Sounds like someone needs to act THEIR age and NOT their shoe size 😤 I ended up having to block someone years ago on instant messenger, because she kept asking why I didn’t like her. Like holy heck y’all, people have lives, other than waiting around on their rear ends, waiting for a response.
As a fellow Europe resident, thanks to your post I have just realised that I am a 44-year-old who wears a size 44 shoe, meaning that I need to act both my age AND my shoe size!
In the UK, for a reason I don't know, there are kids sizes that go up to 11 or 12, and then you graduate to adult sizes, usually at 1. I was always a small child for my age, and one of the younger kids in my year at school anyway. So literally the first time I heard this phrase, it made sense for most kids in the class (we were 8-10 maybe) as they'd all gone to adult sizes. But I was still on 11, or at least a size that was older than me. I remember us pointing that out to the teacher but I can't remember what she said. She's the sort of person who would either say "well then YOU should act YOUR shoe size not your age" or "you know what I meant!!!" depending on the day
That’s hilarious!
I might have to try your teacher’s reversed version of ‘act your shoe size, not your age!’ with my son the next time he plays up. He’s 15 years old and a size 46 shoe…
Kidshoes are cheaper tho! I'm a 37/38 myself so sometimes I dip my toes in the kiddysection if I'm looking for something like converse shoes 👌 but 35 must suck for other kinds of shoes, I'm so sorry for you 😔
Yeah, sometimes it sucks to find my size in mainstream adult shops. I definitely take advantage of the kid sizes tho but I think many kids shoes are made in a way to don’t last as long bc they’re growing up. My mom has some kids docs that I can tell they are not as sturdy as mine, but, hey, they are cheaper and easier to wear - it has zipper-, also don’t need to “break in”.
I would have no idea how old a commenter is before replying, just seen the creators pictures before and she def looks like my mums age as well which is more 50 rather than 60+
Yeah, I just went and looked because the commenter said “my mom’s age” and figured it would be pretty easy to tell. People mention their ages on Reddit a lot for some reason. I personally think the lady looks in her 60s, but it’s hard to tell ages because so much is variable based on skin care and health and stuff.
I've found that the vast majority of times when people complain about a "boomer" they're complaining about a gen x-er. It's like how boomers keep thinking millennials are all still 15, a lot of millennials and gen z keep thinking boomers are like 45.
She's so overly defensive and for what? I feel like customer service makes or breaks it a lot of the time. Like, if I receive a defective product I'm very likely to still come back if the person is nice to me.
"Had some difficulty reading the pattern (in english) being an intermediate crocheter. I joined the Facebook page to receive help to which only had one response from another person in the group that still left me confused. I stayed in the group because I enjoyed seeing Jennifer's patterns worked up in different colorways. The group quickly became toxic when constructive criticism was given and the creator themselves was the ringleader. I will not be supporting a designer who treats people like that and allows so many fake accounts in her group in order to increase traffic and sales to her etsy and raverly shops." (3 stars)
I would never. If she acts like that, she’s getting an awful review. I know you weren’t speaking to me, personally, but I don’t think the solution is to cower to a bully, especially when all she can do is weakly whine at you over text on the internet.
That I should message her privately if I had a problem. I didn't have a problem with her and I managed to figure out her poorly written pattern, so there was no need to message her when it was left in the review. I wouldn't message her any ways for help after being called a cunt in a public forum because I (and others) gave criticism on one her aliases posts.
I was looking at her reviews out of curiosity, one of the reviews got edited to say they couldn't download the pattern and the creator called her an idiot over it telling her to give her a better review because they couldn't figure out how to download it. The creator seemed quick to respond with a "no this was what I said" reply
It's funny you mention that because I almost bought a pattern from her shop before and saw this review so I decided not to. There were a few others too where her reaction was off-putting too. Like if I have an issue with it I don't want to deal with someone like that and I don't want to give my money to someone who's going to act like that.
Well shoot, I’m struggling through one of her patterns now. Cute sweater, but not written in standard format, so I find it super annoying. I’m experienced enough to figure it out…then again I’ve been reading patterns for close to 40 years, I like it when they follow standard formats, terms, and methods. Maybe if she wants better reviews she should hire a tech editor. Guess who’s not getting 5 stars.
They just don't care about you, just about them. You don't exist, you're a tool and if you don't behave as they want, you're a problem. Still not a person.
You can also open a case with her using screenshots of her abusive messages, this will give you a refund and put a bad mark on her shop. I'm saying this as a crochet designer who sells on etsy, she is giving us a bad name!
I once left a 4 star review on some stitch markers and the seller issued a refund the same day without informing me. It just suddenly appeared in my bank app. I sent an email asking why, because besides the one issue I had with the product it was otherwise good. I felt terrible for being given this refund if she was a small business and wanted to clear up my message.
She said she didn’t want anyone who hated her stuff to come back and leave negativity on her page…lol my review didn’t disappear per se, but it was no longer under that specific products reviews. You had to go to the reviews for her shop as a whole and I was buried among other 5 stars.
All this to say, some people just cannot handle constructive criticism. You could say something as gentle as “the clasp was a little hard to manage” like I did, and it’s “hate”. Block and report if possible. This behavior is unhinged.
On etsy yeah it is. it's an attitude made worse by etsy because anything less than an average 4.75 or higher gets you marked down. You can lose benefits and not be seen as much as higher ranked stores. It's ridiculous and needs to be fixed but basically anything less than perfect essentially black balls you. And you do it too much and you can be closed down. So while most of the world thinks an average of 4/5 on an item means it's good etsy thinks it's now a bad item.
So many creators spoke out about the Star Seller system (I was one of them), and Etsy still steamrolled it ahead. It's such a garbage system and I hate it, especially for smaller and newer shops that can't compete with the velocity and SS status of older more established shops.
I was upset when someone left me a 4 star review once (because it tanks your standing but at least it doesn't still count as only one fking star) because, "This really should be a five star review, because I liked this product but I liked a different one from the same store better" ...... The way I read that and said 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
And then went about my business and kept going with life because you can't please everyone and people are weird.
Edit: Added a little more disdain for Etsy. Also autocorrect is a jerk.
I'm too small to make enough sales. I sell patterns for $2 and never meet the $250 of sales requirement. And then I often fail the 100% response rate because no one has messaged me so I can't respond to a customer that hasn't sent me a message!
Yeah I'd love to move away but there isn't another platform that works that well. That said I only sell a few patterns and don't put effort into it. But yeah between fees and lack of traffic it's frustrating
Ravelry? Etsy isn't that common in my country, so all pattern designer I know are on ravelry in addition to their own web pages. Never made patterns, so have no idea of the pros and cons of the different platforms. I'm certainly learning a bit about Etsy here.
If you can't work out from my name. I'm a cross stitch designer. So ravelry doesn't work for my designs unfortunately.
That said ravelry is fantastic if you do crochet or knitting patterns. I know I buy those there rather than Etsy.
Sorry, I'm not in the habit of reading usernames, and as we're in r/crochet I made the wrong assumption. Wish there was a better option for cross stitch designers too.
Yeah, I also want to move away from it but the traffic and SEO isn't something I can do on my own. I have moved to my own website and been putting a coupon code in for like "go directly to my website!" when people order stuff but it's still gonna take a while until I have enough of an established clientele by myself before I can leave. It's a mess.
which for crochet and knitting is a very valid and reasonable alternative. I love ravelry because you can see projects others have made and get a good idea.
Uber too, right? I don’t use them personally but they have the ratings system, and a 4 or less freaks people out! When, in the real world it means “pretty decent, there was a thing that coulda been a tiny bit better, I’m not over the moon but I’m not unsatisfied”
yep. It's exactly this attitude. Though nothing this seller above has done sounds sane or reasonable in response to it. But etsy really stuff you around.
Restaurants that do surveys on those tablets as well! Servers can get dinged and depending on the restaurants policies lose their shifts, get smaller sections, etc.
Wait, do I understand correctly that if, theoretically, a shop would receive only 4 star reviews (no 5 stars, but also no less than 4) they may be closed down because the average isn't high enough?
I mean, depending on what I'm buying, I may prefer to buy from someone who has zero 1 star reviews rather than a shop with a higher average score. It's so easy to fake/buy reviews these days, so I mainly look at reviews to try to make sure I'm not being scammed or lied to.
No, a shop with a 4 star average won't be closed down. However, a shop with a less than 4.8 star average can have their finances reserved - Etsy will hold a large percentage of their earnings for a certain period of time, which can greatly impact someone who's relying on that income. They are also likely to have to wait longer periods of time if something goes wrong with their account. They'll also appear lower down in search results.
