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new detection method on amazon?
 

I have been selling on amazon for around a year and I make a few accounts, when one gets banned I make a new one. Ever since around christmas time I am getting banned left and right, almost always within 24 hours of putting my bank info. Any ideas on how they are doing this? Their email just says

"This is an auto-generated message to let you know we have removed your selling privileges, canceled your listings, and placed a temporary hold on any funds in your seller account. Any new selling accounts you open will be closed.

We took this action because your seller account has failed our review process.

Per the terms of the selling agreement you entered into with Amazon Services, we reserve the right to limit or remove selling privileges as we deem appropriate.

We encourage you to take appropriate steps to resolve any pending orders. Note that any amounts paid as a result of A-to-z Guarantee claims and chargebacks may be deducted from your Marketplace Payments account.
"


Usually I will get an email saying something about vero or how 2 accounts were linked, this just says I failed a review process...

What category are your sales?

video games and small electronics

What kind of credit card you using to register the accounts?

Are you using new bank account information?
New MAC address?
New Virtual Machine/Laptop?

I use discover vcc, new bank info, new ip and mac address, but what is the virtual machine thing you mentioned

The discover VCC is still valid or expired?

the discover vcc is still valid

Do you list similar items each time? Whats your ratio of previously listed items on banned account versus items never listed before?

I do list similar items each time, usually I will list the same 6-8 things and an additional 10 things that I have never sold before

This just happened to me today....I've been creating a lot of accounts with no problems then after starting this new account for 2 days and selling about a dozen items (way under the velocity limit using the exact same methods and items as before) I got this message as well:

"This is an auto-generated message to let you know we have removed your selling privileges, canceled your listings, and placed a temporary hold on any funds in your seller account. Any new selling accounts you open will be closed."

I'm baffled. I even have the account on the same computer as another new account which is running and selling fine.... new phone, new cc, new browser, new addy, new name. Do you think they randomly review new accounts and just suspend them at random or have human eyes look over some randomly? I'm going to open a bunch more and see what I can find out....same pattern I will use.

One more tidbit of info I just noticed. This automated email arrived at 12:01AM exactly. This is the first account I opened during the new year so I'm worried they have some new detection methods we are going to have to figure out.

I think they are all automatic and not by human in any way.

I have an account under review. Just summit appeal and suspend after a few minutes and this is in the middle of the night

same thing happened to me, my notices have all been around midnight- 2 am so def automated

so everytime you submit an appeal your account it is re-instated?

No definitely not, I have done this with a few accounts that had that same exact thing happen. Appeal request as denied and gave me that dumb automated response. But it doesn't hurt to try to appeal the suspension.

While it doesn't hurt to appeal the suspension, chances are slim that it will succeed. I am sure there must some QA in Az forcing a certain amount of appeals MUST be reviewed so you prob lucked into a live agent review.

I am no professional by any way, but does any one think that it could be prepaid and vcc's? I have 2 accounts that are good, and no prepaid or vcc is attached. It's a bank debit card. However, if I list with vcc or a prepaid, it goes down. And it doesn't matter what I list...I list nothing similar on separate accounts. Latest one, I listed a pack of birthday invitations. Down it went. I noticed a site the other day (shop runner) that knew I was using a prepaid card as soon as I entered it, and rejected it. Had to enter a REAL debit card.

Well there has to be some sort of prepaid card that still works, anybody knows what it is? Or should we just start a list of what won't work

Ok, so im 99 percent sure its the vcc, my discover vcc won't even validate on the amazon system anymore

I feel that VCCs are pretty bad - the ones that expire quickly. Prepaid - have to test out more.

both work for me no problem, even the ones that expire within 2-3 months, the problem you people have is you are running before you can walk, list slowly, buy amazon ghost, its all in there

Do you use a bank given Visa Gift card? I have been using those and they work perfectly fine. I have never had one go wrong on me. One thing to note for this topic is this. RIght before Christmas I was trying to offload these electronics that I had. My account got suspended due to a simple error. So I made another account with all new information. I got suspended instantly. Did the same thing again with new information, and got suspended. The Items I was listing was the only thing that matched. I believe that Amazon DOES watch the items new sellers list because I switched my tactic, started selling low priced books and after a bit sold the same ipods about 2 weeks later. I think they are getting smarter about this sort of thing.

I would like to hear others chime in on this. As I stated above I have created a lot of new accounts lately (before the new year) using all the exact same stealth methodology. All worked great, no suspensions. And then this one I just created got axed after a few sales. The only thing different I did was list an item that is similar but was on some accounts I have had suspended in the past. I'm starting to wonder if Amazon might have implemented a point system for hi-risk items. So if the item gets reported it gets a lot of points, or if a user is suspended then all the items they were selling get a few points. And then when a new seller comes on board they do a quick automatic check on the point value of the items the new user is selling. This would all be done very easily programming wise so it could be all automatic without a human ever intervening. I am going to do more tests this coming week creating accounts with what my guess would be hi risk point items and low point items.

What about building a stealth Az account BUYING before selling - anyone tried this for stronger account?

Buying something first might be a good idea, and it is possible they are linking based on what you are selling, i am selling similar items and as soon as i list them i get banned

IMO buying doesn't help as on amazon buying and selling is like 2 different accounts I

turned an old buyers account into a sellers account some how it got linked and

suspended right away but it can still buy

Good info there oge - that sucks though.

Doesn't suck just lets me know how to make a more solid account....

Research and testing goes a long way!

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for the good posts....

I've been having the same problems about new accounts created in 2012 getting banned for the same reason "failed review".

My experience:
1.One account was under review and in the 24th day I got the killer e-mail "failed review"
2.At least three other accounts survived only a few days, I was able to sell some 3 or 4 items but still get banned after some days, same reason 'Failed review"
3. 2 other accounts got banned with in hours of being created same reason "Failed review"
4. For the most part the items listed were similar, but in one of the accounts I listed a completely different item, still got banned
5. All the accounts were created with new VM, VCC, and VPN
Any additional comments........

Could be an issue with your VPN?

I doubt that is the reason because out of the accounts I have created so far two are still alive...

VPN's only have a limited number of ip ranges and I believe that amazon probably have compiled a list of the more popular providers and review the accounts that are using that range.

That is a good tip! However I help one of my friends to open a legit account. All info was as real as it could be. Local back, new computer and internet connection. It still got banned for the same bs reason "failed review"............
Thank you for the comments at this moment anything helps!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you jump into selling high risk items straight away?

I would suggest that you also bite the bullet and open up a commercial account and elect to pay the $39 a month and 14 day wait period for receiving money.

For some accounts the items were dvd's not a good idea for first sales, but I did it before a number of times and it worked. Some other accounts were open selling random items, and still got banned. However I never went to be a pro-seller wright away, that will be my next try. I will post my progress....

All of your comments are appreciated!!

Never try to sell something SIMILAR on a new account RIGHT after an old account selling the same items has been banned. Am az on has some weird flagging system (it appears to me) that cause problems for future NEW accounts selling the same stuff