What happens when a ''power seller'' suddenly quits?

[helpmelol]

Hello all,

I recently experienced this.
A seller with hundreds of positive ratings over the course of several years, suddenly received over 100 negative ratings within a month.

It looked like the seller suddenly quit, but he did accept all the orders he received. Order amount could have been in the tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So the seller got his money, but the buyer didn't get the product.

I filed an A to Z claim, and got my money back.

But how does Amazon get their money back? I mean, didn't they already pay the seller? What if the seller uses a ''stealth account'' ? Who is losing/paying in a case like this?

[JasonLong]

If you can prove that you (along with many others) were scammed and did not get your order. Amazon will refund you back, out of their own pocket.

[helpmelol]

Yes, I got my money back.
But strange thing is, seller was still selling for weeks (after 100 negative feedback).

What happens if the seller is using a stealth account and quits? I imagine this causes lots of problem.

What if a buyer CAN'T prove he didn't receive something AFTER the seller stops responding, etc. Amazon can't check the individual cases. Will I just lose my money?

I am happy Amazon offers A to Z guarantee, otherwise I would be buying from eBay only.

I never thought about this until a few days ago. I just assumed you're protected no matter what.

[rsot]

Amazon looks for patterns and identifies.

In this kind of case, I wonder if something bad happened to the seller....real life can be tough...

[helpmelol]

I doubt that. My order was marked as ''dispatched'', and so were the orders of people who ordered before and after me (I read his feedback).

I also remember that my order was packed and shipped within a few hours... on a sunday... And the item was very cheap (especially for a popular book which was offered by many sellers).

I think the seller just decided to lower the price of thousands of items, confirm the orders, and take the money without dispatching anything.

[JasonLong]

I am sure that amazon has done their calculations in terms of true sellers / against scammers sellers... Amazon may lose out a small portions in this case but not enough cause any, just any damage to them whatsoever. They want a 100% perfect buyers experience just like what you said, if it wasn't for A to Z, you would not be buying off them.

This actually had killed a lot of genuine seller including myself. With customer making false claims, like they claim they haven;t received but if we sent on a normal post that cannot prove that they had, we have to pay out. And in some cases even we send it on a signed for service and customer claims that it is not their signature, in some of my cases they got away with this as well.. :(

[Gamefreak]

amazon gets it money back by either writing it off as a loss or more likely it limits other sellers like what paypal does

[barrycruan]

OK, well I'm not particularly proud of this but a few years back I has a stealth account that was doing pretty good, around 20k a month.

A supplier messed up and I couldn't fulfil a large amount of orders. I knew the ban hammer was inevitable so I marked every order as dispatched just before my disbursement and never sent anything out. Not a great thing to do but all those people would have been covered and amazon had previously taken a lot of my money.

Anyway long story short nothing ever happened. I occasionally log into the email account to several emails from amazon asking for payment and that's it. Which is why I'm not surprised at amazons new rules. It was far too easy to do this kind of thing back in the day.

[MICKY H]

Nice one Barry

[Gamefreak]

its still easy once you get up and running. but now they can actually come after you for the money you owe with the your tax info

[Dmshark25]

Originally Posted by Gamefreak

its still easy once you get up and running. but now they can actually come after you for the money you owe with the your tax info

Yep , now they will just destroy your credit , with accounts requiring a tax ID either upon opening or with 50 sales you can't hide

[MICKY H]

Originally Posted by Dmshark25

Yep , now they will just destroy your credit , with accounts requiring a tax ID either upon opening or with 50 sales you can't hide

Think outside the box, US is the easiest for stealth and you don't need tax info either if done correctly.

[Dmshark25]

I just sell on my original Amazon Account, I never made a stealth Amazon , somehow I never was suspended and started this account the same time as my eBay 2 years ago

I focus mainly on eBay but do well with Amazon and really like there platform and buyers, I think the disbursements taking 14 days made me focus more on eBay but besides that Amazon is great

[alim]

Originally Posted by helpmelol

Yes, I got my money back.
But strange thing is, seller was still selling for weeks (after 100 negative feedback).

What happens if the seller is using a stealth account and quits? I imagine this causes lots of problem.

What if a buyer CAN'T prove he didn't receive something AFTER the seller stops responding, etc. Amazon can't check the individual cases. Will I just lose my money?

I am happy Amazon offers A to Z guarantee, otherwise I would be buying from eBay only.

I never thought about this until a few days ago. I just assumed you're protected no matter what.

when you file a to z and seller doesnt reply they automatically issue you refund after 7 days