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Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

He say he did it without lawyer so that why i ask that.. to take lawyer we all know how to..

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

thanks bro for this info..will check them out...nice to see someone actually trying to help, instead of spewing "search online" most of us search online and cannot find hence we try here, to which no one helps...thanks for this

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

munkron, I think there is a lot to consider before filing for arbitration such as how much time are you willing to invest, what you're willing to spend on legal fees, costs of attorney, etc. Unfortunately, I think the answers to these questions will depend on how much money Amazon is withholding. If Amazon is withholding between $1,000 and $4,000, it probably isn't worth it to pursue formal arbitration. You might still have the option of small claims court. If, however, they have $10,000+, it's probably worth your time to file for arbitration and hire an attorney who specializes in arbitration if you're not comfortable with the process.

I am an attorney with some experience taking Amazon to arbitration. Feel free to private message me about your personal experience.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Sabbiman,

It cost me close to $1,000 to file for arbitration with the AAA. An attorney may charge you upwards of $5,000, but I think that depends on the attorney you decide to employ. I'm an attorney, but at the time I was not comfortable handling a case because of my limited experience. I spoke to an attorney in NY, and he said he would not take my case because the amount Amazon was withholding was approximately $30,000 and the costs could exceed the judgement. This attorney handled larger claims, but I'm sure could find an attorney that would charge less.

Send me a private message if you'd like to discuss further.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

dan_ebay,

I agree. A lot of what is included in their agreement is arguably unenforceable on the grounds that it is unconscionable or Amazon's commitment is illusory. However, I think courts are inclined to enforce the arbitration clause, which means your case will likely be dismissed if you file in a local court that would otherwise have jurisdiction.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Thank you for the information :)

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Thank you, Just contacted them. Hope I can get my money from stealth account. =}-

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Very glad i just came across this discussion, Im new here today and was definitely considering taking them to court, or sending a legal letter, A few more steps to take first i believe

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Is this company dealing only with US accounts? Or EU as well? I’m currently trying to get my monies from UK account but no luck.. Anyone have experience with successful legal letters or arbitration for european marketplaces? I’m thinking of a good legal letter before possible arbitration.. or arbitration is the only way? Can you PLEASE give more information? Please PM me for some reason i can’t send private messages myself.. thank you...

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Arbitration is the last resort. Before hand i would send a solid letter to amazon payments and see if you get any result

good luck

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Thank you for your reply, looking for a good solicitor who can help me with this letter.. anybody can suggest someone please?

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

firstly, as i said i would appeal the release of funds, if that fails or you can afford a lawyer/attorney, then go down the arbitration route
I have some people i can recommend for US, but for UK none of which i would want to recommend

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Hey guys!

Thanks for all the suggestions and opinions posted here.

We are in a dog fight with Amazon since March this year. Rather it's a one-sided tussle so far.

They gated us for a certain sub-category (classified as popular products) of a commodity on our account, resulting in about 90 of our active listings getting gated, in addition to inability to list many other potential products.

All our inventory is sourced through the manufacturers and/or their authorized distributors. Amazon never bothered to ask for proof of sourcing anytime, and simply took this action at their whims and fancies. Since then, we have written countless emails to Seller Performance, Jeff B, Amazon's Legal team soliciting answers, explanation and even providing our purchase invoices. Jeff B and Legal don't reply. Seller Performance intentionally deflects our emails to Seller Support within a few hours, who obviously have no hold on this matter.

Move forward to July 2019, they figured another way to restrict more of our listings, bluntly giving the reason "This product has other listing limitations" for all of such gated products. Since July 11, I have seen more than 100 of our active listings being restricted, in addition to at least 400 of our inactive listings. Yet again, they do this without providing any notice, and more of our active listings continue to get stranded overnight.

We virtually have no hold over what we can list or replenish anymore! I wrote to SP Team and others again about 3 days ago. No response so far, yet no deflection to Seller Support either.

In essence, we are having more than $40k worth of our inventory stranded as of now. This despite our account having 100% feedback rating with over 1600 positive feedbacks in last 4 years.

We are contemplating taking a legal channel to solicit a response from these monsters, and see how they can fix this. Their actions clearly imply partiality towards certain sellers, and the lack of response from the concerned team i.e. Seller Performance shows they had no valid reason to gate us.

Advice is appreciated.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

it would help if you tell us what are your or were you selling?

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

It's mostly media (books).

And I know none of the publishers have told Amazon to gate us or anything. Because as per the US Supreme Court ruling, they cannot stop any individual/media seller to stop their products as long as they are legitimate copies procured through legitimate sources.

