Amazon account temporarily deactivated for inauthentic issues

[alekov]

About 2 years old Stealth account just went down. We deal with name brand items, and inauthentic complaints happen from time to time. We have 4 complaints about 4 different items, here is the letter from Amazon:




Hello,

Your Amazon Seller account has been temporarily deactivated and your listings are no longer active. Funds will not be transferred to you but will be held in your account while we work with you to address the following issue.

Why is this happening?
You have not sent us the information we requested that addresses the complaints about the authenticity of the items listed at the end of this email. In order to ensure that customers can shop with confidence on Amazon, we take “inauthentic” complaints seriously. The sale of counterfeit products on Amazon is strictly prohibited. You can learn more about Amazon’s policies regarding the sale of counterfeit items in Seller Central Help:
-- Amazon Anti-Counterfeiting Policy (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/201165970)
-- Policies and Agreements (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/521)

How do I reactivate my account?
To reactivate your account, please send us the following information:
1) Copies of invoices or receipts from your supplier issued in the last 365 days for the ASINs listed below
--These documents should reflect your sales volume during the last 365 days.
--Please include contact information for your supplier, including name, phone number, address, and website. We will maintain the confidentiality of your supplier contact information.
--You may remove pricing information, but the rest of the document must be visible. For ease of our review, you may highlight or circle the ASIN(s) under review.

2) A plan of action that explains:
-- The root cause(s) that led to the complaints about the authenticity of your items.
-- The actions you have taken to resolve the complaints about the authenticity of your items.
-- The steps you have taken to prevent future complaints about the authenticity of your items.

Here are a few things to consider as you create your plan:
--Sourcing: Are you sourcing the product from a trusted supplier?
--Listing: Is the product accurately described on Amazon? Have you ensured that there is no ambiguity and the customer is well informed?
--Packaging: Is the product in its original packaging as listed on Amazon?
-- Shipping: Have you taken all appropriate steps and quality checks to ensure that the product is stored, packed, and shipped appropriately?
--Review your communications from buyers to better understand the issues.
--Be as specific as possible in your plan.
--Do not limit your plan to issues with specific orders.

You can only send .pdf, .jpg, .png, or .gif files. These documents must be authentic and unaltered.

How do I send the required information?
Please submit this information by clicking the Appeal button next to this message on the Performance Notifications page in Seller Central (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/...fications.html).

What happens if I do not send the requested information?
If we do not receive the requested information within 17 days, or after two unsuccessful appeals (whichever occurs sooner), your account will be permanently deactivated. Failure to successfully appeal this decision may result in us permanently withholding any payments to you and any FBA inventory of the items that caused “inauthentic” complaints may be destroyed at your expense.

We’re here to help
The Account Health Support team is available 7 days a week to address your concerns in detail. To request a call from the Account Health Support team between 7:00 am to 6:00 pm Pacific Standard Time use this link: (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/cu/...us/cmn/QUALITY) or between 9:00 to 5:00 China Standard Time use this link: (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/cu/...mn/MARKETPLACE).

You can view your account performance at (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/per...d?ref=ah_em_op) or select Account Health on the home screen of the Amazon Seller app on your iOS or Android device. Your Account Health shows how well your account is performing against the performance metrics and policies required to sell on Amazon.
-- Download iOS App at (https://itunes.apple.com/na/app/amaz...er/id794141485)
-- Download Android App at (https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ile.android&hl)


Title:
ASIN: B07M6ZV***
------------------------------------
Title:
ASIN: B07BGD8***
--------------------------------
Title:
ASIN: B07JBMT***
----------------------------------
Title:
ASIN: B07QCQJ***

Sincerely,
Seller Performance Team
amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com






Prior to that we had another email of similar nature that we responded to, providing receipts (Email receipts that were sent to us directly from the Brand Name manufacturers, however we slightly changed quantities to avoid dealing with many receipts). For some reason they did not accept them. The receipts were manipulated very easy since they were emails that were simply forwarded one more time to another email and changes made to some of the numbers, after which they were printed to a .pdf file and emailed to Amazon. The did not fly. Not sure why, amazon either called the stores to verify the receipts from the receipt numbers, and got a different total amount or something, or more likely they just didn't like something or decided that it should've been an invoice instead of an email receipt that we sent them. Who knows...

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. I have tons of regular store bought receipts that I may just try sending instead. I just thought the few email format receipts looked much cleaner and better and included our shipping address and company name and etc vs. the regular store bought receipts in person that are wrinkled and don't show any of our information on them.

