It doesn’t happen very often, but when you buy something on Etsy it’s possible that the person you bought it from won’t ship it to you.
Luckily, there are purchase protections on Etsy for buyers in cases where the seller never ships your package to you.
Before assuming you’ve been scammed, though, make sure that you’re not just misinterpreting the processing times and estimated delivery dates on your order.
Table of Contents
- Can you get scammed on Etsy as a buyer?
- What is processing time on Etsy?
- What happens if the Etsy seller doesn’t ship the order?
- What if the Etsy seller isn’t responding after the payment was sent?
- What if the Etsy seller doesn’t exist after you purchase?
- Will Etsy refund your money if you get scammed?
- Do Etsy sellers see your credit card info?
- How to complain about a seller on Etsy.
- How long does Etsy support take to respond?
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Can you get scammed on Etsy as a buyer?
Unfortunately, because online shopping does come with risks, it’s possible to get scammed on Etsy when you buy something. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible.
Most Etsy sellers won’t rip you off, but there are some people who only set up shop in order to take payments, and they never intend to ship anything.
A lot of Etsy sellers have had their photos stolen by other people, and those people use the listing photos to list products that they have no intention of ever selling.
When they get your payment, they take the money and they disappear.
There are other scams on Etsy, and as a buyer you need to protect yourself by checking out the sellers before you purchase from them.
I wrote an article that goes into more depth about that, so read this for more information about ways to protect yourself online: Is Etsy safe to buy from?
What is processing time on Etsy?
The processing time on Etsy is the amount of time that it’s going to take to actually make your order.
This is in addition to the shipping time if you’re trying to figure out how long it will take to receive your order.
When Etsy sets the estimated delivery dates, it basically adds the processing time to the estimated post office transit time. Remember that these are only estimates, but that the processing time can make the delivery time look a lot longer than you would expect.
Depending on what you’ve ordered from the Etsy seller, it might take a really long time to make that thing, so the processing time will be longer.
Anything with a longer processing time is going to take longer to ship out, so if you’re expecting it quickly you might think that it hasn’t shipped when it just actually hasn’t been made yet.
Before you assume that the seller is trying to rip you off by not shipping your order, make sure that you’ve checked the estimated delivery date for that product in the listing itself.
This will show in the estimated arrival date that Etsy gives for deliveries. A longer processing time will mean that the estimated delivery date will be later than you might expect.
What happens if the Etsy seller doesn’t ship the order?
If you order something and the Etsy seller doesn’t ship the order, first check the estimated delivery date that Etsy has on the listing itself.
That information will be in your purchases and reviews section, which you can read about in the article here: Purchases and reviews.
(This information is also in the listing itself, and you should be able to see it before you decide whether to buy it or not.)
If the estimated delivery date has come and gone, it might mean that the seller is behind on orders, or it might mean that there have been delays with the mail.
If there’s no tracking information or a “shipped” date showing in the listing on your purchases and reviews page, it could also mean that the package hasn’t been shipped at all.
Keep in mind that some International sellers don’t ship with tracking because it’s an additional expense that customers don’t want to pay for, so a lack of tracking isn’t necessarily proof that the package didn’t ship.
But there should be a shipped date on the order that tells you when the package did go out, and you should have received a shipment verification email from Etsy.
If you do see that the estimated delivery date has passed and there’s no mention of the package being shipped, you should contact the seller first to find out what’s going on.
If the seller responds, or if you can see that there’s a tracking number in the order, you can go from there.
But if they don’t respond, the estimated delivery date has passed, and there’s no tracking, you might be in trouble.
To see the full Artisan Shopping Directory sections, including signups for discounts, click here.
What if the Etsy seller isn’t responding after the payment was sent?
If you send a message to an Etsy seller after you’ve purchased from them and they don’t answer you, that could signal that there’s something going on.
Most attentive Etsy sellers answer questions within one business day, unless it’s over a weekend.
But if you sent a couple of messages and you haven’t gotten an answer back, and your order still hasn’t shipped and it’s past the estimated delivery date, you might need to escalate this to Etsy to look into it.
Remember that every shop on Etsy is owned by an individual seller, and Etsy is only the marketplace.
Etsy won’t know what the seller is doing, but if there’s been a big delay they need to know about this so that they can monitor the situation.
In extreme cases, Etsy might shut shops down if they get multiple complaints about the same problem within a certain time frame.
It’s important to let Etsy know about situations like this so that they can decide whether the shop should be able to keep selling on the platform.
At the same time, customers really do need to give sellers time to get back to them before filing complaints.