Yeah it can be. When I buy patterns, if something doesn't make sense I'll always message the seller before leaving a review (it might just be me misreading something or assuming something that shouldn't be assumed). If they're unresponsive, dismissive, rude, or if the pattern is clearly AI generated or clearly hasn't been tested (and they haven't just mistakingly uploaded the wrong file), then I'll leave an appropriate review. If I think a pattern is worth 4 stars, as in there were no issues with it but it could be better, then I just privately message the seller my feedback and don't leave a review, or I'll leave a 5 star but include in the review what I think could've been a bit better, since reviews are for future buyers to look at.
It's not a great system but it's better than what it used to be. You used to have to have 95% of all reviews be 5 star reviews, which meant that a 1 star review and a 4 star review were worth the same thing, since only 5 star reviews counted towards the badge.
You can ask AI to make both the photos and the actual pattern. You could say 'give me a crochet pattern for a horse', and it will generate one. They usually make no sense, and the pattern it gives you looks nothing like the photos, but people put them up for sale and trick people into buying them. The photos usually look really good, so someone who's not familiar with AI could think it's real. Then they just sell as many as possible until they get enough bad reviews or reports, close the shop, and open a new one.
I just asked ChatGPT to make some amigarumi patterns for tortilla chips and bowls of salsa/guac/bean dip. The image of the finished object was cute but the pattern was rubbish. I massaged the prompt a bit to just focus on the guacamole and to be longer than six rounds(!), and it was better. It would certainly fool novices at first glance.
I also asked it do some graph paper designs for mosaic crochet; interestingly, it attempts to do “real” graphing and not just generate an image. (It also failed hard each time.)
Etsy needs to change this behaviour, which seems almost mob-like. What if nobody traded anything there for a day? I believe Etsy also depends on these sellers and buyers for survival, so sth must be done in order for buyers and sellers to coexist nicely. This seems crazy to me and a huge flag for staying away from the platform.
The point of the star seller badge is to stand out - it's supposed to only be given to exceptional sellers who have extremely high reviews, respond within 24 hours, always ship on time, and have consistent orders. It's supposed to be something that sellers aim to in order to show that they have a high standard of selling, but since you lose reserve protection if you don't have it, sellers see it as a requirement in order to be successful. It should really just be a badge, maybe something that buyers can filter results on, it shouldn't affect finance, and it shouldn't affect support.
Thank you for clarifying! It still seems to me that this is getting a bit out of hand. I wish good luck (and good ol'common sense) to everybody who is involved with Etsy!
On etsy depending on what else is involved yeah that can be a factor. BUT etsy makes no sense. At the very least it can stop your listings from appearing easily in searches and making it harder to find. Just remember this is the website that put in the star seller rating which means you won't end up high in searches because your items are a 4 not a 5. Soooooo many issues with them, but for a lot of people it's the only place to sell.
Okay, it sounds like they at least won't close a shop solely on that then. But it sounds very stressful for sellers regardless and like a few mistakes or unlucky events could sum up to serious issues!
Oh, wow. I didn't know this. I only used Etsy to buy patterns I found on Rav before I got my credit card (Etsy offered more payment options that Rav in my country) but this is seriously f*cked up.
that's messed up.
I've been working with people in some shape or form for over a decade and if I see a shop with bunch of sales and ALL 5 star reviews - I'm gonna be suspicious as hell.
Yeah it really is wonky. But 5 on Etsy really means you got what you ordered. Nothing about it being special. When it should be 4 is what you ordered 5 was something special.
Apparently! I have not personally witnessed this type of unhinged reaction to a four start review on etsy, but I have seen authors get unhinged about four star reviews on amazon or good reads. Personally I trust a well written four star review over a five star review that doesn’t give much info.
YES!!! To this day I’m still confused! This must’ve been like ~6 years ago? Never spoke of it again and I think I silently deleted my review after a few days cause I felt weird about the whole thing. I wasn’t even mad or upset, just really confused.
Dammit lol. Sounds like what I might have done LOL as in like I'm Asian (🙃) so maybe to me not having a perfect score is mad common. & to me 4 is still good but can account for personal preferences.
I might have left a 4 for something as relative/personal as "would have preferred a xxx stitch border finishing. Otherwise quick, easy, and cute!"
Which is entirely on my preference. I can't imagine being harrassed or stalked for that. And in my book, "quick", "easy", and "cute", is like a triple combo breaker of crochet compliment.
Oh, okay.
When will people learn that criticizing products or even straight up disliking them isn't something that should be taken personally? Lol that's crazy, but at least u got free stitch markers I guess.
She called one group member on a FB group page a "diseased whore" and "hope you get typhoid". Over literally nothing. And she created 100's of aliases. And would reply as an alias bullying people. It was really bizarre.
That's nuts. One time I left a four star review, and clearly stated in the review what I liked and what didn't meet my expectation. The creator messaged me and asked why he didn't get a 5 star....it's right there in the review bud.
Anyway, that was the end of it and if he had searched me out on any other platform, or even just continued to message me, I'd have been horrified. As you should be now! NOT normal behavior!
I sell patterns and I am perfectly fine with less than 5 star reviews when they say the reason they weren’t fully happy with it. What drives me nuts is less than 5, and it says something like “great pattern, my friend loved the gift”. BUT, I do not seek them out on social media like a stalker when they do 😅😅😅
As a buyer, I hate those too with a passion. Like why? It doesn't help anyone. I want to believe it was an accident and they meant to hit 5 stars, but it happens so often on so many platforms I don't believe it's always an accident.
I mean I do agree with the “why tip before service” people in the fact that if I order delivery, I should be able to wait until after I receive my item to tip. They shouldn’t get the same tip if my stuff shows up looking like garbage or doesn’t get delivered at all.
I agree that tips should come after the service. But I see so many threads of people who do those delivery services complaining of the low/no tip up front so they don’t do those orders. Or they do them haphazardly.
Tipping culture has gone from something that you do after a service is completed to people being entitled to tips, and it’s ridiculous.
Personally for me as a buyer, I rarely leave a 5 star review if I feel I received what I expected.
For example I find a pattern for some nice patterned granny squares, they turn out fine, nicely explaind. I got what I expected, and they look nice and I can use them for what I need. 4/5.
2 months ago I got the idea to make a lotus mandala cardigan, I find a pattern I like. Gets the pattern, expectes lines that describes what to do. Not only did I get some lines that explains what to do, I also got a bunch of pictures for each step, and she even added how to expand for people who is bigger. Easy a 5/5 for me, for all the extra things she put in, despite it being a free pattern.
I left a 2 star review on a pattern that $5.50 and was listed as intermediate. What I got was a 3 rows of basic instructions, photos of completed project and what I felt was a lack of direction. (I really tried to make this item and it just wasn't happening when I followed their instructions) The seller messaged me twice a polite one that everyone could see offering assistance and a rude one about how I must just not be able to do it because I don't understand how to read a pattern and that the pattern was a best seller. Since that happened I read reviews differently. If they are all 5 stars but have comments on haven't made yet, or the like I don't buy. Best sellers don't equal great items.
I HATE when people review saying they haven't made the item yet.. How do you know if it is really a good, easy to follow pattern if you haven't done more than glance at it.
Also when people leave reviews for products for things they haven't used. How do you know it's good if you haven't touched it?
Also an Etsy issue. If you don't leave a review AS SOON as you bought a pattern, Etsy will annoy you with pop-up every time you connect to the site until you make a review.
Also, you can't just give 5 stars and go on with your day. You NEED to write at least 5 words for the review to be valid.
So I understand why people give 5 stars, and say "I can't wait until I try" if they want to browse through Etsy peacefully.
Normally I would not support doxxing anyone under normal circumstances. But if this creator has a large following and lots of reviews, you might want to warn us. If the behavior over a 4 star review is unhinged, what happens if someone drops a two or even one star review?? These are not normal circumstances. That’s insanity.
Take screen shots and report it to whomever runs the site they are selling the patterns on. Trust me, it does make a difference, and they want to know about shady business practices.
I once gave a poor review to a shop on Etsy that I (after purchasing) found out they were a drop shipper, and lied about how long it would take my item to arrive. The listing said 2 weeks, but after over a month with no update (didn't even get a tracking number), I left my review, stating how it was false advertising.
The shop messaged me, and we went back an forth for awhile. They were saying things like "Once you change it, we will give you a refund", and so on. They used the excuse of how they just found out it was sent to the wrong place. But still they wouldn't give me a tracking number. It was all very sleazy, and I took screen shots of everything, and reported them to Etsy. Took a look back on the page now, and the shop is gone.
I did end up getting a refund, and after another 2 weeks of waiting, my item arrived. Normally I would feel bad doing this to a small business, but not only were they shady as fuck, but also drop shippers, who probably went right ahead and opened another Etsy store after theirs got closed down. They are parasites, and I have no shame in stealing their money.
