Etsy Fights Spam & Scams With New "From Etsy" Inbox
Etsy is finally taking steps to address rampant spam and scams from bad actors by creating a dedicated "From Etsy" section in messaging inbox and in message reminders about how to spot scams.
At Etsy, we’re dedicated to keeping your accounts and the marketplace safe and secure. We’ve recently seen increased reports from sellers who’ve received communications from individuals claiming to be Etsy employees. So, we’ve just introduced a new “From Etsy” section in Messages, to make it easier for you to identify when you’re receiving an official communication from Etsy or someone on the Etsy team.
Messages from Etsy Marketing, Support, Research, and Community teams will all appear in the new “From Etsy” section. Check it out!
Some sellers were initially skeptical when then they saw a new blurb in messages about How To Spot and Report Scam Messages, but an Etsy community specialist confirmed it is an official change that will be rolling out to all shops.
For anyone wondering, this is what the message looks like. And yes, it is legitimate and links to this article.
If you haven't seen it in your messages, this means the update hasn't rolled out to your shop yet.
The message links to Etsy's help page about How To Handle Scams and Suspicious Messages.
Once it was confirmed, sellers largely applauded the move, though some believe it's several months late in coming.
Finally some "in your face" advice about scams so newbies can't be taken in by messages asking for email, bank details etc
At least the placement of the Warning is right at the source of the problem. Cannot think of a better place for it as many never read Announcements and Dashboard notifications.
This should, at the very least, cause people to pause before surcumbing to the temptation to give out information as the $$$$$ flash before their eyes, blinding them to the reality of the intention of the "scam" message.
I see it. It's brief but at least it's a good reminder to be mindful of scams. Hopefully it will help especially the new shop owners. Just a shame it's taken them this long.
Better late than never. I just noticed the blurb this morning.
It's good Etsy finally posted this warning on the message page but awful that it took 4+ months to do this.
It should have never taken this long to do this, IMO.
It that had been there months ago, it would have probably saved a lot of sellers from getting scammed out of money.
What do you think of Etsy's efforts to fight spam and scam messages? Would you like to see other marketplaces implement something similar? Let us know in the comments below!
I had a customer open THREE separate INAD cases back to back in Feb. She told a bunch of falsehoods in her comments on the case and refused to provide pictures to back up what she was saying, so I called her out on in it with proof that her statements were untrue.
Even though I knew she was trying to scam me, of course, I approved the returns [all 3] and provided a pre-paid shipping label.
She never sent anything back. I got 3 messages from eBay's system saying "We've closed your buyer's return because we have no record that they shipped the item back to you."
However, eBay's system counted all of them against me in my Service Metrics, causing my "Item not as described returns" rate to be: 0.98% even though the buyer was an obvious scammer and didn't return the items.
I didn't have to refund her since she never shipped anything back so there's not a problem there and eBay did remove her feedback, but eBay still counted the cases against me in my 'service metrics' percentage making me look bad in comparison to my peers.