The pattern of gating certainly doesn't suggest that any publisher told Amazon to target us or anything like that.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

It's honestly only going to get worse and worse from here on out.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Going to get worse in what sense? What I do observe is that Amazon has been shaving off offers from books this month, especially those in New. Like there were several products having 40+ sellers, now halved to 20 offers or even lower.

If this is not anti-trust and monopolistic behaviour, then what is?

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

are they digital or physical books?
I have been selling books on AMZN as long as I remember,never run into any problem.
what kind of books are they?
Were the printed in USA or overseas and meant to be sold overseas?
There was a Thai student who sold text books printed and meant for overseas market but he was selling them on Ebay,his family bought and shipped the books to USA,he is a grad student in university.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

- Physical books. You can't sell digital books on Amazon, eh? They are mostly academic books - reference, textbooks, encyclopedias, etc.
- Printing depends on the publisher. Some publishers get it printed in USA. Some do it overseas.
- No regional restriction. Can be sold anywhere.

- Yes! We are aware of that case that went against Wiley. Which is why I believe that Amazon did this gating on it's own, and had no backing from any publisher (at least not officially). If they are dragged into court/arbitration, and it turns out the publisher(s) were involved with restricting their listings without any valid suspicion or proof, they will be royally screwed.

Our sourcing is both domestic and international, like all the other sellers. The frustrating part is I still see some of the sellers having the same source as ours selling their wares without any objection.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

This is a problem with sellers who rely mostly on venues like AMZN or Ebay to sell their products.
There must be a reason why,instead of emailing ,have you tried to call them?
Could the reason be your account,not your books?
I understand if some lawyer contacts a business,the business must respond.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Well in case of books, is there any other venue other than Amazon? They easily take up at least 80% of the market share, leaving every other marketplace/book store collecting chump change.

Called already. Seller Support obviously has no hold as I said earlier. And they can't get anyone from Seller Performance on phone.

Our ODR is 0.01%, no IP violations, over 1000 positive feedback in last 365 days, with the feedback rating being a perfect 100%. What more could we do?

As much as I want to avoid getting into legal mess, I can't seem to figure out anything else at the moment.

Oh, btw, since you sell books yourself, do you recall that Amazon was seeking identification information from textbook sellers last year? You must have got that email too? We got it, submitted and never heard back from the SIV team. I suspect that could have been the reason too. But I did confirm from Seller Support, and they said our docs were approved successfully.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

I did not get any email from AMZN,I dont sell textbooks,they are mostly books on collectibles and antiques,some used dvds,I dont get much sale .
but what about Ebay,you can sell books on Ebay.I have bought some for my own personal reading pleasure!
Ebay used to have a book site called HALF.COM.
There is a large book site,off hand cant recall its name,many booksellers sign up and sell there,then it signed up with AMZN and the listings are now visible on both its site and AMZN,may be you can sign up with them.
I will try to find the name of the site

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

abebook.com will buy your textbooks,or you can sell on their site.
Another one is Barnes and Noble,it has a website too.
There are still folks who go to Barnes and Noble bookstore,to buy books,to have a cup of coffee from Starbuck,my brother used to go there and read their newspaper and drink tons of coffee.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

We have tried eBay. It's too much effort for too little sales. Like barely 2% of what we would get on Amazon.

We have literally worked our arses off in last 2 years to scale up this account. If it was a small volume thing, we would have moved on without much fuss.

Same thing with abebooks and BN. Very low sales. There is just not enough breathing space to sell books directly to B&N, Abebooks or even Amazon for that matter. Their terms are one-sided. Plus, I suppose these players would be dealing with publishers for their own purchases rather than buying from us.

As an academic bookseller, relying on these smaller platforms is like moving 20 steps back, or rather just shutting shop altogether.

I know our situation is very tricky, but we've got to take the fight.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

do you have any inkling at all why AMZN banned your account?
if it is not books,then could it be your account,do you ever have past dealing with AMZN?
did you try to find out why from AMZN seller forum?

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

It's not a suspension. It's a selective restriction on most of the good products. Well, you could say a virtual ban, given that this hits almost 75% of our business. I see 650 listings (active + inactive) in our inventory gated right now. And inability to list at least 7 out of 10 decently good books (BSR < 1,000,000).

They have been pretty hard on us, and I think booksellers in general since last year. We did have to deal with them once in June 2018, when they put a hold on our account for some 'Used Sold as New' complaints. We filed a clear appeal against all the 10 ASINs they mentioned in their notice, and the account was back and running in completely good health.

Then, there was that incident about Seller Vetting for booksellers that I mentioned above. Again, that seems resolved as acknowledged by Seller Support.