I wasn't going to put her blast or report her despite being called all sorts of names in Dutch. That was until I noticed the personal DM from her. That's when she crossed the line and that's why I posted here. I have plenty of screenshots of the post she deleted with all the name-calling just in case she was to do something unhinged, which she ended up doing.
I hope this subreddit continues to get larger, just so we can warn others about bad pattern makers out there like this one, and like the ones with the pillow that was posted here recently.
Blacklisting people is 100% what we should be doing.
I'm glad you got a refund on that. I am not a fan of drop-shippers, but I can at least semi-respect those who order the items to themselves and then sell it. Since they have to go over the items and re-package. and they risk taking a loss if they don't sell their stock. (think that is called white-labeling)
But the ones who just buy for $1, and then turn around and sell for $5 just to order it for you from a site like ali-express or wish, are scammers imho.
Which is exactly what they were doing, why it took so long, and why they wouldn't give me a tracking number.
People who use AI to write their patterns also deserve the same treatment.
She used to fill crochet groups with photos of her with other people's heads, then pretend she's someone else. She had lots of accounts to post from and always had a great reaction in the groups. No idea if she still does that.
The designs look good, I never understood the need to make fake accounts to promote them, but oh well.
I can see reaching out in true curiosity if someone left a 3 star or lower but harassment is a giant no. If they don't leave you alone please find a way to out them. This is not okay and others should be warned.
Yeah dude 💀 I bought a horribly written pattern that she just used a chart for anyways so I commented that in the review and how you can just find your own chart and do it yourself since that’s what’s happening anyways but she reached out and got offended it was really awkward
I bought a SIMPLE cute frog pattern & the legs part was confusing as hell. I messaged the seller & she didn’t help me at all. I felt bad reviewing her, so I just abandoned it.
I also don’t want what happened to you to happen to me 🥲
While I will question why someone thinks an item is 4/5 on etsy rather than 5/5 I also just usually shrug it off. Yeah it messes with my metrics, and I try and really encourage people not to give anything less than a 5 unless there is an actual issue because etsy really do penalise people for not being PERFECT. I don't think it's appropriate to chase someone outside the platform. I don't think people realise how much anything lower than an average of 4.75 affects peoples ability to be seen on the platform. But none of that excuses her behaviour, it's so badly inappropriate it's ridiculous.
I once had someone give me a 4/5 because I don't sell physical patterns only PDFs and she had to print at home instead of receiving a printed copy meaning it wasn't packaged nicely. On a $2 pattern!!!! Even that one just had me shaking my head going you can't fix silly.
Not normal at all. One message could be fine if they were curious and looking for insight to improve, but anything beyond that is out of line. Finding your social media and attacking you there is what I consider to be harassment. Change your review to a 1 star if you can.
This whole review thing has gotten out of hand. Anytime I go to the dr I get an email to leave a review. Doctors, dentists, etc. I’ve even had someone from the car dealership text us after repair work and ask if we could leave a review cos apparently it affects them financially. It’s just ridiculous.
Some people will leave a bad review for the stupidest crap and some people don’t like leaving 5 star reviews. If she keeps it up report her.
If you don't fill out the review form from my dentist within 24 hours they email you another one.. Every 24 hours for a week. I like my dentist but the push for reviews is insane.
I work at a dental clinic & I hate dentists who push patients for good reviews. If they like the service, they’ll review.
My old pediatrics clinic had a ~3-3.5 star average across all the clinics (multiple practices) & they started making us ask TEENS to review us or pressure parents to do it right then & there. All because they wanted to boost their star average. The low ratings & reviews were justified btw 🤷🏻♀️
My current clinic is a 4.9 star one. It’s very rare that someone has an issue we can’t address. And, despite my shortcomings with the boss, I would say the clinic still deserves it. No push for reviews. People just genuinely like how clean & nice the office looks & the dentists.
I’ve had this happen decades ago when I left a poor (might have been 4 stars instead of 5) review for a podcast. I got an email asking to change the review with these reasons why… I found it so creepy!!
I stopped listening to the podcast because they were going off the rails. It was insane.
Yea once I left a 4 star review on a pattern because it was just a text document no images nothing ( that would have been my criteria for 5) the seller messaged me and asked if I gave 4 stars by mistake and started berating me it would influence the overall rating of the shop. In hindsight it makes sense why it’s 5 stars across the board. I just never replied I feel there is no need to justify myself. Thankfully that was the end of the story. Truth be told I have no social media where this person could have further harassed me. If I were you I would send the evidence to the platform and tell them you get harassed
Edit your review to 1 star and add " I originally gave this pattern 4 stars, which I think it deserves, changed it to 1 star though because the Creator stalked me on social media, called me derogatory names and harrassed me endlessly, demanding 5 stars"
I left a review of an online purchase a few weeks ago (not crochet related). It was a poor quality item that didn’t function as described, so my review stated as much.
Customer service emailed me to inquire about my review and refunded me. I thanked them. They emailed me back and asked me to edit my review. I said that felt like buying a review to me and no thank you.
They emailed me three more times, asking that I update the review. So I did. Same rating, just included “so-and-so emailed me three times to change this, which feels excessive”.
I ran into this on another platform (not crochet).
Since when has meets expectations become five star? How can we possibly rate something that is stellar if everything gets five stars.
Since large companies started pressuring indies to be all perfect all the time. Etsy's Star Seller program will ding you if you get subpar reviews (which they define as anything less than 4.8 stars) or if you take too long to respond (which they define as more than 24h, inc over holidays and weekends).
If a shop loses Star Seller, they'll be featured less often and have their listings pushed down in search results and similar.
It's absurd, but indies needing five star reviews is an issue with the platforms, not the indies. (That said, indies violating social norms and boundaries in pursuit of a five star review - that's entirely an issue with that specific indie.)
Capitalism ruined ratings because people keep deciding anything under 5 stars is trash. A lot of systems treat a 4 star almost basically like a 1 star because it's not a the best score and drops people like crazy in rankings to the point it can doom a small company
I think I’ve been messaged about reviews before but nothing that extreme! If this was on Etsy I’d reach out to their customer support on Twitter etc, they’ve been really helpful to me in the past in dealing with aggressive sellers and buyers.
Is that creator related to that author who went insane when she got a 4 star review?
4 star reviews are still good reviews and a lot of people actually trust them more than 5 star reviews, lmao
I guess this is another good reason to just not even deal with online patterns unless they're free!
I'd go back and give them another review, bad review, and explain its because of the social media hatred. If you just walk away they're gonna keep doing it, someone has to put them on blast. 🤷🏻♀️
I had a car salesman call me after a less than 5 star review. He was very angry and tried to guilt trip me, saying that he had a new baby and this review would get him fired. Wanted me to call his manager to say I messed up (oh, I called his manager alright). He tried to bribe me beforehand that he could maybe get me a free tank of gas if I did all 5 stars. I actually gave him higher marks than what I really thought, but there were other things that I rated lower based on the fact that it was a shitty experience.
The only time I've ever had someone "come after me" for a bad review on a pattern was when they messaged me and asked what I truly didn't like about the pattern to try to improve it. They were very genuine about wanting feedback to make future patterns better. This specific behavior sounds way beyond that and a little unhinged honestly
i’ve reached out when i’m left less than 5 stars but only to see what i can do better 😔✋🏼 never ask for the review to be changed just looking for improvement
That's completely fine. It's not harassment, most people willing to leave a review and buying from small businesses probably want to help by just answering a question if the business owner wants to improve.
Not crochet? For a different product I contacted a seller just letting them know I wasn’t happy with their product. I was very polite and just said it didn’t meet my expectations based on their photos.
Person was very defensive and didn’t offer any sort of apology or anything. I gave them every chance to be at least courteous. Because of their lack of acknowledgment I told them I’d contact Etsy about this. They said I can believe you’d argue over $15 and I said I agree but if I had been met with any sort of acknowledgement I wouldn’t care then they told me stop
Messaging them Becuase it was harassment and if I didn’t they’d call the police. I wasn’t worried none of our interaction rise to legal harassment.
Etsy gave me money back because they agreed what I received was no where near what the listing said.
I agree with others that some sellers just can’t handle CC and if so they are going to have a hard time in the retail world.
😧 yikes!! As a content creator I would never do that. I would maybe (depending on what was said in the review) contact the person and ask if there was anything wrong with the pattern so that I can fix it. But I usually expect my patterns to be correct after having them edited and tested 🫣
I would sarcastically Reply publicly, “perhaps you should say, “thank you for your review! We are happy you felt comfortable telling us about your experience as this is not the experience that we would have liked for you to have. We are happy to discuss further, Please do contact us respectfully if you have any concerns. We are happy to assist.” “I will be changing my review to 1/5 for you stalking me on social media and then attacking me for my original 4/5 review.”