The account has about $18k of money they are holding, and about $400K worth of inventory in it.

I've been successful at appealing about 3-4 accounts in the past, but it took many back and forths. I've been unsuccessful appealing about another 10 accounts that I lost and had to recall everything back and re-ship to new stealth accounts...

[agent006140]

try sending non email receipt,
also are you sure your brand name supplier is the real thing??

[SaiJin]

So you have real genuine products on all your accounts and you are getting these suspensions? Over 10 amazon accounts is quite a bit much.

Usually, when they hold your funds like that it's actually the brand owners that filed the complaints.

Something is missing.

[alekov]

Yes, I do Retail Arbitrage. I buy items directly at the stores in outlet malls and sell them on Amazon. Don't want to give my exact business away since it's already oversaturated with idiots from eBay that are happy to make $5 profit on a $100 investment, and have driven the prices down 3 folds over the last few years, but yes, all my items are purchased directly at the company outlet stores by myself. Exactly 0% chance of something ⊗⊗⊗⊗ being sold to someone.

Amazon is currently full of scammers who purchase a $500 item and return something else used, old, or unused but different brand that they bought for $10. Unfortunately since I only sell FBA, Amazon apparently is not allowed to refuse a return. This I've been told directly by amazon support. So you can return an old stinky sock with holes, as long as you returned something, they will accept it. They will refund you your money and will take it out of my account. Upon inspection of the item, they will deem it "sellable" condition and place it in my inventory available for sale again, or deem it "unsellable" and offer to destroy it for me. In either case the Buyer already got their money. I had several problems where the used different item that was returned was placed back for sale in my inventory and was resold to the next Buyer who was infuriated to receive a "⊗⊗⊗⊗" or defective or used or whatever they decided it call it in the spur of the moment. After recalling the said item from FBA I was terrified to find out what the item looked like, and found it almost impossible to track down which of the previous 3 Buyers that purchased and returned it actually was the one who stole my item and replaced with something else. Currently I have about 6-7 cases open with Amazon where I provided pictures of the wrong items accepted on my behalf, but it's been close to impossible to get any decent answer from them how to address these issues and what to do. Basically it's my loss. I'm not concerned about the thousands of dollars I'm losing, I'm mostly concerned about my accounts going down. It takes me about 1 to 2 years to accumulate enough "inauthentic" or "used, defective" whatever cases in an account for it to go down. For the last 10 years I've tried almost anything you can possibly imagine to address these issues and find a fix, but what I've pretty much found out is that unfortunately it's part of the business when you sell "famous" brands on Retail Arbitrage. It's inevitable that your accounts are going to go down.

I believe sometimes you get targeted by competing Sellers as well. It's enough for one of them to ask few friends to purchase items from you and claim they received inauthentic, and your account is gone... all they need is 4-5 friends to do that in a month. Again, not 100% if that is the case, but sometimes it does feel like it, because the account would be doing great for 1 year and then suddenly bam - 5 inauthentic complaints in 30 days... bye bye baby.

As I said, I've managed to get few of these back, until few months later same thing happens and the account is gone for good.

I like what I do, it makes (or made I should say, for the last few years) good money and I enjoy the business, however, the loss of accounts is something I haven't been able to prevent from happening.

[alekov]

I've tried selling thousands of different products on Amazon over the years. Very familiar with their process as well as products and categories. There is a HUGE difference selling in one category from selling in another category, and even within the same category selling different brands. Certains things like software, toys, brand names, etc carry much higher risk for the Seller, however, the reward is usually much higher as well.

All of us have different needs and expectations on Amazon. Some sell as a hobby or additional income. Some of us sell as a main business and source of income to feed our families. Based on your personal interests, knowledge, and needs we choose different products to sell. I am well aware that I can sell in a different category and sell different products and never have my account go down. I am not interested because that's not going to support my family's needs. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the right products that still provide great income and sales, while minimize the risks of inauthentic and defective suspensions. Maybe one day I will figure out something... I know creating your own brand can eliviate some of the issues, however, I've tired and haven't been successful at creating anything that is remotely as profitable, searched, or purchased as famous brands. :(

[agent006140]

if you are in US,why do you need AMZN FBA,unless it is huge volume or time contraint,how much inventory do you have that you cant hold and ship yourself?
second,retail arbitrage applies if you accept payment,then use the money to buy from another retailer which is not your case,you have the item in stock,makes no difference where you buy it.
Many Ebay bottomfeeders buy from bins/tables of returned items,slightly damaged items from HD,KR,WMT,as long as they have the goods in their hands,it is not retail arbitrage.
YOU MAY not be targeted by your competitors,just plenty of scammers these days ,

[agent006140]

someone once posted how he used FBA,not AMZN to sell online,the fees is less than AMZN and they can dispose your returns/stale inventory as well.like sell it to others or just trash them.
but if you have a family ,you can rent local storage and your family members can help you run your business?

