Etsy to Hold More Funds due to Increase in Disputes

by: Silver Ice King

Sounds like Etsy is once again looking for short term interest free loans and have found a new creative way to accomplish it.  I hope they remember to also remember to correctly place the corresponding SHORT TERM Liability on the balance sheet for these withheld funds.  Technically all of these withheld funds should be placed in a non interest bearing account that should always be equal to the corresponding liability.  In other words they should not be commingling those funds with any of their other accounts, but I guess the first quarterly financial statement they issue this year will show if they are just looking for interest free loans.  

by: postbuster

Another idea (excuse) for executives to get their filthy hands into sellers money.
They are a mill that creates problems just to charge more money.
12% success penalty is not enough money?
This is the kind of stuff that wrecks the market.

''Protection''  from what?
Paying bills, for groceries, emergency spending?

So instead of rolling back bogus policies that inhibit sellers, they roll out another one more to Etsy's advantage.  
Why do these venues even bother with small sellers if they do everything they can to push them out.

These disputes are normally handled between the seller and the buyer.
Again none of the venue's business, just more interference and robbery.

Why not PAY what is due, and if any resolve counts against the seller, add the charge to the next months bill.
But knowing the LAZY, WORTHLESS, CHEATING, LYING, SOULLESS, DISGRACEFUL, UNDERHANDED, SPINELESS, IDIOT, DO NOTHING LOSERS IN ANYTHING RELEVANT suits who are in charge of running a corporation, they would rather manipulate that idea into another gouge in the wallets of the public.

I have NO RESPECT from someone who won't even get their own glass of water.
These people are worse than dead weight.

by: ShortSeller

What do you expect from an online sweat shop? Filthy and disgusting behavior as expected.

by: Shanna

This is illegal in most states. Ayden is classified as a money transmitter. Money transmitters have a fiduciary requirement to disperse funds in a timely manner. Most states have a 5-21 day maximum hold time, with the majority at 10 days or less. Much like eBay trying 21 day holds when they owed Paypal, one call to your state's regulators and filing a complaint will see your funds released in record time.

by: The End

Ya, I'm done now.
Closing the Etsy store.....finally.
It's just Stupid now.....
The karmic wheel is running over them, squishing the guts out through their mouth...

by: pennyemporium

@Silver Ice King:  looks like earning interest on the float is a-okay with Etsy.  here's a link to the updated payment page:
https://www.etsy.com/legal/etsy-payments

9.F. ''Interest. In the United States, Etsy may earn interest (or other compensation) from the balances in our bank accounts because of the timing difference between our being paid by buyers and our paying sellers (when our bank account is being debited to pay Available Funds in payment accounts to sellers).''

appears Etsy is also embracing Ebay's vaulted throttling and rolling blackouts:

4. ''As a security measure, we may impose transaction limits on buyers and sellers. For example, we may impose limits relating to the value of any transaction, deposit, or adjustment, or limits relating to the cumulative value of all transactions, deposits, or adjustments during a period of time. We may also impose limits related to the number of transactions per day or other period of time.''  

by: Rexford

How very eBay of them.

Silver Ice King, I thought the same thing when you wrote "Sounds like Etsy is once again looking for short term interest free loans and have found a new creative way to accomplish it."

Etsy or eBay mini-me?

And Pennyemporium, I have noticed unusual patterns of sales on Etsy (looks very much like eBay's throttling) since Etsy implemented the "advertising" fee, which of course I did not and never will participate in.  My sales used to be pretty consistent from week to week.  That is no more.

Never place all your eggs in one basket.  One  tweak by these greedy companies and your sales can fall like a rocket and they may never recover.

by: pennyemporium

@Rexford :  i, too, have been casually watching for all the ''new'' eBay improvements ever since the ex-eBay execs moved over to Etsy.  oddly enough, most, if not all, of our favorite eBay tricks have been slowly blooming on Etsy.  

one of my favorites, the ''lights on, lights off'' blackouts hit my shop a couple years ago.  along with the ''you can only sell X dollars in sales per month''.  once those ''protections'' set in, i made sure i was moving the necessary amount of eggs to yet another basket.  

when i first starting selling on Etsy a decade ago, who knew that all that horrible seller experience from eBay would come in handy?  fairly easy to guess the next step..... we all know how this story will end.

by: Flying Childers

I think that it was sometime last summer that Etsy removed the Vintage category from the main marquee and also stopped promoting vintage items.  Shortly thereafter my vintage shop where I had been making regular sales for years, took a nose dive and has never recovered.

Etsy has become one the worst e-commerce sites out there, worse even than Bonanza where it is all but impossible to make sales no matter what you are selling.  I never did understand how that site became so popular.

Like Ebay, Etsy does not own or produce anything.   They are worse than a mall which at least gives you an actual shop and provides services.  Etsy just takes exorbitant and usurious commissions and fees for doing NOTHING except picking winners and losers.  