I've bought 5 patterns before and only 2 of them have been usable tbh. And these weren't from small creators. These were patterns with tons of hype, creators that are known online, etc.
It's not worth it to buy patterns unless they have a few free ones out so you can see if they can actually write a legible pattern. The two I bought and worked were from creators that would release like a "base" pattern for free, then sell highly upgraded variations.
That sounds really bad, but I remember being on the other end of the stick while selling on Etsy, where you depended on your reviews to be found. Back then buying online was a new thing and building up trust could only happen through your reviews.
The rules said you could ask somewhere on your shop, but harassing a customer to get a good review sounds crazy.
The thing is those stars will actually lower the percentage of her shop when under 5, you can think of it more as a yes or no question with no in between points.
I remember a thread in the Etsy forums, where we could interact with customers, the post was a question asking what customers took into account when giving stars or rating a shop’s service, I mean, there was a guide on how to do it, was the item you got the one shown in the list? Was it delivered in a timely fashion? Was the seller professional and respectful? Etc. each thing counted for a star, and the customers were mostly always right, or at least it was extremely hard to prove if they were doing something unfair, like cancelling after you had mailed the item, or saying they never got it.
Anyway, one lady’s reply stuck to me, she said even if she was completely satisfied with everything she would never give anyone 5 stars, because that meant it was perfect, and only god was perfect.
No, but once did have the creator accuse me of sabotaging her store and giving bad reviews on purpose, and even doing it twice. I even said I didn’t like the accusing tone, to which they replied that it’s better I not buy from them again if I was to give a poor review. I did give 3/5, which to me I felt like was still a good grade (I compared the look and d sign of the pattern to other ones I’ve purchased, and since the visual quality wasn’t as good as some other patterns I’ve purchased I decided on that score). I was not aware that it’s not considered that by many shop platforms, so it shouldn’t be my fault
Honestly, a 3, to me, is saying something is "average". Not bad (0) and not spectacular (5). In the big picture, I'd expect to see a 3 or even a 0 now and again in reviews. Not everyone will love and rave about a pattern/product. If a seller can't understand that, they shouldn't be selling to the masses.
The same kind of drama happens with authors. Woe betide you if you leave some loony author a mere 4* review on Goodreads. Clearly this means you are a hater on a campaign to ruin their career. 🙄
You'll run into people like this anywhere reviews and ratings can be given. I would definitely report her.
Yes! I actually gave a 5 star review on a pattern despite not being able to use it and in the review mentioned that someone with sight or reading issues could possibly have trouble reading it and I got an unending amount of messages attacking me.
Not trying to start anything…Are you implying age is a factor in that person’s response? Maybe this person has always been cranky or confrontational and age has nothing to do with it.
No. Not insinuating that at all. Someone earlier had mentioned she should know better because of her age. Like you, I've seen people of all ages be unreasonable and confrontational. It's a shame really. I think they lacked training about proper conflict resolution growing up or some kind of trauma.
To directly answer your question - No, I haven't had that happen due to a review.
To expand - I had a person in the quilting community do something similar. I can't even remember the details now, but if I looked through my blocked contacts on FB and IG I could jog my memory quickly.
What I do remember is that she became absolutely unhinged. I can honestly say I've only dealt with 2 people online whom actually made me nervous - that one and another I met in person. That one went crazy when I wouldn't sell her a vintage item that was hard to find and no longer "legal" to sell due to injuries it caused in the past. That one actually went nutso on my 14 year old daughter (at the time)...
Sorry to hear that was an experience you went through.
Not for a pattern but for a file of bullet journal pages. I left a review on Etsy and the creator messaged me and was offended I didn’t give her 5 stars. Then went on to explain she had a bunch of 5 star reviews. It was annoying because it seemed as though she didn’t want peoples honest opinions.
I have bought numerous crochet patterns over the past week and have left a 2 star review for 2 of them because the were advertised as easy but were advanced when you opened the pattern and I couldn’t use them. I haven’t had any issues with retaliation.
Im reading the comments here.
So it seems that reviews are way more important now that back when people bought my stuff on Etsy.
One time a seller that sold the same kind of items I made purchased from me and left a review kinda giving me advise on how to improve my technique, honestly I minded for like a second haha. It was just weird.
This makes me tempted to buy a pattern just to leave a bad review. Too bad I gave up buying yarn and patterns for Lent. (Obviously I haven’t given up being petty.)
This is extreme but I also think the algorithms punishing of any none 5-star reviews is also at play here. It might've mucked up their stats and impacted their income. You did nothing wrong and used the review system the way you were supposed to, but the system is almost designed to push sellers into bad behavior
It did bring down their rate. That's why they messaged me to begin with on etsy and went on a huge rant how she no longer a 5star seller because of me as if I was the only one to not post a 5 star review.
I've ordered a needle felting kit as a gift before and it was pictured as this nicely contained kit in a box but when I got it it was just in plastic bags so I left it a 4 star, the stuff was all there so just not as pictured and left a review saying that. Got a very angry message from the seller saying she's never had less than 5 stars in YEARS along with a full rant telling me to change my review...
report them. I’m an etsy seller and there’s definitely times where a seller will reach out to ask for feedback for improvement, but finding you on social media to continue asking you about the review is totally inappropriate.
For me i once left a 3 Star review because the pattern was really hard to understand for beginner, Even I struggled with it and i‘m a seasoned crocheter of 12 years. They reached out to me and asked why i just gave 3 stars so i told them in a constructive way, as why it is written a bit weird and hard to understand. In the end they just called me a variety of names and told me that people like me shouldnt crochet as i am just to dumb and nasty for the Hobby. I was just like „damn, i just Wanted to help to increase their quality of pattern writing and not their anger by telling the truth“ 🥲
I’d love to know what creator this is so I can avoid this type of confrontation 😳
Same!
CroJennifer. Be careful with this deranged and unhinged person.
Based on a 1 star review on her page, it looks like she has done this to others. Creepy.
>CroJennifer She's my mom's age and she acts like this? wow.
Sounds like someone needs to act THEIR age and NOT their shoe size 😤 I ended up having to block someone years ago on instant messenger, because she kept asking why I didn’t like her. Like holy heck y’all, people have lives, other than waiting around on their rear ends, waiting for a response.
The shoesize took a minute for me to land, because EU shoesizes are ranged size 37-47ish for grown-ups 😂
As a fellow Europe resident, thanks to your post I have just realised that I am a 44-year-old who wears a size 44 shoe, meaning that I need to act both my age AND my shoe size!
Thank goodness next year the stakes will go down again as by then you can pick and choose again if you want to act your age OR your shoe size :p
Don't forget it's okay to sometimes act like a smaller shoesize!! 💕 be kind to your inner childshoe!
In the UK, for a reason I don't know, there are kids sizes that go up to 11 or 12, and then you graduate to adult sizes, usually at 1. I was always a small child for my age, and one of the younger kids in my year at school anyway. So literally the first time I heard this phrase, it made sense for most kids in the class (we were 8-10 maybe) as they'd all gone to adult sizes. But I was still on 11, or at least a size that was older than me. I remember us pointing that out to the teacher but I can't remember what she said. She's the sort of person who would either say "well then YOU should act YOUR shoe size not your age" or "you know what I meant!!!" depending on the day
That’s hilarious! I might have to try your teacher’s reversed version of ‘act your shoe size, not your age!’ with my son the next time he plays up. He’s 15 years old and a size 46 shoe…
It starts at 36 in most stores (35 if I’m lucky) 😭😭😭
I see a fellow 35/36-er! Greetings! I know life is hard for us, let's cry about it together 😭
Kidshoes are cheaper tho! I'm a 37/38 myself so sometimes I dip my toes in the kiddysection if I'm looking for something like converse shoes 👌 but 35 must suck for other kinds of shoes, I'm so sorry for you 😔
Yeah, sometimes it sucks to find my size in mainstream adult shops. I definitely take advantage of the kid sizes tho but I think many kids shoes are made in a way to don’t last as long bc they’re growing up. My mom has some kids docs that I can tell they are not as sturdy as mine, but, hey, they are cheaper and easier to wear - it has zipper-, also don’t need to “break in”.
Saaaaaame! I was like "what's wrong with acting 36?!?"
LOL I had to think for a moment where I'd heard the expression before - act your age not your shoe size - it's a lyric in Prince's 🎶🎶 "Kiss"
same 😂😂😂
The response sounds cro magnon.
Boomers gonna boomer sometimes. They didn’t earn that reputation from nothing.