[alekov]

Correct, it may be simply luck of the draw and numbers game - small percentage of Buyers are scammers, and when that happens few times your account is gone. I'm sure if I sold Colgate Tooth Paste, this wouldn't be happening. If you, however, sold Nike, or something branded and known to be produced as ⊗⊗⊗⊗, you would have about 1 out of 1,000 orders that would either claim to be ⊗⊗⊗⊗ based on confusion or lack of knowledge of the product, or simply scam you returning an used or ⊗⊗⊗⊗ item while keeping your item. It's just how it is. Nothing you can do to avoid it.

Regarding selling FBA. I've sold both FBA and non FBA in the past. I used to have warehouses and employees, but that's another can of worms. Getting down to the main reasons:

1. FBA saves you money. Tons of money on overhead. Both warehouse space, employees, and time.
2. Freedom. I like traveling around the world, and it works for my lifestyle. I'm gone all summer in Europe and other destinations while I make money
3. Sales. You sell about twice as much as non FBA, and at higher price. In a highly competetive market, it's very important and perhaps the only way to stay in business.
4. No mistakes. For most part. Having employees who have to find one item out of thousands in a warehouse and ship it to the correct order is a nightmare. Amazon does it great, and if they make a mistake, they don't penalize you for it.
5. Removal of negative feedback.

To answer your question, I have approximately 1,000 different SKUs per account. Each of them I stock with several items per sku. The inventory is very expensive and for most part needs to be stored in air conditioning space, properly. This way I have no overhead, no theft, no mistakes, and higher sales...

[alekov]

So regarding fighting this suspension - I'm thinking to send my store receipts now as I've done few times in the past.

This is the first response I received, after sending them few of my email receipts, saved as .pdf:

Dear

We received your submission but we still need additional information for the ASINs listed below.

The documents you submitted for the items listed immediately below are not in a digital file format that Amazon is able to receive. We can only accept documents in PDF (.pdf), Excel (.xls, .xlsx), or image (.jpg, .png, or .gif) file formats.

To prevent temporary deactivation of your account, please provide invoices or receipts that address the above issues for the specified items.

ASINs : B07M6ZV*** B07BGD8*** B07JBMT*** B07QCQJ***

Please make sure that your invoices or receipts are issued within the last 365 days and include the following information:

--These documents should reflect your sales volume during the last 365 days.

--Please include contact information for your supplier, including name, phone number, address, and website. We may contact your supplier to verify the documents. We will maintain the confidentiality of your supplier contact information.
--You may remove pricing information, but the rest of the document must be visible. For ease of our review, you may highlight or circle the ASIN(s) under review.

In addition, please provide an updated plan of action that explains:

-- Greater detail on the steps you have taken to prevent future complaints about the condition of your items.

You can only send .pdf, .jpg, .png, or .gif files. These documents must be authentic and unaltered. The total allowed attachment size is 10MB.

How do I send the required information?
Please submit this information by clicking the Appeal button next to this message on the Performance Notifications page in Seller Central (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/...fications.html).

What happens if I do not send the requested information?
If we do not receive the requested information, your account may be deactivated.

We’re here to help
You can get help creating your plan in Seller Central Help (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/200370560).

You can view your account’s performance at (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/per...d?ref=ah_em_pq) or select Account Health on the home screen of the Amazon Seller app on your iOS (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/amaz...er/id794141485) or Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ile.android&hl...) device. The Account Health dashboard shows how well your account is performing against the performance metrics and policies required to sell on Amazon.
Sincerely,
Seller Performance Team
amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com



Does anyone have any idea what they didn't like or why they didn't accept what I sent them?
Could they have called to verify the receipts and found out that I've change quantities on those receipts and changed the total of the price at the end? Maybe that was a mistake, however, I can't imagine they would ever call the store to verify, and can't imagine the store would even be able to verify or give them the info...

