I have an Etsy account so I reported the shop as dropshipping/scamming you, with a link to your shop.
If anyone wants to send me a link to the fake listings, I’m happy to report them via my Etsy. I can’t make an official claim of copyright because it’s not my work (and tbh Etsy makes it hard as hell to report, and the company doesn’t care about fake/manufactured shops. Their customer service is ~ not fantastic ~). But I can report it as not meeting Etsy’s policies and link them to the real shop, which might help!
Thank you so much Francesca, I have also attempted to report them, however unlike folks say they are a large corporation and I’m not completely sure we ever get to contact a person. This is one of the reasons I like folksy so much that way you know you are speaking to human. Thank you very much for your kind help with this and let’s hope there isn’t too much more of it.
No problem. Etsy is a great at the back end - setting up items and seeing orders is really easy. But the quality of shops has gone waaaay down lately and so has the customer service.
having worked for an organisation in a related field, i can say that while you should report to Action Fraud, in reality they will likely only have the resources to investigate in cases where a serious amount of money has been lost (probably at least 5 figures, if not 6)
After spending ages on the phone then filling in the report online I received and email to say it wouldn’t be investigated, I realised It was because I hadn’t reported loss of money. They advised ringing trading standards and I did try several times but the fake accounts are overseas so not worth pursuing. I Did also fill in a report to ASA though and if others report it as well it may get looked into, they do state that they look into every one reported but whether or not that’s true I don’t know.
A customer advised me that one of my listings was copied in an Etsy shop, same words, same description, same pictures and three times the price! It occured to me that she could order one of my products and give HER customer’s name and address, so I would be the dropshipper to her profitable advantage. I told Etsy and they took the shop down within hours.I signalled it as breaking my copyright.
I am so pleased Etsy worked quickly for you and took the shop down straight away, it’s good to hear they are now listening and removing bogus shops. I had a major battle with them to get mine taken off, I believe it is a regular occurrence on there now and have heard from others that have been in the same position as ourselves, Etsy admin are obviously taking it more seriously now and removing the shops once reported.
I also noticed several Etsy shops were re-selling goods I had seen for sale on Chinese sites. I gathered a list of these sites, all selling the same products with the same photographs and they were all taken down within days. Etsy have a published policy of not allowing resale of non-vintage ready made goods. I am unable to find a Folksy policy about infringing copyright, Does Folksy have a list of their policies somewhere?
x
x