creative input.
We'll never know why the shop was shut down but, either way, it's not OP's problem.

This has scam written all over it - I would ignore

The seller’s first name doesn’t begin with F does it?

No.

Have you had a similar situation?

I’m half in mind to contact Etayband ask how my person email address is accessible to a former seller. I’d imagine the seller took note of my email address before their store was removed, but surely they shouldn’t be able to see it at all?

We can see your email address if you have an account with Etsy but it's against Etsy ToS for us to use it for anything other than communications about the transaction. Some people unsubscribe from Etsy messaging which means we have to use email address for delivery updates or notes about personalisation. So yes, it is available to sellers but not sure how they were getting it after their account was suspended. That should not have happened. And if they did record it before, then I would be worried about their GDPR compliance.

There is a well known individual near where I live who runs an Etsy shop selling items that aren’t what, or from where, they are advertised as being. She also is infamous for her grifting, begging and setting up GoFundMes and BuyMeaCoffee, allegedly to help victims of war in another country but whether any money raised actually gets to the needy is debatable. She promotes her Etsy sales by stating a percentage goes overseas, but again will not produce proof that this is the case but regularly posts images of herself on SM demonstrating expensive makeup, modelling clothes she has bought and a fancy holiday to the Middle East.

Her MO is very similar to another well known individual who has had numerous threads about themselves on here. When people become suspicious of her motives or request a refund, she immediately goes into victim mode, deflecting and starts mentioning how poverty stricken she is and if she has to refund anyone, she will be unable to feed her children that night/how SS are coming to take her children away etc etc. The wording of the email you shared read very similarly to this particular Etsy seller and exactly the sort of thing she would post whenever someone questions where their money is.

Many of us have joined forces and reported her to Etsy but have had no response. I was hoping reading your post that it was the same woman who had finally been shut down by them!

Ignore

For a reasonably low cost item like this, I would pay.

Etsy have a VERY nasty habit of suspending peoples shops for stupid reasons - for example, because they logged into Etsy from an IP address someone else has logged into their own shop from - their shop has been incorrectly flagged for selling prohibited stuff (happens a lot to perfectly legitimate shops).

Etsy are INCREDIBLY hard for sellers to get hold of, and again have a nasty habit of taking money from sellers to refund buyers when there is no need to do so or no obligation on the sellers part (ie, buyer claims not to have received goods when goods are still in transit, and within the transit time expected, or goods marked delivered by the shipping option, no theft report filed by buyer).

So if you got what you were expecting to get - then pay up for it.

If what you got is NOT what you ordered or in some way duff, incorrect, horrible quality compared to the images... then don't, ask for an address and pre-paid label to send it back.