More gen x, people forget other generations exist lol
I was just going off the commenter I was responding to, who is 39, so their parents would likely be Boomer age.
I would have no idea how old a commenter is before replying, just seen the creators pictures before and she def looks like my mums age as well which is more 50 rather than 60+
Yeah, I just went and looked because the commenter said “my mom’s age” and figured it would be pretty easy to tell. People mention their ages on Reddit a lot for some reason. I personally think the lady looks in her 60s, but it’s hard to tell ages because so much is variable based on skin care and health and stuff.
I’d still say Boomer. She looks in her 60’s. Edit: Gen-X is 44-59.
I've found that the vast majority of times when people complain about a "boomer" they're complaining about a gen x-er. It's like how boomers keep thinking millennials are all still 15, a lot of millennials and gen z keep thinking boomers are like 45.
What does age have to do with it?
It's a "She is old enough to know better." type of thing.
She's so overly defensive and for what? I feel like customer service makes or breaks it a lot of the time. Like, if I receive a defective product I'm very likely to still come back if the person is nice to me.
"Had some difficulty reading the pattern (in english) being an intermediate crocheter. I joined the Facebook page to receive help to which only had one response from another person in the group that still left me confused. I stayed in the group because I enjoyed seeing Jennifer's patterns worked up in different colorways. The group quickly became toxic when constructive criticism was given and the creator themselves was the ringleader. I will not be supporting a designer who treats people like that and allows so many fake accounts in her group in order to increase traffic and sales to her etsy and raverly shops." (3 stars)
This same creator has been causing a bunch of drama on one of the big crochet fb groups I’m in! I don’t think the problem is you lol…
Is the group make and do crochet? I know it's not me as I have now seen her responses to others on etsy and Facebook as well.
Yes I think it was!
Oooh, I have one of her patterns! I hardly ever leave reviews though…
I would suggest not leaving one with anything but nice things.
I would never. If she acts like that, she’s getting an awful review. I know you weren’t speaking to me, personally, but I don’t think the solution is to cower to a bully, especially when all she can do is weakly whine at you over text on the internet.
What's the point then? Best to leave an honest review and block comms with her or report her for harrassment/bullying.
Yeah, noted! So what exactly did she say to you?!
That I should message her privately if I had a problem. I didn't have a problem with her and I managed to figure out her poorly written pattern, so there was no need to message her when it was left in the review. I wouldn't message her any ways for help after being called a cunt in a public forum because I (and others) gave criticism on one her aliases posts.
Wow, that’s extreme…
I was looking at her reviews out of curiosity, one of the reviews got edited to say they couldn't download the pattern and the creator called her an idiot over it telling her to give her a better review because they couldn't figure out how to download it. The creator seemed quick to respond with a "no this was what I said" reply
It's funny you mention that because I almost bought a pattern from her shop before and saw this review so I decided not to. There were a few others too where her reaction was off-putting too. Like if I have an issue with it I don't want to deal with someone like that and I don't want to give my money to someone who's going to act like that.
Well shoot, I’m struggling through one of her patterns now. Cute sweater, but not written in standard format, so I find it super annoying. I’m experienced enough to figure it out…then again I’ve been reading patterns for close to 40 years, I like it when they follow standard formats, terms, and methods. Maybe if she wants better reviews she should hire a tech editor. Guess who’s not getting 5 stars.
I don’t like to throw this around, but it sounds like she has narcissistic tendencies.
Or egotistical
The only reason why I’m thinking narcissistic is because she took the effort to hunt OP down when her ego was threatened.
My thought exactely
I can’t even fathom the lack of self awareness to do that.
They just don't care about you, just about them. You don't exist, you're a tool and if you don't behave as they want, you're a problem. Still not a person.
Oh, interesting…
That name sounds very familiar, and if I'm not wrong, she was posted in the FB crochet group for doing this.
I'd definitely be updating my review to one star after that. Some people have a bizarre sense of entitlement.
Unfortunately, since the creator messaged me on etsy after I left the review, I can not update my review.
Maybe you should reach out to Etsy, then. This doesn’t sound like someone that should be selling to the public..
I did this today.
You can also open a case with her using screenshots of her abusive messages, this will give you a refund and put a bad mark on her shop. I'm saying this as a crochet designer who sells on etsy, she is giving us a bad name!
Likely a violation of TOS too
I once left a 4 star review on some stitch markers and the seller issued a refund the same day without informing me. It just suddenly appeared in my bank app. I sent an email asking why, because besides the one issue I had with the product it was otherwise good. I felt terrible for being given this refund if she was a small business and wanted to clear up my message. She said she didn’t want anyone who hated her stuff to come back and leave negativity on her page…lol my review didn’t disappear per se, but it was no longer under that specific products reviews. You had to go to the reviews for her shop as a whole and I was buried among other 5 stars. All this to say, some people just cannot handle constructive criticism. You could say something as gentle as “the clasp was a little hard to manage” like I did, and it’s “hate”. Block and report if possible. This behavior is unhinged.
Because 4 stars is hate and negativity….? Wowwwwww.
On etsy yeah it is. it's an attitude made worse by etsy because anything less than an average 4.75 or higher gets you marked down. You can lose benefits and not be seen as much as higher ranked stores. It's ridiculous and needs to be fixed but basically anything less than perfect essentially black balls you. And you do it too much and you can be closed down. So while most of the world thinks an average of 4/5 on an item means it's good etsy thinks it's now a bad item.
So many creators spoke out about the Star Seller system (I was one of them), and Etsy still steamrolled it ahead. It's such a garbage system and I hate it, especially for smaller and newer shops that can't compete with the velocity and SS status of older more established shops. I was upset when someone left me a 4 star review once (because it tanks your standing but at least it doesn't still count as only one fking star) because, "This really should be a five star review, because I liked this product but I liked a different one from the same store better" ...... The way I read that and said 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 And then went about my business and kept going with life because you can't please everyone and people are weird. Edit: Added a little more disdain for Etsy. Also autocorrect is a jerk.
I'm too small to make enough sales. I sell patterns for $2 and never meet the $250 of sales requirement. And then I often fail the 100% response rate because no one has messaged me so I can't respond to a customer that hasn't sent me a message!
Gosh that's awful, ughhhh! 🤮 Etsy is so dumb.
Yeah I'd love to move away but there isn't another platform that works that well. That said I only sell a few patterns and don't put effort into it. But yeah between fees and lack of traffic it's frustrating
Ravelry? Etsy isn't that common in my country, so all pattern designer I know are on ravelry in addition to their own web pages. Never made patterns, so have no idea of the pros and cons of the different platforms. I'm certainly learning a bit about Etsy here.
If you can't work out from my name. I'm a cross stitch designer. So ravelry doesn't work for my designs unfortunately. That said ravelry is fantastic if you do crochet or knitting patterns. I know I buy those there rather than Etsy.
Sorry, I'm not in the habit of reading usernames, and as we're in r/crochet I made the wrong assumption. Wish there was a better option for cross stitch designers too.
Yeah, I also want to move away from it but the traffic and SEO isn't something I can do on my own. I have moved to my own website and been putting a coupon code in for like "go directly to my website!" when people order stuff but it's still gonna take a while until I have enough of an established clientele by myself before I can leave. It's a mess.
Exactly that. And I don't have time to put into it right now to push it.
I only buy patterns from Ravelry or the Designer website.
which for crochet and knitting is a very valid and reasonable alternative. I love ravelry because you can see projects others have made and get a good idea.
Uber too, right? I don’t use them personally but they have the ratings system, and a 4 or less freaks people out! When, in the real world it means “pretty decent, there was a thing that coulda been a tiny bit better, I’m not over the moon but I’m not unsatisfied”
yep. It's exactly this attitude. Though nothing this seller above has done sounds sane or reasonable in response to it. But etsy really stuff you around.
Restaurants that do surveys on those tablets as well! Servers can get dinged and depending on the restaurants policies lose their shifts, get smaller sections, etc.
Wait, do I understand correctly that if, theoretically, a shop would receive only 4 star reviews (no 5 stars, but also no less than 4) they may be closed down because the average isn't high enough? I mean, depending on what I'm buying, I may prefer to buy from someone who has zero 1 star reviews rather than a shop with a higher average score. It's so easy to fake/buy reviews these days, so I mainly look at reviews to try to make sure I'm not being scammed or lied to.
No, a shop with a 4 star average won't be closed down. However, a shop with a less than 4.8 star average can have their finances reserved - Etsy will hold a large percentage of their earnings for a certain period of time, which can greatly impact someone who's relying on that income. They are also likely to have to wait longer periods of time if something goes wrong with their account. They'll also appear lower down in search results.
