Etsy Sellers Panic As USPS Shipping Adjustment Snafu Wipes Out Account Balances

Etsy sellers report an apparent glitch has caused many accounts to be hit with erroneous USPS shipping adjustments for years-old tracking numbers, leaving negative balances and potential cash crunch in their wake.

One Etsy community form post with over 100 responses described the problem, saying they received a huge shipping adjustment bill overnight.

Did anyone else get hit with a HUGE shipping label adjustment bill from Etsy overnight? I just got an email stating they were adjusting 54 labels (literally all the way back for package from 2020) and the total bill was $738!!!!!

I am going to be absolutely SICK over this. Some of the adjustments are absolutely egregious! One from 2020 was $90+ and seeing as it’s been over six years, I cannot even attempt to dispute this with USPS?

Other sellers chimed in, sharing the amounts that were deducted from their accounts as well as their experiences trying to contact both Etsy and USPS for support.

Etsy seller and ecommerce consultant Cindy Baldassi posted on BlueSky about one of the worst examples she found - a seller who was charged ~$5,000 total for adjustments on almost 1,400 shipments going back over 5 years.

Sellers are rightly concerned about what will happen if the issue isn't resolved before Etsy attempts to hit their credit cards for the erroneous fees.

While Etsy has at least officially acknowledged the issue, they've yet to provide any timeline for the issue to be fixed or assurance that sellers will be protected from any fallout from the error.

Here's what Etsy posted in the Technical issues section of their seller forum, which is only accessible to those logged in with an active seller account:

We’re investigating an issue where some sellers are seeing unexpected charges or credits related to past USPS shipping label adjustments, with most dating back to earlier years.

What’s happening
This appears to be a system error on Etsy’s side that has caused incorrect adjustment activity in Payment accounts.

What we’re doing
Our engineering team is actively working to identify and fix impacted accounts. Refunds will be disbursed to affected sellers accordingly.

What you need to do
There’s nothing you need to do right now. We will update you in this thread when there is an update.

We know how important accurate billing is, and we’re working to fix this as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience while we work to fix this.

Stay tuned for updates and let us know in the comments below if your account has been affected by this Etsy USPS shipping adjustment error!