I am an experienced seller for many years, both online and brick and mortar.   Before I got shut down by Etsy, I had sold over 1500 vintage items over the course of a few years.  I had steady sales and did not buy their ads, did my own promos.

In the last couple of years, I have tried everything.  I am constantly changing my listings around.  I spend money on their ads that don't work.  I do everything they say, yet my sales are down by 80%.

I really hate Etsy and am glad that I don't depend on these white collar criminals for a living.  I am trying to sell more of my things locally and having better luck at one of the antiques centers.  

I just wish that one of those wealthy entrepreneurs like the guys who started Gab and Parler, would start and E-commerce site for real vintage and handmade.  There is plenty of money to be made.    People really need alternatives to Etsy and Ebay.

by: Vox29

It's why I opened an Etsy shop last year, and closed it again once I received the email. One week on sale. Poo.

Meanwhile, I have sold more items on eBay than I ever did with Etsy. I don't miss it, and I expect more sellers will desert Etsy when they learn how many more hoops they have to jump through to achieve success.

by: postbuster

I opened my shop in 2018.
I was suspicious of their games when I would look into the dashboard and only see limited charts and availability to expand any way of collecting my own data.
(with a highly advanced site, one would think that they would share more of that information)  
Back then, I figured that it was only a matter of time before they really pushed to be as deplorable as ebay.

After a few months, they started charging for shipping and raised the sales fee.
The race was on, and I hung in there to see how long I could wait it out.
Then came the mandatory advertising, last year, the free shipping or get throttled scheme and so on.
Coming here confirmed my suspicions of how dirty they are.

ebay and etsy feed off of each other in the terms of '' if they can do it, than so can we''

etsy is on the fast track to be worse than ebay since ebay has already paved the road for underhanded practices.
They are trying to crate a new standard for selling on ecommerce sites, and sadly, they will accomplish just that.

by: postbuster

Any new site that comes up will have better service for a while, then eventually, they will become the same filthy site as both ebay and etsy.
Crooked Wall Street and all of the posers in suits always ruin REAL businesses.
Very much identical to cancer cells that steal resources and  revenue to only feed themselves.
I had hopes that the new president and the Democrat leverage would help with regulations.
But with the pandemic and all of the other issues that need attention, it wont happen soon, if at all.

I remember when Obama was in office, and to fight against global warming, he only came up with a plan that meant corporations just had to buy licenses to pollute the environment.

This is how effective the regulations work.

by: Tinysaur

When there are monetary interests in punitive actions, companies will eventually abuse their own policy in favor of shareholders greed. There are already terms and conditions for having an account, and violation of that is termination. We've already heard management's belief that there will always be new sellers when the current ones leave. Same should go for violators, but it seems they'd rather keep ''bad actors'' and charge them to facilitate an onboarding of a policy that will slowly expand the circle of affected accounts until they squeeze all the profits out. It's really abusive to sellers. There was a chemical company that was being fined $10,000/day for years. When they finally cleaned up their act, the local government had a serious revenue shortfall. They had become dependent on the fines. Etsy will similarly become dependent on the fines to produce increased profits.

by: Rexford

When I read the title of this article I immediately thought that the eBay buyers have made their way over to Etsy.

I received a return on eBay this week. Buyer has had the item for 28 days.   I guess on day 1-5 he could not determine whether he was pleased or not.  Thankfully it was not a SNAD.

by: fusgeyer

I think that what Etsy is doing with this is a good thing. Most sellers are not going to be affected by this. Etsy is looking to reduce the number of shops that are not shipping products but taking customer money, shops with lots of cases open against them, shops that have a high number of copyright claims against them are going to get hit with this hold. New shops, under 90 days old will also be impacted. This will help reduce the number of sellers that are not legit and those that have no idea of how to run a business.

Not every change is a bad thing.

by: The End

Dear fusgeyer;
Only a complete Corporate SUCK UP  would say what you just said.
No Clue for You.
Etsy is at the Pinacle of Fuqued Up.
EVERY CHANGE IS A BAD THING.
Etsy IS NO LONGER USABLE.

by: Flying Childers

To The End- thanks for your comment.  You summed it up very nicely.

Add another to the 7 Biggest Lies:   I'm from Etsy and I want to help you.

by: Nova Rae

I hate to break it to them, but that's against the law in Texas. They cannot hold a seller's funds for more than 10 days here. Check your state's laws (the Commercial Code regarding Payment Processors).

by: Nova Rae

After posting the above, I went looking through my state's Business Code and, while I'm still scouring over 1,000 pages, came across a number of things -- like the interest being earned on our funds being due to the seller.

Now that I was reminded what the states call payment processors (money transmitters), maybe I'll find what I'm looking for. I'll post whatever I do find. Rest assured I will be reporting this to my SAG.