Etsy acknowledged a currency conversion glitch that impacted sellers in Singapore, and one reader called it chilling. She pointed to some threads on the Etsy discussion board started on May 8th where sellers were discussing the problem.
"Hey guys, I have just experienced what is possibly the scariest Etsy glitch I have yet to encounter. I sell digital products in my shop, and I just sold an item around 15 mins ago. The item's price is around $6.
"When I checked my Etsy balance, the sale correctly credited the $6 to my account. As usual, I was deducted the usual $2-$3 cut that Etsy takes in the fees. But then out of nowhere there was suddenly this "auto-renew sold listing" fee that charged $13,000 and a VAT tax for the "auto-renew sold" which charged $900!"
Four hours later, the seller said that not only were they getting charged for renewing an item, "I'm also getting charged $14,000 whenever I make a sale!"
Four minutes later,
Etsy opened a thread in the Technical Issues board, which they updated and now displays the following message:
"9 May update: We've determined that the incorrect charges from 8 May 2022 were due to an issue caused by the currency conversion rates that we get from our third party provider. This led to transactions to be calculated and posted incorrectly to a small number of shop payment accounts. The root issue was fixed on 8 May 2022. Any transactions after this fix was put in will not be impacted by this issue. The team is working on correcting all impacted payment accounts and will provide an update when this is complete. Thanks for your patience!"
While the message said Etsy fixed the glitch yesterday (we're not sure what time), as of Monday evening, we could find no message reporting Etsy had fixed the accounts of the sellers who were impacted - but it looked like new comments had fizzled out by Monday morning.
Mistakes happen, responding quickly and making things right with sellers is important.
It isn't clear if the glitch caused any account overdrafts or credit card charges for the sellers in Singapore who were impacted, but it was enough to make those reading about it more than a little nervous.
One seller
offered advice to others to safeguard against negative consequences of any future glitches like the one Singapore sellers experienced, such as "Do not enable "Auto Bill Pay,"" and, "Have a separate bank account - business only - where Etsy makes deposits. Do not use your personal, household expenses, account."
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Etsy Currency Conversion Glitch Terrifies Sellers
by: The End 