If you sell your knitting or any other sort of home made or vintage goods on Etsy, you may have noticed an ever increasing amount of direct messages from ‘Etsy Support’ asking you to verify your account.

As an Etsy seller myself, I have recently noticed a pretty much daily drop of what I immediately recognised to be fake messages and not at all from Etsy HQ.

However, the penny only dropped because I have been selling on Etsy for years and have never had any such issues before. I also know what an official Etsy staff message looks like, and these crafty attempts at fraudulence just don’t look the same.

If you are new to selling your crafts or vintage goods on Etsy however, you could well be fooled into thinking they really ARE from Etsy staff.

This article is being published in the hope that it may prevent an unwitting Etsy shop owner from being conned via a spam email or message. please read on to find out more.

Fraudsters pretending to be Etsy support are trying to steal peoples financial details.

In a nutshell, direct messages are being sent daily to Etsy store owners from people who are pretending to be from Etsy support. They ask for personal details, either by replying to the message or via links within their message (I have had both types just today).

The messages from the scam artists often threaten to suspend Etsy shops or cancel accounts completely.

If you are new Etsy seller, you may well think these spam messages and emails are genuinely from Etsy support. Indeed, people have gone through with the verification process out of fear of losing their shops, or the proceeds of an order, and ending up being stolen from.

This forum post on Etsy Community boards highlights how widespread this splurge of spam and scam emails and messages on the Etsy website is.

Etsy sellers are also commenting that Etsy itself isn’t helpful regarding this scamming issue and is advising sellers to put all such messages into their spam folder (you can click on spam to send any messages in your Etsy inbox into the spam folder).

I have to say that I had one such scam message removed via Etsy today so maybe they are taking notice and trying to eradicate some of the emails. Let us hope so.

How can you spot a scam or spam message in your Etsy inbox?

The scam message that I have received do look quite convincing. The profile picture used is usually an Etsy logo, and the profile name is usually Etsy Help, Etsy Support, or Etsy Verfication etc.

The way to tell that these messages are fake and a scam is that they are asking for details such as confirming your email address, or perhaps verifying bank details.

Please see below for photos of some of the messages that I have received from Etsy scammers.

Etsy has stated that they will NEVER ask for information such as email addresses or financial information within a message. If you see any sort of message from Etsy asking you for personal information WITHIN A MESSAGE or VIA A LINK, leave well alone. Put it into your spam folder and report it to Etsy. If enough people complain to Etsy about these daily attempts at scamming and phishing, maybe something will be done to help stop it.

Should you stop selling on Etsy because of scam and spam emails and messages?

Etsy is a great marketplace to both sell and buy on. Like all other online business, there is a risk of scammers trying to phish your details.

It is just that the number of attempts on Etsy recently seems to have multiplied by a massive number, and it is very very important to be aware of this issue to sell and buy safely.

Have you received any scam or spam messages in your Etsy inbox, either as a buyer or seller? Please let others know by posting in the comments thanks so much.