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Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Here is my original thread;
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On 18/7/17 my amazon seller account was suspended for being deemed not an 'individual' seller. I still had a few hundred pounds in the account and was told that it would be disbursed to me after the 90 day settling period had finished. It has now been 120 days since the suspension date and nothing.
The 90 day period ended on 18/10/17, it is now 17/11/17 and I STILL have received no payment. At the time of reposting this is is 12/12/17 and about 150 days since inital suspension. I needed these funds desperately aswell.

I have called amazon customer services, emailed seller performance and payments investigate, written a letter to Amazon merchant credit department(instructed to by phone seller support) and written emails to managing directors about this.

The phone team have always said that they would pass it onto the specialist department and they would call me back, however I have had no calls back to this date.

Seller performance just ignores my emails, same with payments team.
I was told that my funds would be wire transferred to my account when I sent the letter with my bank information to the credit department. It has been 2 weeks and still nothing. (was told it would be instant).

Surely this is illegal if they are refusing to pay me my own money, well over the 90 day holding period to cover A-Z charges. The lady on the amazon seller support phone line confirmed my account and could see that the funds were still in my account as she repeated the amount to me.

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However, is it actually possible to take Amazon to a small claims court because of this. I hear they mostly end up in settlement but at least they will finally pay attention to my emails and maybe even get compensated on top of the money they owe.
Does anyone have a link to the terms and conditions we signed up for when registering? Did they put something stopping them having to transfer us our funds after their 90 day holding period?

Any help is much appreciated

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

I read for an hour today about this issue. It seems that Amazon will keep the money for themselves if the suspension was because of the selling of ⊗⊗⊗⊗ products. Otherwise they do release the funds after 90-120 days.

You can for sure take Amazon to court, but that will cost you much more than the funds they're holding and you might probably lose the case against their army of lawyers.


What did you sell on Amazon?

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Yes, I often find this situation and with-holding of funds way longer than 90 days is related to the reason your seller account was suspended.

If the account is totally legit , real info and products etc then contact the financial Ombudsman


http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Send me a private message I may be able to help retrieve funds

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

amazon's way to steal money from the masses. I would say keep at it. Until they release it. Yes you can take them to court but might cost you more than the outcome.

Amazon has become to a point where its too big to fail.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Nothing in the history of the universe has been to big to fail. I hope these mother****ers get beaten up by a collaboration between Google and Walmart. I heard that Warren Buffet is planning something with Google to kick off a new e-commerce project.


I don't like the idea that the whole e-commerce scene is controlled and dominated by only 2 players. I think having 7-10 major markets would be better for small-medium size sellers and will give both consumers and sellers broader options.


OP, be grateful that they're not withholding thousands of $ of your money. Some people tell horror stories about how Amazon held 15,000+ $ of their cash and in a good number of cases Amazon never paid anything back.
I think this is an orchestrated policy on the side of Amazon, confiscating people money and defending that by saying: "Oooh, you have made your money on our website selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗ (based on a dodgy report by someone most of the time btw without providing any solid evidence that the stuff was ⊗⊗⊗⊗), so we decided to kick you off and keep your cash permanently".



It turns out that Ebay is less controlling and better suited for small sellers in my opinion.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

The reason my account was suspended was due to the high volume of sales I had (wasn't even very high). This caused them to think I was a business seller or something and said that I was in the wrong category (individual) rather than business seller.
My goods were authentic, how do they even know if they were counterfeit anyway? So they're just going to hold my funds and keep them for themselves??

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

The small claims court in the UK does not require any lawyers, the case is normally submitted with a small fee that can be refunded if you win the case. However, if it does go to court, I will have to defend myself but I doubt amazon will want to go to court over this as it isn't a huge amount of money. What do you guys think?

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Amazon is as crooked as can be !! they stole from all the little guys and that is how they became so big! They dont tell the media how they steel funds from millions of sellers Bezos should just go off himself somewhere once they nab him also in the pedophile ring roundup .!!!

stole thousands from me back in the day and many others good sellers FKAmazon I get better deals on other websites anyway .Its not that great anymore and they know it.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

They stole thousands from me too. I still have a stealth account on there. It makes less and less every year.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

I have an email back from jeff bezos' team, it is basically the same as previous emails I have received from them;
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Dear ,

My name is Shravan, and I’m a member of the Amazon Seller Performance Escalations team. Jeff Bezos received your email and I am responding on his behalf.

We are currently reviewing your query and will be providing a full response to your query shortly. As with all escalated contacts, Mr.Bezos will be advised of the outcome of our investigation and any action taken.

We appreciate your patience while we investigate your query, and will respond to you as soon as we can.

Warmest regards,
Your feedback is helping us build Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company.
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I find the last line of the email funny. I have received various forms of this email when contacting jeff@amazon.com, but nothing has ever come from it and I never receive any sort of follow up email even after many weeks

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Is this the full story?
Because there is no $£ amount that I heard of to say what is or is not individual or business seller, so surely they would ask you to convert to business, not throw you off...

what approx was your turnover eg. per month?