What if the Etsy seller doesn’t exist after you purchase?
In the extreme situation of a shop just disappearing after you bought something from them, Etsy will usually handle that directly with you.
Sometimes Etsy closes shops for no good reason, but the seller should still be able to communicate with you using the email on your orders.
If this does happen, most legitimate sellers will actually try to contact you themselves to let you know what’s going on.
Sometimes though, the seller wasn’t able to retrieve their orders before Etsy closed the shop, so they have no way to communicate with their customers.
There have also been situations that I know about where a seller had a health emergency and wasn’t able to fill orders after that.
In those situations, there could be a delay in orders or with cancellations, so try to contact the shop first to see what’s going on.
There are always situations where Etsy has to close a shop because of complaints, and the shop still has open orders that they haven’t filled yet.
If that happens, there should be a message on the shop’s homepage that tells you to contact Etsy directly with any questions or problems that you’re having with the orders that you placed with that shop.
If you don’t see a message, check your purchases and review section to see if there’s anything there, and if not, you can contact Etsy directly through their help section.
Will Etsy refund your money if you get scammed?
If you do have an order that hasn’t shipped, and the seller isn’t responding to you at all or the shop has been closed and you can’t communicate with them, Etsy will refund the cost of the purchase.
Etsy’s purchase protection program protects buyers and sellers, so you should be able to get a refund for the money that you spent or something that you didn’t receive.
If Etsy won’t refund you for some reason, you can always file a claim with the credit card company that you use to place the order.
As long as you didn’t receive the products, and the lack of tracking shows that the order was never shipped, it shouldn’t be a problem to be refunded that way.
Do Etsy sellers see your credit card info?
One thing you might worry about is whether a fake seller on Etsy has your credit card information or not.
Don’t worry about that, because Etsy sellers don’t have access to anyone’s payment information at all.
The information that comes through on the orders that we receive includes your mailing address and your email address, but there is nothing about your payment information or credit card numbers.
I’ve had people ask to cancel an order, then change their mind and asked me to recharge them for it.
I have to tell them that I can’t do that and they’ll just have to go through and purchase it again, because I don’t have access to any payment information and I can’t place orders for customers.
Don’t worry about a scammer getting your payment information, because as long as you check out on Etsy and you don’t send them any information directly, they won’t have access to your credit card number or any payment information at all.
How to complain about a seller on Etsy.
If you want to complain about a seller on Etsy not shipping your package, you can file a claim in your purchases and review section by looking for the order that was affected.
You can also contact Etsy directly by using the link in the help section that I mentioned above.
That can take longer for Etsy to respond, though, but if it’s a complicated situation you might want to go that route instead of just filing a claim right away.
Before you file a complaint or make a claim, you should definitely make sure that the estimated delivery time has passed.
If that hasn’t happened, the order will probably still ship out, because most Etsy sellers are legitimate store owners.
To complain about a seller and file a claim, find the order that hasn’t shipped and click on “Help with order.”
That will open up a screen that will allow you to choose type of help that you need.
In this case, you would choose “my order hasn’t arrived,” and then you’ll be able to send a message to the seller about that.
The seller should have 48 hours to respond, and at that point you can file a claim with Etsy if they don’t answer you.
If you don’t get any answer at all after 48 hours, you should definitely file a claim so that Etsy knows what’s going on.
However, you really need to make sure that the order 100% has not shipped.
For some Etsy shops that have long processing times, people order, then get irritated when they realize that they’ll have to wait that long for their items.
I know sellers who make things like custom quilts or custom knitted items, and these can take a long time to make.
Make sure when you buy something that you look to see how long it’s going to take to send to you. If that turns out to be longer than you want to wait, you shouldn’t buy from that seller.
Some things just take longer to make, and that could be the reason that it hasn’t shipped yet.
How long does Etsy support take to respond?
Depending on how you contact Etsy support, it can take them a while to respond to you.
If you use the contact link in their help section, the best choices are to choose either chat or a call back.
Emailing Etsy should be a last resort, because they’re very slow to respond to any type of email.
The chat option is pretty much immediate, and they’re pretty good about doing callbacks within a short period of time.
If they need to look into something that you’re complaining about, they might need to email you back, and that usually takes at least 24 hours to get a response.
If you’re looking for a fast response time, the chat or a call back are definitely your best bets.
It doesn’t happen very often, but if you do get scammed on Etsy it doesn’t feel good.
Don’t worry though, because there are enough purchase protection options that you shouldn’t lose any money if you do end up being scammed on Etsy.