If you received our update on Wednesday, we spoke a bit too soon! Sorry about that. It turns out that Etsy is not yet offering a non-Plaid option to US sellers - although they did make the option to verify with Plaid using an account and routing number easier to find. An important partial victory!
Users still holding out on giving a sketchy service access to their private financial data now see a new message in their Etsy backend.
The message was always there, but the wording "your shop may be suspended" appears to be new. Etsy is upping the ante on trying to force us to give away our privacy rights. It's time for us to up the ante too.
Have you contacted Etsy yet to let them know that you do not want to sign up for Plaid? I know that we already know what they will say. Our next step is to reach out to the media about this, however, and they will ask us if we tried reaching out to Etsy, and they will ask us what Etsy said.
So it's time for any of us that haven't yet to reach out to Etsy to let them know we are NOT pleased with this requirement.
Click here to contact Etsy support. Sign into your Etsy shop, if necessary.
Next, follow these exact instructions so you don't wind up in a loop:
Choose "Selling on Etsy".
Choose "Finances and billing".
Choose "Deposits or fees".
Choose "I still need help".
From here, you have an option for chat support or phone support. If you choose chat support, here is a sample message.
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Hello. I received a notice in my Etsy shop that I am required to use Plaid to verify my account. I do not agree to using Plaid - and I am not willing to agree to their privacy policy, which states that they can share my private financial data:
https://plaid.com/legal/#how-we-share-your-information
Please offer me another option to verify my checking account.
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Hold onto Etsy's response. Etsy's terms prevent you from sharing conversations with support outside their platform, but when you speak to media, you can share things off the record, or on background, which will allow you to answer the reporter.
If you have questions for us, please reach out via the contact form at the bottom of the Plaid page on our website.
Stay strong everyone! #indiestrong
Oh, and please share the petition!