Dawn M.

I have been a buyer on Etsy.com for some time and have probably purchased over 200 items there. In general the sellers are nice entrepreneurs running their small businesses in a friendly and fair manner. Beware though, there is NO back up if you run into a dishonest seller!

The Etsy team supposedly backs up buyers if there is a claim and the site even boasts that
Etsy will refund money for buyers who order items from sellers who don't ship them or if the item doesn't match what you order. NOTHING COUND BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!

If you happen to purchase from a dishonest seller on ETSY my experience in both cases where this happened is that the ETSY staff did not support me (the buyer) at all and I ended up with a financial loss in addition to not having what I ordered.

The latest issue I had was that a seller there, Cultural Display (http://www.etsy.com/shop/CultureDisplay?ref=seller_info) sold me an antique heavy glass jadeite bowl. It arrived as shattered glass which I could hear clinking when I lifted up the box. I went to the post office and asked for help in collecting the insurance in the package which the seller had paid for. USPS opened the box in front of me and found no protective padding around the, now shattered, glass bowl. I obtained a receipt from USPS stating that they would not cover the insurance because the merchant had not used protective packaging on the item and was advised to 'refuse delivery' so that it would return to the seller.

The seller was really angry with me that I could not get USPS to cover the insurance and refused to give me a refund. So... I submitted a dispute claim to ETSY. Here is their response:

"This is Eva from Etsy's Trust and Safety team. I have reviewed this case, and it seems that the items in question have been damaged by the shipping service.

Unfortunately, in this scenario, we are not able to mediate this dispute using the case system. For this reason, I am going to close this case. "

So... the situation is that
1. The seller made a mistake in packaging resulting in a broken item
2. The post office will not cover the breakage since it obviously was not their fault
3. Despite proof in the form of a USPS receipt and letter the ETSY team still found them at fault and decided I am the one that is stuck with this

Buyer beware on ETSY! And one of the sellers to stay away from is Cultural Display.