[agent006140]

I dont think they will call outlet mall stores to verify,as long as your receipt is legit .
by now AMZN should have a list a mile long on third party sellers' vendor list,your seller may also be on AMZN selling as well.
but there are some vendors whom AMZN tagged as selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗ stuff,so if he is one of the vendors you used,then you are guilty by association.

[e2free]

Learn your lessons as you not provided them what they requested before and now lost your account,

Send them what they asking or kiss your account

[Beautiful]

Personally I would wait to appeal until after the holiday season

They are extremely busy right now and verification itself is having questionable problems that shouldn't exist

If you wait to appeal Jan 15th+ it may get a better response/review

[agent006140]

by then he has lost thousands of orders to someone else

[alekov]

Originally Posted by Beautiful

Personally I would wait to appeal until after the holiday season

They are extremely busy right now and verification itself is having questionable problems that shouldn't exist

If you wait to appeal Jan 15th+ it may get a better response/review

Thank you for the advice, that's interesting, however, I believe they said if I don't respond within 17 days the account will be suspended forever and they won't respond any longer in their suspension message. :(

I think I have to appeal it now while the issue is fresh. It looks like they just didn't like the digital format that was used for the receipts. I plan on changing them to JPEG and sending them again and seeing if that works. Of course, that's if they aren't just being vague as sometimes they do, and sent me a form message back regarding the digital format of the receipts while the real reason for them not accepting them may be that they don't like the receipts themselves and it has nothing to do with the format used. Who knows...

[user3657]

In this case they will receive the info and you will be allowed to keep selling until SP reviews the info.

I had 365 days request before, they did call my vendors. My vender called me to tell me. Now I dont know if they called to verify line for line items or just hey, you sold to user3657, and invoice 44643543 is user3657 address?

[rsot]

Originally Posted by user3657

In this case they will receive the info and you will be allowed to keep selling until SP reviews the info.

I had 365 days request before, they did call my vendors. My vender called me to tell me. Now I dont know if they called to verify line for line items or just hey, you sold to user3657, and invoice 44643543 is user3657 address?

They called the vendors...that's pretty interesting to note.

[Leep]

Here you could find some seller reinstate your account

[alekov]

Originally Posted by agent006140

I dont think they will call outlet mall stores to verify,as long as your receipt is legit .
by now AMZN should have a list a mile long on third party sellers' vendor list,your seller may also be on AMZN selling as well.
but there are some vendors whom AMZN tagged as selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗ stuff,so if he is one of the vendors you used,then you are guilty by association.

Yes that's what I was thinking, can't imagine they will call outlet mall store to verify, and even if they did, the receipts were actually legit receipts so they should verify fine. Maybe I shouldn't have changed anything at all on them, changing the total amount on couple of them and quantity of one item on them may backfire if they ask for the total amount on the receipt. I doubt they will verify line item by line item the full receipt, no one will have that kind of time or patience at the outlet store to even do that for them.

I don't buy from 3rd party vendors anyway so I should be safe. I only buy direct from the company brand name store...

[Luffyz]

I can somewhat related to your situation. I also lost an account and Amazon took all the money that they hold. With retail arbitrage using receipts to reinstate account is a hit or miss so it depends on luck too. You can try scanning your receipts and print it out on a paper then put annotations pointing out which item for which ASIN. Then scan that paper again and send it to them. Changing the email invoice is a big mistake, they could call to verify the invoice and ban you forever for forged documents. Hopefully they just denied it and didn’t make a call. They do call suppliers to verify invoice, may be not a store.

[alekov]

Here are the developments. On Dec 4th I received the following from Amazon:

Dear *************,

We received your submission but do not have enough information to reactivate your listings at this time. We cannot accept this invoice because it does not include the items listed below.

ASIN: B07M6ZV***, B07BGD8***, B07JBMT***, B07QCQJ***

To reactivate your listings, please send the following information for the items listed above:
Copies of final invoices or receipts from your supplier issued in the last 365 days
--These documents should reflect your sales volume during the last 365 days.
--Please include contact information for your supplier, including name, phone number, address, and website. We will maintain the confidentiality of your supplier contact information.
--You may remove pricing information, but the rest of the document must be visible. For ease of our review, you may highlight or circle the ASIN(s) under review.

You can only send .pdf, .jpg, .png, or .gif files. These documents must be authentic and unaltered. The total allowed attachment size is 10MB.

How do I send the required information?
Please submit this information by replying to this email.

What happens if I do not send the requested information?
If we do not receive the requested information, your listings for the above item(s) will remain inactive.

