Oops: Etsy decimal point error massively overcharges for shipping

Decimals points are pretty important. Case in point: A glitch at e-commerce site Etsy briefly caused the company to overcharge for shipping labels by thousands of dollars.

Etsy sellers took to social media on Monday to notify the company about the problem. Apparently, the e-commerce site’s accounting system failed to notice the decimal point when charging for the total cost for shipping labels. 

As a result, one merchant who thought they were paying $11.64 for postage ended up being billed $1,164. In other cases, the glitch caused Etsy to accidentally empty bank accounts.   

“I just lost $11k.  Emptied my Etsy account, drained my bank account, maxxed out my overdraft protection, and maxxed out my credit card.... all for what should have been $110 in labels,” tweeted one seller.

“Do not ship through Etsy,” wrote another seller. “Right now they are charging you $350 for $3.50 shipping labels, their system is fucking up a decimal.”

Tweet may have been deleted

The glitch also caused many merchants to stop sending out packages with labels printed from Etsy, which has over 2.8 million active sellers. Fortunately, the company began fixing the problem last night.

“This issue has now been resolved and we have credited impacted sellers for the incorrect fees,” the company said in a customer support ticket. “Accurate charges are now reflected in affected sellers’ payment accounts. For the small group of sellers that were autobilled, we have refunded any resulting card charges.”

Some affected merchants say they were also hit with overdraft fees due to Etsy withdrawing more money than was available in their bank accounts. A company spokesperson told PCMag: "Yes, we will reimburse sellers who let our support teams know that they were charged overdraft or related fees."

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