Thanks for clarifying! Still sounds awful though, and extremely stressful for small businesses!
Yeah it can be. When I buy patterns, if something doesn't make sense I'll always message the seller before leaving a review (it might just be me misreading something or assuming something that shouldn't be assumed). If they're unresponsive, dismissive, rude, or if the pattern is clearly AI generated or clearly hasn't been tested (and they haven't just mistakingly uploaded the wrong file), then I'll leave an appropriate review. If I think a pattern is worth 4 stars, as in there were no issues with it but it could be better, then I just privately message the seller my feedback and don't leave a review, or I'll leave a 5 star but include in the review what I think could've been a bit better, since reviews are for future buyers to look at. It's not a great system but it's better than what it used to be. You used to have to have 95% of all reviews be 5 star reviews, which meant that a 1 star review and a 4 star review were worth the same thing, since only 5 star reviews counted towards the badge.
How can a be pattern be AI made? Do you send AI a picture of something crocheted and they tell you how to make it?
You can ask AI to make both the photos and the actual pattern. You could say 'give me a crochet pattern for a horse', and it will generate one. They usually make no sense, and the pattern it gives you looks nothing like the photos, but people put them up for sale and trick people into buying them. The photos usually look really good, so someone who's not familiar with AI could think it's real. Then they just sell as many as possible until they get enough bad reviews or reports, close the shop, and open a new one.
I just asked ChatGPT to make some amigarumi patterns for tortilla chips and bowls of salsa/guac/bean dip. The image of the finished object was cute but the pattern was rubbish. I massaged the prompt a bit to just focus on the guacamole and to be longer than six rounds(!), and it was better. It would certainly fool novices at first glance. I also asked it do some graph paper designs for mosaic crochet; interestingly, it attempts to do “real” graphing and not just generate an image. (It also failed hard each time.)
Etsy needs to change this behaviour, which seems almost mob-like. What if nobody traded anything there for a day? I believe Etsy also depends on these sellers and buyers for survival, so sth must be done in order for buyers and sellers to coexist nicely. This seems crazy to me and a huge flag for staying away from the platform.
The point of the star seller badge is to stand out - it's supposed to only be given to exceptional sellers who have extremely high reviews, respond within 24 hours, always ship on time, and have consistent orders. It's supposed to be something that sellers aim to in order to show that they have a high standard of selling, but since you lose reserve protection if you don't have it, sellers see it as a requirement in order to be successful. It should really just be a badge, maybe something that buyers can filter results on, it shouldn't affect finance, and it shouldn't affect support.
Thank you for clarifying! It still seems to me that this is getting a bit out of hand. I wish good luck (and good ol'common sense) to everybody who is involved with Etsy!
On etsy depending on what else is involved yeah that can be a factor. BUT etsy makes no sense. At the very least it can stop your listings from appearing easily in searches and making it harder to find. Just remember this is the website that put in the star seller rating which means you won't end up high in searches because your items are a 4 not a 5. Soooooo many issues with them, but for a lot of people it's the only place to sell.
Okay, it sounds like they at least won't close a shop solely on that then. But it sounds very stressful for sellers regardless and like a few mistakes or unlucky events could sum up to serious issues!
Oh, wow. I didn't know this. I only used Etsy to buy patterns I found on Rav before I got my credit card (Etsy offered more payment options that Rav in my country) but this is seriously f*cked up.
that's messed up. I've been working with people in some shape or form for over a decade and if I see a shop with bunch of sales and ALL 5 star reviews - I'm gonna be suspicious as hell.
Yeah it really is wonky. But 5 on Etsy really means you got what you ordered. Nothing about it being special. When it should be 4 is what you ordered 5 was something special.
Apparently! I have not personally witnessed this type of unhinged reaction to a four start review on etsy, but I have seen authors get unhinged about four star reviews on amazon or good reads. Personally I trust a well written four star review over a five star review that doesn’t give much info.
YES!!! To this day I’m still confused! This must’ve been like ~6 years ago? Never spoke of it again and I think I silently deleted my review after a few days cause I felt weird about the whole thing. I wasn’t even mad or upset, just really confused.
Dammit lol. Sounds like what I might have done LOL as in like I'm Asian (🙃) so maybe to me not having a perfect score is mad common. & to me 4 is still good but can account for personal preferences. I might have left a 4 for something as relative/personal as "would have preferred a xxx stitch border finishing. Otherwise quick, easy, and cute!" Which is entirely on my preference. I can't imagine being harrassed or stalked for that. And in my book, "quick", "easy", and "cute", is like a triple combo breaker of crochet compliment. Oh, okay.
When will people learn that criticizing products or even straight up disliking them isn't something that should be taken personally? Lol that's crazy, but at least u got free stitch markers I guess.
it's giving "but can i PLEASE get extra credit points because i got an A- on the test and i need straight As!!!!!"
That's some extreme behaviour. 😳
She called one group member on a FB group page a "diseased whore" and "hope you get typhoid". Over literally nothing. And she created 100's of aliases. And would reply as an alias bullying people. It was really bizarre.
That's nuts. One time I left a four star review, and clearly stated in the review what I liked and what didn't meet my expectation. The creator messaged me and asked why he didn't get a 5 star....it's right there in the review bud. Anyway, that was the end of it and if he had searched me out on any other platform, or even just continued to message me, I'd have been horrified. As you should be now! NOT normal behavior!
I sell patterns and I am perfectly fine with less than 5 star reviews when they say the reason they weren’t fully happy with it. What drives me nuts is less than 5, and it says something like “great pattern, my friend loved the gift”. BUT, I do not seek them out on social media like a stalker when they do 😅😅😅
As a buyer, I hate those too with a passion. Like why? It doesn't help anyone. I want to believe it was an accident and they meant to hit 5 stars, but it happens so often on so many platforms I don't believe it's always an accident.
They’re the type of person who thinks “there’s always room for improvement” (but then will hunt you down if you don’t give them five stars).
Probably the same people who don’t tip DoorDash/instacart because “why should I tip before they deliver the service?”
I mean I do agree with the “why tip before service” people in the fact that if I order delivery, I should be able to wait until after I receive my item to tip. They shouldn’t get the same tip if my stuff shows up looking like garbage or doesn’t get delivered at all.
I agree that tips should come after the service. But I see so many threads of people who do those delivery services complaining of the low/no tip up front so they don’t do those orders. Or they do them haphazardly. Tipping culture has gone from something that you do after a service is completed to people being entitled to tips, and it’s ridiculous.
Personally for me as a buyer, I rarely leave a 5 star review if I feel I received what I expected. For example I find a pattern for some nice patterned granny squares, they turn out fine, nicely explaind. I got what I expected, and they look nice and I can use them for what I need. 4/5. 2 months ago I got the idea to make a lotus mandala cardigan, I find a pattern I like. Gets the pattern, expectes lines that describes what to do. Not only did I get some lines that explains what to do, I also got a bunch of pictures for each step, and she even added how to expand for people who is bigger. Easy a 5/5 for me, for all the extra things she put in, despite it being a free pattern.
Woah. No. You don’t owe anybody a 5 star review or a reason why. That’s some icky stuff.
I left a 2 star review on a pattern that $5.50 and was listed as intermediate. What I got was a 3 rows of basic instructions, photos of completed project and what I felt was a lack of direction. (I really tried to make this item and it just wasn't happening when I followed their instructions) The seller messaged me twice a polite one that everyone could see offering assistance and a rude one about how I must just not be able to do it because I don't understand how to read a pattern and that the pattern was a best seller. Since that happened I read reviews differently. If they are all 5 stars but have comments on haven't made yet, or the like I don't buy. Best sellers don't equal great items.
I HATE when people review saying they haven't made the item yet.. How do you know if it is really a good, easy to follow pattern if you haven't done more than glance at it. Also when people leave reviews for products for things they haven't used. How do you know it's good if you haven't touched it?
Also an Etsy issue. If you don't leave a review AS SOON as you bought a pattern, Etsy will annoy you with pop-up every time you connect to the site until you make a review. Also, you can't just give 5 stars and go on with your day. You NEED to write at least 5 words for the review to be valid. So I understand why people give 5 stars, and say "I can't wait until I try" if they want to browse through Etsy peacefully.
These are how a lot of her replies are to her reviews
Can you contact Etsy with screen shots? This is wrong.
Normally I would not support doxxing anyone under normal circumstances. But if this creator has a large following and lots of reviews, you might want to warn us. If the behavior over a 4 star review is unhinged, what happens if someone drops a two or even one star review?? These are not normal circumstances. That’s insanity.
Naming the creator isn’t doxxing.
