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Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

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Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#21

Post by njarboe »

nikkwong wrote: post #16

Good luck. Amazon banned my seller account 7 years ago because my wife, who was also an amazon seller, used our shared CC (which has my name on it, although she's an authorized user) to pay her $45/month seller fee. The account had $48,000 in it at the time I was banned, and I was never able to get the money back; after an endless number of hours of pleads with their teams, mails to jeff@amazon, working on it from th…

I imagine you had good reason not to, but this is a situation for a lawsuit. Did you sue Amazon to get your money?

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#22

Post by busterarm »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #8
IChooseY0u wrote: post #3

I think people would be surprised what is on the internal seller forums. There is really like a huge amount of issues that Amazon fails to help with. Literally everything from onboarding to protecting sellers from refund scams. I suspect big sellers must have dedicated account managers

Even pretty small ones do. My wife has worked at Amazon as an account manager both for 1P and 3P sellers, some of those don't even make $100K a year on Amazon but still have an internal contact.

Depends on the category. My brother runs an Amazon store that nets more than that but his category is one of the strictest on the site and he gets no support.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#23

Post by nikkwong »

globular-toast wrote: post #18
nikkwong wrote: post #16

Good luck. Amazon banned my seller account 7 years ago because my wife, who was also an amazon seller, used our shared CC (which has my name on it, although she's an authorized user) to pay her $45/month seller fee. The account had $48,000 in it at the time I was banned, and I was never able to get the money back; after an endless number of hours of pleads with their teams, mails to jeff@amazon, working on it from th…

Surely that's enough money to go to small claims or something?

I live in Seattle, and in WA state that would put it beyond the limit for a small claims case. Idk, I tried to contact lawyers to take the case and they sent letters to Amazon which Amazon never responded to. I was also going through a pretty serious health battle at the time and so couldn't really devote full attention to it. Now that things are a bit better, I feel like it's so far in the past that I don't know if I would have a reasonable claim so I sort of just let it be.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#24

Post by mtlynch »

mmooss wrote: post #12
tokyobreakfast wrote: post #2

Sell on Walmart Marketplace instead. Amazon caters to the ALLCAPS Chinese scam stores. They know how to game the system and have invested a lot of resources into it. Your little home-based business doesn't stand a chance. It's a matter of time before they clone your product and undercut you by half.

I understand the problems described for Amazon, though that doesn't make Walmart good or without the same or different problems and advantages. What is Walmart Marketplace like for sellers? And how is the sales traffic, relatively?

I used to sell on Amazon, and Walmart Marketplace reached out to me to convince me they could offer me a better seller experience than Amazon.

I was excited because I hated dealing with Amazon, but I had the call with the Walmart rep and he couldn't cite any benefit over Amazon.

Would Walmart take a lower fee? No, it would be the same as Amazon.

Would Walmart give back its fee if the customer sent the product back for a refund? No, Walmart would keep my fees and have the same perverse incentives that pushed costs onto the vendor.

It was surprising how much hubris Walmart brought to the discussion. The constant tone was, "We're Walmart, so obviously you want to work with us."

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#25

Post by nikkwong »

njarboe wrote: post #21
nikkwong wrote: post #16

Good luck. Amazon banned my seller account 7 years ago because my wife, who was also an amazon seller, used our shared CC (which has my name on it, although she's an authorized user) to pay her $45/month seller fee. The account had $48,000 in it at the time I was banned, and I was never able to get the money back; after an endless number of hours of pleads with their teams, mails to jeff@amazon, working on it from th…

I imagine you had good reason not to, but this is a situation for a lawsuit. Did you sue Amazon to get your money?

Amazon has some terms in their TOS that you have to go through mediation on their terms—I tried to get the process started but could never get them to respond when I/we contacted their legal teams. I probably should have pressed harder, I'm sure there was some way to do it, but I wasn't able to figure it out at the time.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#26

Post by ejo4041 »

Amazon Seller for 10 years here. I haven't had my account shutdown, but some tips that could help. At the top, your brand is listed as "Generic", this is because you do not have a brand registered. The way to have a brand registered with Amazon is to first get a Trademark for your brand. This will also help you fight against counterfeiters on Amazon that could try to sell their own version under your listing. In that case, they would need a signed letter from your brand. I don't know that it will help in your specific case, but it could give you more credibility with Amazon. It will cost a little money to get the TM, so that's a decision to make if it's worth it or not.

Have you tried just having a single trademarked brand in your title, rather than Airtag and Samsung or changing the wording at all? Something like ... holder for Airtag, compatible with Samsung. How about targeting other popular brands like ... holder for Airtag, compatible with Apple TV?

Here's another brand that has a combination of the above suggestions: https://www.amazon.com/AhaStyle-Protective-Silicone-Compatib... They use "... for ... compatible with", and they also have a registered brand.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#27

Post by throwaway150 »

*smh*

Every time I hear a story like this (and there's one like every month) I wonder how we ended up here. The internet was meant to be this place where anyone could set up a website, run a business, and reach customers directly. Instead it has turned into a collection of walled gardens, where your existence and livelihood depend on the whims of an opaque algorithm.

Luckily in my country Amazon does not have the level of market control it has in the US and some other places. People still walk or drive to local shops and when they order something for delivery they usually do so from their websites.

But reading many of these HN threads gives the impression that in the US and elsewhere Amazon controls a huge share of the market. If it functions as such a powerful exchange for both merchants and buyers, should there not be regulation to prevent injustices like this?

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#28

Post by huflungdung »

Closi wrote: post #19
IChooseY0u wrote: post #3

I think people would be surprised what is on the internal seller forums. There is really like a huge amount of issues that Amazon fails to help with. Literally everything from onboarding to protecting sellers from refund scams. I suspect big sellers must have dedicated account managers

I used to work for a large Amazon Seller (>$100m per year revenue) who got automatically deactivated with no warning and it took them a week to get re-activated. We are talking a very minor infraction - It was something like one of their marketing copywriters putting 'refills can be purchased on our website' on one of their thousands of listings, and Amazon delisting their entire account on the basis that this was mo…

[dead]

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#29

Post by kelnos »

nikkwong wrote: post #25
njarboe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine you had good reason not to, but this is a situation for a lawsuit. Did you sue Amazon to get your money?

Amazon has some terms in their TOS that you have to go through mediation on their terms—I tried to get the process started but could never get them to respond when I/we contacted their legal teams. I probably should have pressed harder, I'm sure there was some way to do it, but I wasn't able to figure it out at the time.

I feel like if you've made a good-faith effort to start the arbitration process they require you to do, and they ignore you, that is grounds for a lawsuit. And I doubt a judge would look favorably upon Amazon in that case.

Re: Tell HN: Amazon has deactivated my seller account

#30

Post by kelnos »

globular-toast wrote: post #18
nikkwong wrote: post #16

Good luck. Amazon banned my seller account 7 years ago because my wife, who was also an amazon seller, used our shared CC (which has my name on it, although she's an authorized user) to pay her $45/month seller fee. The account had $48,000 in it at the time I was banned, and I was never able to get the money back; after an endless number of hours of pleads with their teams, mails to jeff@amazon, working on it from th…

Surely that's enough money to go to small claims or something?

In general that kind of money is well above the limit for small claims.
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