You can view your account’s performance at (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/per...d?ref=ah_em_pq) or select Account Health on the home screen of the Amazon Seller app on your iOS (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/amaz...er/id794141485) or Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....android&hl=en) device. The Account Health dashboard shows how well your account is performing against the performance metrics and policies required to sell on Amazon.
Sincerely,
Seller Performance Team
amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com

The way I understood this is that they can't figure out which item on the submitted receipts is the item in question. So I took the receipts, and placed a large red box around the items in question, and had an explanation for each of the 4 items, showing the item ASIN, Title, UPC and showing the corresponding on the receipts. Couple of the listings were for bundled listing (2 or more items listed together, under a different UPC as per amazon requirements) so I even sent pictures of the 2 items and their tags showing the UPC, explaining that the discrepancy in the UPC of the ASIN and the UPC of the receipts is due to the bundled listings requirement to NOT use either one of the UPCs of the original items included in the bundle. I thought it was very clear and it showed the amounts purchased, and the amounts sold in the last 365 days (which wasn't much, only 2-3 sales per ASIN). I also showed that after the return of the "inauthentic" item, some of them were placed back in our inventory and were sold to another buyer without any complaints.

All that was done yesterday. Today I got another response, which is similar yet different from the one above. I hate their ambiguis responses that are so difficult to decipher. It's obvious that they don't like something, just can't pinpoint what! Any help from you guys would be greatly appreciated. I'll copy and past the new response from this morning below...

[alekov]

The new response from Dec 5th, this morning:

Dear ************,

We received your submission but do not have enough information to reactivate your listings at this time.

Please send the following information for the items listed at the end of this email:
--- Supplier information (name, phone number, address, website)
-- Buyer information (name, phone number, address, website)
-- Item descriptions (for ease of our review, you may highlight or circle the ASIN(s) under review)
-- Item quantities
-- Invoice date (must be issued in the last 365 days)

You may remove pricing information, but the rest of the document must be visible. For ease of our review, you may highlight or circle the ASIN(s) under review.

You can only send .pdf, .jpg, .png, or .gif files. These documents must be authentic and unaltered.

How do I send the required information?
Please submit this information by replying to this email.

What happens if I do not send the requested information?
If you do not send the requested information, your listings for the items below will remain deactivated.

You can view your account’s performance at (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/per...d?ref=ah_em_pq) or select Account Health on the home screen of the Amazon Seller app on your iOS (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/amaz...er/id794141485) or Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....android&hl=en) device. The Account Health dashboard shows how well your account is performing against the performance metrics and policies required to sell on Amazon.

-------------------------------------
ASIN: B07QCQJ*** B07BGD8*** B07JBMT*** B07M6ZV***
-------------------------------------
Sincerely,
Seller Performance Team
amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com


I am so confused, help me understand what they are not liking... The receipts are regular store receipts, quite long as we buy 30-40 items at a time. I had circled the item in question, on 3 of them showing the UPC that corresponds to the UPC from Amazon. The date of course is visible on the receipt, and there is a phone number for the store, and the website of the brand name is visible on the receipt. Are they just asking me to spell it out rather than just providing it on the receipt?

Also what is a "Buyer" information? Is that the Buyer on amazon that purchased the item, or Buyer as in the person in my company that actually purchased the item? The problem is we buy ourselves, and we were suspended under our real name long time ago... so is it safe to provide them with our names and phones and information? If this is what they are asking for, so they can call and verify, can we just provide our first name as being an employee for the company that does the buying, and provide them with the GM of the outlet store where we purchase and maybe even their personal cell phone, so when they call and ask for us the managers will tell them yeah, they buy all the time from our store? Is this even safe or is it likely for them to try to run our names in their database and figure out that we used to have an account that was suspended? I hate to get this account linked by doing something stupid like that, but if there is no other way to get it reinstated, maybe it's worth the risk?

[alekov]

I am reading these form emails that they are sending, and correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that they are using few forms that are already pre-typed, and within the body of these they just add a sentence or two. The way I see this last e-mail, it's a regular form like the one they always send, and the only things changed are:

__________________________________________________ __________
--- Supplier information (name, phone number, address, website)
-- Buyer information (name, phone number, address, website)
-- Item descriptions (for ease of our review, you may highlight or circle the ASIN(s) under review)
-- Item quantities
-- Invoice date (must be issued in the last 365 days)
__________________________________________________ ____________

and the portion of the bottom that shows the 4 ASINs in question.
So what we need to focus on here is really what's within that portion of the email, as that's exactly what they need...