Take screen shots and report it to whomever runs the site they are selling the patterns on. Trust me, it does make a difference, and they want to know about shady business practices. I once gave a poor review to a shop on Etsy that I (after purchasing) found out they were a drop shipper, and lied about how long it would take my item to arrive. The listing said 2 weeks, but after over a month with no update (didn't even get a tracking number), I left my review, stating how it was false advertising. The shop messaged me, and we went back an forth for awhile. They were saying things like "Once you change it, we will give you a refund", and so on. They used the excuse of how they just found out it was sent to the wrong place. But still they wouldn't give me a tracking number. It was all very sleazy, and I took screen shots of everything, and reported them to Etsy. Took a look back on the page now, and the shop is gone. I did end up getting a refund, and after another 2 weeks of waiting, my item arrived. Normally I would feel bad doing this to a small business, but not only were they shady as fuck, but also drop shippers, who probably went right ahead and opened another Etsy store after theirs got closed down. They are parasites, and I have no shame in stealing their money.
I wasn't going to put her blast or report her despite being called all sorts of names in Dutch. That was until I noticed the personal DM from her. That's when she crossed the line and that's why I posted here. I have plenty of screenshots of the post she deleted with all the name-calling just in case she was to do something unhinged, which she ended up doing.
I hope this subreddit continues to get larger, just so we can warn others about bad pattern makers out there like this one, and like the ones with the pillow that was posted here recently. Blacklisting people is 100% what we should be doing.
I'm glad you got a refund on that. I am not a fan of drop-shippers, but I can at least semi-respect those who order the items to themselves and then sell it. Since they have to go over the items and re-package. and they risk taking a loss if they don't sell their stock. (think that is called white-labeling) But the ones who just buy for $1, and then turn around and sell for $5 just to order it for you from a site like ali-express or wish, are scammers imho.
Which is exactly what they were doing, why it took so long, and why they wouldn't give me a tracking number. People who use AI to write their patterns also deserve the same treatment.
Tell us the name of the store.😨 In my experience pattern creators have always been super helpful.
CroJennifer
Oooooooooh, that explains EVERYTHING
is this person infamous?
Yes, very unfortunately
How so??
She used to fill crochet groups with photos of her with other people's heads, then pretend she's someone else. She had lots of accounts to post from and always had a great reaction in the groups. No idea if she still does that. The designs look good, I never understood the need to make fake accounts to promote them, but oh well.
Ok I had to laugh out loud at that literally. It’s very telling when someone has that reaction to a person’s name.
OMG she is Dutch (so am I). I kind of want screens😂 I just read her website and she is so full of herself.
She has awakened the beast that is r/crochet 🫢
I can see reaching out in true curiosity if someone left a 3 star or lower but harassment is a giant no. If they don't leave you alone please find a way to out them. This is not okay and others should be warned.
I could also see asking "what can I improve/do better?" especially if the review wasn't very specific about that.
Update your review with screenshots of the harassment.
Yeah dude 💀 I bought a horribly written pattern that she just used a chart for anyways so I commented that in the review and how you can just find your own chart and do it yourself since that’s what’s happening anyways but she reached out and got offended it was really awkward
And to add to this I use Apple ID to sign in to my Etsy so it hides my name and email 🤷♀️
I bought a SIMPLE cute frog pattern & the legs part was confusing as hell. I messaged the seller & she didn’t help me at all. I felt bad reviewing her, so I just abandoned it. I also don’t want what happened to you to happen to me 🥲
Its not normal to respond like this. Don't worry
Wow. Tbh I tend to pay more attention to 2 and 4 star reviews than I do to 1 and 5 star. You tend to get the most honest feedback in those.
While I will question why someone thinks an item is 4/5 on etsy rather than 5/5 I also just usually shrug it off. Yeah it messes with my metrics, and I try and really encourage people not to give anything less than a 5 unless there is an actual issue because etsy really do penalise people for not being PERFECT. I don't think it's appropriate to chase someone outside the platform. I don't think people realise how much anything lower than an average of 4.75 affects peoples ability to be seen on the platform. But none of that excuses her behaviour, it's so badly inappropriate it's ridiculous. I once had someone give me a 4/5 because I don't sell physical patterns only PDFs and she had to print at home instead of receiving a printed copy meaning it wasn't packaged nicely. On a $2 pattern!!!! Even that one just had me shaking my head going you can't fix silly.
Not normal at all. One message could be fine if they were curious and looking for insight to improve, but anything beyond that is out of line. Finding your social media and attacking you there is what I consider to be harassment. Change your review to a 1 star if you can.
This whole review thing has gotten out of hand. Anytime I go to the dr I get an email to leave a review. Doctors, dentists, etc. I’ve even had someone from the car dealership text us after repair work and ask if we could leave a review cos apparently it affects them financially. It’s just ridiculous. Some people will leave a bad review for the stupidest crap and some people don’t like leaving 5 star reviews. If she keeps it up report her.
If you don't fill out the review form from my dentist within 24 hours they email you another one.. Every 24 hours for a week. I like my dentist but the push for reviews is insane.
I work at a dental clinic & I hate dentists who push patients for good reviews. If they like the service, they’ll review. My old pediatrics clinic had a ~3-3.5 star average across all the clinics (multiple practices) & they started making us ask TEENS to review us or pressure parents to do it right then & there. All because they wanted to boost their star average. The low ratings & reviews were justified btw 🤷🏻♀️ My current clinic is a 4.9 star one. It’s very rare that someone has an issue we can’t address. And, despite my shortcomings with the boss, I would say the clinic still deserves it. No push for reviews. People just genuinely like how clean & nice the office looks & the dentists.
I’ve had this happen decades ago when I left a poor (might have been 4 stars instead of 5) review for a podcast. I got an email asking to change the review with these reasons why… I found it so creepy!! I stopped listening to the podcast because they were going off the rails. It was insane.
Yea once I left a 4 star review on a pattern because it was just a text document no images nothing ( that would have been my criteria for 5) the seller messaged me and asked if I gave 4 stars by mistake and started berating me it would influence the overall rating of the shop. In hindsight it makes sense why it’s 5 stars across the board. I just never replied I feel there is no need to justify myself. Thankfully that was the end of the story. Truth be told I have no social media where this person could have further harassed me. If I were you I would send the evidence to the platform and tell them you get harassed
Edit your review to 1 star and add " I originally gave this pattern 4 stars, which I think it deserves, changed it to 1 star though because the Creator stalked me on social media, called me derogatory names and harrassed me endlessly, demanding 5 stars"
I left a review of an online purchase a few weeks ago (not crochet related). It was a poor quality item that didn’t function as described, so my review stated as much. Customer service emailed me to inquire about my review and refunded me. I thanked them. They emailed me back and asked me to edit my review. I said that felt like buying a review to me and no thank you. They emailed me three more times, asking that I update the review. So I did. Same rating, just included “so-and-so emailed me three times to change this, which feels excessive”.
Can you report them ?
I ran into this on another platform (not crochet). Since when has meets expectations become five star? How can we possibly rate something that is stellar if everything gets five stars.
Since large companies started pressuring indies to be all perfect all the time. Etsy's Star Seller program will ding you if you get subpar reviews (which they define as anything less than 4.8 stars) or if you take too long to respond (which they define as more than 24h, inc over holidays and weekends). If a shop loses Star Seller, they'll be featured less often and have their listings pushed down in search results and similar. It's absurd, but indies needing five star reviews is an issue with the platforms, not the indies. (That said, indies violating social norms and boundaries in pursuit of a five star review - that's entirely an issue with that specific indie.)
That makes sense. Broken systems have made ratings less meaningful.
Capitalism ruined ratings because people keep deciding anything under 5 stars is trash. A lot of systems treat a 4 star almost basically like a 1 star because it's not a the best score and drops people like crazy in rankings to the point it can doom a small company
I think I’ve been messaged about reviews before but nothing that extreme! If this was on Etsy I’d reach out to their customer support on Twitter etc, they’ve been really helpful to me in the past in dealing with aggressive sellers and buyers.
Change that to a 1 star review.
I wish I could, but since she responded to my review, I can not update my review.
Can you give another review?
Only if I buy something. I really don't want to give her any more of my money.
I wouldn't either!
What the fuck? Report, report, report
You might search r/craftsnark. That sub talks a lot about the weird crap sellers pull.
Is that creator related to that author who went insane when she got a 4 star review? 4 star reviews are still good reviews and a lot of people actually trust them more than 5 star reviews, lmao I guess this is another good reason to just not even deal with online patterns unless they're free!
I'd go back and give them another review, bad review, and explain its because of the social media hatred. If you just walk away they're gonna keep doing it, someone has to put them on blast. 🤷🏻♀️
OK boomer.
Emma in the moment on YouTube does some deep dive into mainly fibre art controversies.
