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Anyone ever hired Attorney for Ghost Account
 

We are considering hiring an attorney for a deactivated Ghost Account since Amazon is holding over 2,500 of our products. How would it work on a ghost account?

Re: Anyone ever hired Attorney for Ghost Account
 

Have you consulted with the attorney about this?

Can you still log in to the account? If yes you can simply get your products out.

Re: Anyone ever hired Attorney for Ghost Account
 

Not allowing me to recall any products. They show as "reserved". Also if I click "edit" on any product, an error message screen comes up saying: "Problem with your account. Our records indicate that you are not authorized to this feature"

Re: Anyone ever hired Attorney for Ghost Account
 

I am looking at couple attorneys, one is Rosenbaum, Famularo & Segall, P.C. out of NY who are behind AmazonSellersLawyer.com

They want $5,000 wired for a retainer. Not sure what to think and how legit they are. Seem to have good reviews online. Specialize in IP and Amazon...

The other one is www.amazonsellers.attorney out of California, and the attorney's name is Kenneth Eade, also spotty reviews online, not sure what to think. $1,750 to start...

Also Chris McCabe (ecommerceChris) who is former Amazon Seller Performance guy has good reviews but isn't an attorney so I doubt it would have much value in this case.

Re: Anyone ever hired Attorney for Ghost Account
 

OK so you can log in.

Are the products shady or just regular stuff?

Because you should be able to pull out your inventory

Re: Anyone ever hired Attorney for Ghost Account
 

Regular stuff, bought direct from the brand name stores. The problem is its Retail Arbitrage. In Amazon's eyes, often considered "inauthentic" as they often don't accept store receipts as proof of purchase. Dealing with Amazon is like dealing with the IRS. You are considered guilty until you can prove that you aren't. They keep asking for Letter of Authorization to sell from the brand, and etc. which is impossible to get. I've fought many of the copyright complaints that the brand filed and won them with receipts, but the overall suspension is tough and I doubt they will reinstate without a LOA and/or invoices rather than store receipts.

Re: Anyone ever hired Attorney for Ghost Account
 

BTW for those who wonder, the court system has already set a precedent many times before regarding the First Sale Doctrine - basically once you buy a product (legit, from the brand itself), what you do with that product is entirely up to you. You can burn it, destroy it, sell it, whatever you like. The rights of the brand creator basically stop at the first sale level. Costco actually got sued by Omega for selling their watches without being authorized seller, and won. You buy it, you can sell it. Also interesting to note that attempting to circumvent this rule by claiming "trademarks" for the purpose of eliminating competition is something the courts don't seem to like either. Amazon with their enormous legal team knows this, however, they do have their own rules aside from the US legal system so dealing with Amazon is tough.

So if you list an item and in the description you use trademarked terms, brand name, and show an image of the item with a copyrighted logo showing in the picture, you are perfectly fine because you bought the item legally and you are using the information above to "identify" the item you are selling. The only time you are liable is if you are selling an illegal reproduction of the item...

Where we got in trouble here was using stock images of the products - still not clear if it was because of the models in the images or the images itself being copyrighted, I can't imagine that a brand would copyright every single stock image of their products but I guess they do. So taking your own pictures of the item is always the way to go, as using images that are floating around the internet is dangerous if you don't know where they are coming from.

Re: Anyone ever hired Attorney for Ghost Account
 

If you do go the attorney route OP, shared experience would be welcomed by the forum for sure :)

Re: Anyone ever hired Attorney for Ghost Account
 

Update - Thanks for all the advice, I listened and kept providing them what they ask for. If they responded that they didn't like the invoices, I changed the info on them and resubmitted them. Literally thousands of invoices, all changed with the stealth info. Eventually one day out of the blue they responded that they are releasing the hold on inventory, and I got it back. So lesson learned, never give up, and just give them what they are asking for.

They are still holding my cash, hoping one day they get tired of it and release it as well. Account is still suspended. Maybe I'll get energy to fight it again one day..

Re: Anyone ever hired Attorney for Ghost Account
 

Nice to hear of the positive update - partially :thumb: - you're really fighting a mountain of a platform...