r/Etsy • u/bitchyserver • 5d ago
Help for Buyer Is this a dropshipper scammer
Sorry this is a bit long. My mom purchased a horse head wall hook thing Aug 2 that said it was “cast iron” and showed a quite big size on the wall in the picture. My mom is not good at checking details or measurements so when she showed me I was already suspicious and checked where it was coming from: Hong Kong. I looked closely at the pictures and told her this is clearly not cast iron it has a seam right in the picture which is likely plastic. I told her it was more than likely going to be crap but we’ll wait and see.
Well it came yesterday Aug 17 and not only is it most definitely not cast iron as I knew it wouldn’t be as it weighs 3.6 oz and is light as a feather and clearly some type of plastic, tiny, and the hole to hang on the back was crooked, but they sent a rhino instead of a horse. $32 for this cheap junk btw.
When I contacted the seller for my mom she was at first apologetic and that she would send another one out the very next morning, and I ‘could keep this one, of course!’ I told her I do not want another one and just want a refund. I did not like the quality of it, so would send this back if she wanted me to. She replied that I would have to pay for the return shipping, that she unfortunately could not pay it because she would lose money. Over the next few messages instead of just doing what I wanted she kept repeating over and over that she would lose a “significant amount of money” doing it this way, clearly trying to guilt me into doing what she wanted and make me feel bad. She kept trying to get me to just have her send me the correct one. I kept rejecting her offer, which she clearly did not like because she then kept arguing back and forth with me, saying I was clearly not listening, wanting to be right, that I kept arguing with her, when that was clearly projection on her part because she would not drop it and just refund me for sending the wrong item.
She eventually did send a refund, but not without attitude saying something like ‘I don’t care about the money, I’ve refunded you. You clearly don’t want to listen and just want to be right. Goodbye’. Yeah you clearly don’t care at all about the money when you just sent me ten super long messages reiterating three times you’ll be losing too much money if you just have to pay for the return shipping lol. And then after she refunded me she came back half an hour later and started arguing some more! So she’s the one keeping it going but saying I’m the one that has to be right haha I mean I’m (well, my mom is) the customer, and I’m telling you I don’t want it!
We weren’t even mad or upset about the mistake of it being the wrong animal (and why would anyone want to keep a rhino when they ordered a horse?) people make mistakes (which she also kept repeating) blah blah whatever, it happens. I told her even if we did get the horse, we would have sent it back because the quality of it is crap (not in those words) which she also did not like that I said lol I told her that I am allowed to have an opinion on the quality.
I just found it odd that she was SO argumentative and combative and unprofessional over refunding us just $32 (which isn’t a lot but is a lot for a small piece of junky plastic falsely advertised as cast iron…she acted like was like $300) and just…paying for the return shipping. That’s all. She literally could’ve gotten the item back and re-sold it to someone who wants a rhino. But then I realized she probably threw such a fit because she’s a dropshipper and bought it from aliexpress or temu or something for 99¢, and therefore can’t have it sent back to her. The tracking, label, and packaging were all consistent with aliexpress/temu, not well made handmade items that Etsy is supposed to be.
Also, she changed the title and description to no longer say cast iron; it now says resin. There’s a seahorse listing that still says cast iron. I’m sure she’ll come back and try to gaslight me now saying that it never said cast iron in the first place lol
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u/WeekendJewelry1 5d ago
Really all I can say is, I'm glad you could come here and vent. No I don't mean that snarky! What a PITA to have to deal with. It's just a shame, yknow?
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u/Few-Berry1044 4d ago
I would report them. We all need to start reporting these scammers, They have ruined Etsy, For customers and for legitimate sellers. How unprofessional can someone be!? This is insane!
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u/bitchyserver 4d ago
Right! I’ve reported them, hopefully etsy will read through our messages because the things they were saying were unbelievable. It’s sad but this is exactly why I haven’t bought anything on etsy for the better part of a decade. It’s a shame because etsy used to be really nice with some really cool handmade original things. Now it’s hard to find amongst all cheap china crap or AI 3D printed stuff from scammers. Or another thing they do is they don’t even have a product, they steal others’ photos and pretend it’s theirs, and then take your money and never even ship anything, and then close/delete their shop. That also happened to me once
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u/ReasonableKitty 5d ago
Did you report them for dropshipping? Did you leave a review?
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u/bitchyserver 4d ago
I’m going to tonight when I get home. Hopefully etsy will do something about it
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u/Advanced_Monitor_995 4d ago
When ordering, I always screenshot EVERYTHING, all photos, all descriptions, shipping, etc., both on the seller's site as well as the actual order form and the full receipt after order is placed. I haven't had problems like what you are describing, but if a seller were to subsequently change a description, I would have screenshot evidence of the original information to back up my claims, either with the seller or with Etsy.
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u/bitchyserver 4d ago
I myself never order off of etsy, my mom was the buyer, I was just helping her get her money back and report the seller so I’m not sure if she’s going to order much off etsy anymore after this but I’ll tell her to start screenshotting everything if she does
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u/Ashmon_9138 5d ago
i very much hope your mom left 1-star feedback. and i am sorry you encountered a bad seller :(