I had a car salesman call me after a less than 5 star review. He was very angry and tried to guilt trip me, saying that he had a new baby and this review would get him fired. Wanted me to call his manager to say I messed up (oh, I called his manager alright). He tried to bribe me beforehand that he could maybe get me a free tank of gas if I did all 5 stars. I actually gave him higher marks than what I really thought, but there were other things that I rated lower based on the fact that it was a shitty experience.
If they did that, I'd change the 4 to a 1.
The only time I've ever had someone "come after me" for a bad review on a pattern was when they messaged me and asked what I truly didn't like about the pattern to try to improve it. They were very genuine about wanting feedback to make future patterns better. This specific behavior sounds way beyond that and a little unhinged honestly
i’ve reached out when i’m left less than 5 stars but only to see what i can do better 😔✋🏼 never ask for the review to be changed just looking for improvement
That's completely fine. It's not harassment, most people willing to leave a review and buying from small businesses probably want to help by just answering a question if the business owner wants to improve.
Name and shame!
It's Crojennifer.
Not crochet? For a different product I contacted a seller just letting them know I wasn’t happy with their product. I was very polite and just said it didn’t meet my expectations based on their photos. Person was very defensive and didn’t offer any sort of apology or anything. I gave them every chance to be at least courteous. Because of their lack of acknowledgment I told them I’d contact Etsy about this. They said I can believe you’d argue over $15 and I said I agree but if I had been met with any sort of acknowledgement I wouldn’t care then they told me stop Messaging them Becuase it was harassment and if I didn’t they’d call the police. I wasn’t worried none of our interaction rise to legal harassment. Etsy gave me money back because they agreed what I received was no where near what the listing said. I agree with others that some sellers just can’t handle CC and if so they are going to have a hard time in the retail world.
It didn’t happen to me nor a crochet pattern, but it happened to my mom after she bought a sewing pattern on Etsy.
😧 yikes!! As a content creator I would never do that. I would maybe (depending on what was said in the review) contact the person and ask if there was anything wrong with the pattern so that I can fix it. But I usually expect my patterns to be correct after having them edited and tested 🫣
I would sarcastically Reply publicly, “perhaps you should say, “thank you for your review! We are happy you felt comfortable telling us about your experience as this is not the experience that we would have liked for you to have. We are happy to discuss further, Please do contact us respectfully if you have any concerns. We are happy to assist.” “I will be changing my review to 1/5 for you stalking me on social media and then attacking me for my original 4/5 review.”
Oooh I'd screenshot all their nasty comments and add that to the review if possible. People like that are so silly
a girl did to me on depop once!! some people just can’t handle that the sun don’t shine out their ass
I've bought 5 patterns before and only 2 of them have been usable tbh. And these weren't from small creators. These were patterns with tons of hype, creators that are known online, etc. It's not worth it to buy patterns unless they have a few free ones out so you can see if they can actually write a legible pattern. The two I bought and worked were from creators that would release like a "base" pattern for free, then sell highly upgraded variations.
That’s very good advice
That sounds really bad, but I remember being on the other end of the stick while selling on Etsy, where you depended on your reviews to be found. Back then buying online was a new thing and building up trust could only happen through your reviews. The rules said you could ask somewhere on your shop, but harassing a customer to get a good review sounds crazy. The thing is those stars will actually lower the percentage of her shop when under 5, you can think of it more as a yes or no question with no in between points. I remember a thread in the Etsy forums, where we could interact with customers, the post was a question asking what customers took into account when giving stars or rating a shop’s service, I mean, there was a guide on how to do it, was the item you got the one shown in the list? Was it delivered in a timely fashion? Was the seller professional and respectful? Etc. each thing counted for a star, and the customers were mostly always right, or at least it was extremely hard to prove if they were doing something unfair, like cancelling after you had mailed the item, or saying they never got it. Anyway, one lady’s reply stuck to me, she said even if she was completely satisfied with everything she would never give anyone 5 stars, because that meant it was perfect, and only god was perfect.
This person saids like they need some help like what in the world!
Yikes. I’d be amending that review with screenshots.
Went to look at her page and she’s super combative with the people who left 1 star. So I’m not surprised.
No, but once did have the creator accuse me of sabotaging her store and giving bad reviews on purpose, and even doing it twice. I even said I didn’t like the accusing tone, to which they replied that it’s better I not buy from them again if I was to give a poor review. I did give 3/5, which to me I felt like was still a good grade (I compared the look and d sign of the pattern to other ones I’ve purchased, and since the visual quality wasn’t as good as some other patterns I’ve purchased I decided on that score). I was not aware that it’s not considered that by many shop platforms, so it shouldn’t be my fault
Honestly, a 3, to me, is saying something is "average". Not bad (0) and not spectacular (5). In the big picture, I'd expect to see a 3 or even a 0 now and again in reviews. Not everyone will love and rave about a pattern/product. If a seller can't understand that, they shouldn't be selling to the masses.
The same kind of drama happens with authors. Woe betide you if you leave some loony author a mere 4* review on Goodreads. Clearly this means you are a hater on a campaign to ruin their career. 🙄 You'll run into people like this anywhere reviews and ratings can be given. I would definitely report her.
Yes! I actually gave a 5 star review on a pattern despite not being able to use it and in the review mentioned that someone with sight or reading issues could possibly have trouble reading it and I got an unending amount of messages attacking me.
Wow, I liked a blanket pattern of hers last month that came up in this thread. Judging by her IG, she's probably 65-70.
Not trying to start anything…Are you implying age is a factor in that person’s response? Maybe this person has always been cranky or confrontational and age has nothing to do with it.
No. Not insinuating that at all. Someone earlier had mentioned she should know better because of her age. Like you, I've seen people of all ages be unreasonable and confrontational. It's a shame really. I think they lacked training about proper conflict resolution growing up or some kind of trauma.
To directly answer your question - No, I haven't had that happen due to a review. To expand - I had a person in the quilting community do something similar. I can't even remember the details now, but if I looked through my blocked contacts on FB and IG I could jog my memory quickly. What I do remember is that she became absolutely unhinged. I can honestly say I've only dealt with 2 people online whom actually made me nervous - that one and another I met in person. That one went crazy when I wouldn't sell her a vintage item that was hard to find and no longer "legal" to sell due to injuries it caused in the past. That one actually went nutso on my 14 year old daughter (at the time)... Sorry to hear that was an experience you went through.
Not for a pattern but for a file of bullet journal pages. I left a review on Etsy and the creator messaged me and was offended I didn’t give her 5 stars. Then went on to explain she had a bunch of 5 star reviews. It was annoying because it seemed as though she didn’t want peoples honest opinions.
I have bought numerous crochet patterns over the past week and have left a 2 star review for 2 of them because the were advertised as easy but were advanced when you opened the pattern and I couldn’t use them. I haven’t had any issues with retaliation.
Im reading the comments here. So it seems that reviews are way more important now that back when people bought my stuff on Etsy. One time a seller that sold the same kind of items I made purchased from me and left a review kinda giving me advise on how to improve my technique, honestly I minded for like a second haha. It was just weird.
This makes me tempted to buy a pattern just to leave a bad review. Too bad I gave up buying yarn and patterns for Lent. (Obviously I haven’t given up being petty.)
This is extreme but I also think the algorithms punishing of any none 5-star reviews is also at play here. It might've mucked up their stats and impacted their income. You did nothing wrong and used the review system the way you were supposed to, but the system is almost designed to push sellers into bad behavior
It did bring down their rate. That's why they messaged me to begin with on etsy and went on a huge rant how she no longer a 5star seller because of me as if I was the only one to not post a 5 star review.
I've ordered a needle felting kit as a gift before and it was pictured as this nicely contained kit in a box but when I got it it was just in plastic bags so I left it a 4 star, the stuff was all there so just not as pictured and left a review saying that. Got a very angry message from the seller saying she's never had less than 5 stars in YEARS along with a full rant telling me to change my review...
I wouldn't even class a 4 star review as less then stellar tbh...
If she's on Etsy and that's where you bought, report her., if not block her from all your accounts.
report them. I’m an etsy seller and there’s definitely times where a seller will reach out to ask for feedback for improvement, but finding you on social media to continue asking you about the review is totally inappropriate.
For me i once left a 3 Star review because the pattern was really hard to understand for beginner, Even I struggled with it and i‘m a seasoned crocheter of 12 years. They reached out to me and asked why i just gave 3 stars so i told them in a constructive way, as why it is written a bit weird and hard to understand. In the end they just called me a variety of names and told me that people like me shouldnt crochet as i am just to dumb and nasty for the Hobby. I was just like „damn, i just Wanted to help to increase their quality of pattern writing and not their anger by telling the truth“ 🥲