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

How long its take to receive an reply from jeff@amazon.com? I've sent one at Monday but still nothing.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

24 to 48 hours normally this means they not bother about you

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

I think Amazon policy was laid straight long time ago, their main goal is to attract big brands and have them selling on Amazon. Amazon does not give a **** about small time sellers because they simply are of no interest to Amazon. The best place for small-medium size sellers is Ebay as far as I know.

Ebay seems to be making efforts in the last year to attract small businesses and I think that's a smart move. There are millions of small businesses around the world, if Ebay can successfully have them all selling on its platform then the profit margin for EB will be enormous.

Amazon seems to be fantasizing about the idea of little profit (initially), but I don't think that will make Amazon last in the long term. They think that the customer is the only thing that matters in the world and forget that sellers also have rights.

Amazon sets the standards so f high and their fees are even higher than everyone else.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Amazon will try you out.

:ballchain:

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

There was a forumer, I was on a thread with a few months ago, I cannot remember who, that swore they had either just gone to a lawyer or sued amazon and won, got money released, and they were under stealth details, I will try and find post later.........

the only reason az can keep money, is if they 'believe' there is non-genuine signup details or the product is non-compliant/ fa ke etc

If either of the above do not apply to you, I would not hesitate to go to small claims, as you said, it is cheap and easy to do, and might get it released without even going through with it...

but if the above does apply to you, well, I would be worried about exposing myself to other issues....

I am curious about rough turnover - because I am still puzzled about the individual to business seller issue you said got you thrown off....

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

My turnover was very low approx £1000 - £2000, but most of my products sold were all the same or similar categories. Do you think I should take them to small claims? I don’t really want to actually go into court if it comes to that.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

It wasn’t converting from the individual to pro selling plan, it was the actual whole account type e.g. they wanted my business details and numbers which of course I didnot have.
When I told them I was not an business, I was told that I had failed the review and I could not sell on Amazon
It’s the category when you register for the seller account not just the plan you pay £30 a month for etc.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

are you stealth or real/realish details?

were you being asked for your sole trader details?

when you say that you said you are not a business, is it that you do not consider yourself a business (eg turnover too low) or that you are not a ltd company or sole trader registered ?

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

I am not a company, literally just a normal guy selling some things online.
These are my real details not stealth etc.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

You'll need to allow 5-6mths from the date of deletion, rather than when you were suspended then you'll get the email that they are releasing funds, you'll get the runaround till then or ignored.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Damn, I don't sell on Amazon, but can I really use that email to hit up Jeff Bezos?

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Has this happened to you?

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Has this happened to you

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Personally, I would locate any payments I had sent from my bank account to Amazon and start initiating chargebacks to the sum of what they owe you.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Today, I finally got my funds disbursed. I constantly emailed jeff@amazon.com with a letter detailing my case. I saved a letter and copied and pasted it to him daily. I kept persistenting and it eventually paid off

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Very nice persistance

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Thank you everyone for your help, it was greatly appreciated

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Hi
I am in the same position you was
funds now held for 14 months, last stock resonce from jeff was november, so i was looking to take them to the small claims court and was searching to see if they had kept any other sellers money.
I was selling happily for 3 years, i then tried to change address because i had moved, i was allowed to sell while they verified, they didn't verify me for 3 months and still have 2k.

What sort of letter did you send jeff, ive warned them that i would take them to court but i no nothing about court, i was selling as a private selller and purchased the goods from amazon add ons so they were all good

please help me if you would be so kind

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

How often does the legal demand letter work?

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

The problem with small claims is even if you win, you will have to enforce the claim no? And that's tough to do without heavy costs

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Amazon will be changing its TOS and no longer do arbitration. Apparently they have been more successful in courts

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

Very true, first thing you learn in law school is the contract is only as good as the judge says it is. You can write whatever you want in an agreement, if its against the laws, it cannot be upheld. Amazon will lose most of not all cases for holding your money. Its a numbers game, for every 1000 peoples money they hold, and 5 take them to court, they are still way ahead. The company is being run like the mob lately.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

it sounds like UK is different .
But yes,in US,small claims court usually ask you to use a mediator,then you face the judge.
if you win,you have to find a way to collect that money,hiring a sherriff to seize his merchandise if he has a store and auction them off,all these will cost you more than what you are trying to get back .

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

OH,ALSO before going to court ,you have to send by certified mail twice to show you have made an effort to collect,then go to the city and pay a fee to file a claim.

Re: Taking Amazon to Small claims court for not paying seller their funds?
 

The ToS means little to nothing, and the arbitration clause is unenforceable unless a judge says otherwise, at least in my State & County.

Before filing any action, however you definitely need to do your homework and read up on case way as it applies to you. Also sending a Demand/Claim letter to the company in question by Certified Mail is an absolute requirement. The judge in my last two cases asked for that from the get go.