Barring that, there were two copyright infringement complaints in last 3 months. The publishers wiped off all sellers, including Amazon from the listing at once because of widespread counterfeit copies being circulated in the market. Both resolved in our favor as we submitted the proof of purchases from our distributors.

There is nothing more other than these that I could recall. There are occasional 'used sold like new' product condition customer complaints, that given our high volume is expected because that's how Amazon's bots run. But listings don't get taken down for that. Just a mark in Account Health's Policy Violation section. We appeal each time and get acknowledged by Seller Performance team for complying with their policies.

But I can assure you it is not a legitimate reason for restriction. We are selling about 250 orders/day. Have like 1 such complaint each month. Even if I were to count it in my ODR, it would still be 0.01%.

I have written on AMZ's seller forums too. They are all as clueless as me. Some sellers did get similar notice from Amazon as us on those 'Certain Popular Products' in Books Category being gated. In their case, they don't have any authorized sourcing proof, as most of them are used books sellers.

But we don't do that! All our inventory is at FBA warehouses, and all of them are in New condition. Which is why I find this denial/ignorance on part of Amazon very frustrating.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Holy crap! Amazon F***ed you. Seriously. It sounds like you did everything right :great feedback/metrics, sent products to FBA, etc.

I would contact an attorney and possibly take them to arbitration.

Also, I feel really bad for you. PM me and I can refer to someone who might be able to help you resolve this.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Hey man!

Thanks for replying to my post and your kind concern.

I really appreciate you coming forward with the attorney reference! Since I have less than 25 posts, I am unable to send a PM yet. So could you rather shoot me a message?

Thanks in Advance!
J

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

So far we have 550+ stranded inventory listings. This makes up for about 50% of our inventory. Plus the blocked opportunities to list and replenish of course.

It seems like Amazon has specifically been going after us this month to ruin the upcoming academic sales season.

Written twice to Seller Performance, no response. Speaking to an attorney today. I am totally flabbergasted!

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Hello jainy25,

Any update to your amazon seller account and did you go for arbitration...i am in the same boat....

attorney says arbitration is the only option left to speak to someone in amazon...

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Welcome to the forum - all the best as you master ghost :thumb:

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

We are working with an organization that helps sellers appeal with Amazon, at the moment. Some opinions state that arbitration might not be helpful at all. Besides, it doesn't work like dragging them to legal proceedings immediately.

Have to try engaging Seller Performance at the first step.

How big was your volume, if I may ask? Were you selling NEW academic books only?

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

I don't think it would be of much help in this scenario. Amazon has been going crazy strict on Media category over the last 2-3 years.

So even a new, stealth account doesn't guarantee that I will be able to sell those books right after the setup.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Do NOT speak to an attorney!

You are going to spend $8-10k for absolutely no reason, and the lawyers will get you to do they heavy lifting anyway by writing down the specific points of your case.

ALL you need to do (if you are in the domestic US) is pay under $1k to the American Arbitration Association and file a lawsuit with them. Ask for expedited status.

You then have to send a letter, and then your case outline, to Amazon's "agent" of record, telling them you intend to file for arbitration.

Then simply fill out the forms, make your case, and you will be assigned an arbitration date and whatnot.

Do NOT pay a lawyer. If you can write and speak cogently, do the work yourself. There is NO need to engage a lawyer.

A lawyer, however, will tell you otherwise. Which is why Dante put them in his lowest rung of Hell...where they definitely should reside.

If you want further details, PM me.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

LOL someone had bad experience with a lawyer!! :shhh: I pay lawyer and only reason i got $$$ back on 3 of my stelth accts

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

The only person in the history of humanity that would defend the "honor" of lawyers would be a lawyer.

...or a stupid person...

A lawyer is simply going to take your money to do what you yourself can do. You know your case. You know the details. A lawyer will make you write those details down, and they will argue your case. And you will pay them $10k to do it.

You feel good about handing over $24-$30k for 3 cases? fine by me.

Maybe you don't know how to speak or write English, or cannot argue for yourself. In that case, pay the money and get someone to do it for you.

But if you won any case, you could have done it for yourself. There is no specialized understanding of the law needed to argue an arbitration case. You simply are telling the arbitrator what happened.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

In arbitration, can't you ask that if you win the case, the defense covers lawyer fees?

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

Amazon will award lawyers fees only if your claim is for less than $10,000.00.

Which seems ridiculous to me.

Too...if you read the Amazon seller's agreement under "Disputes," it clearly states that you can ask for damages. And that even though it is an arbitrator, the arbitrator is subject to the same rules as if in a court of law.

I find it reprehensible that Amazon gets you to sign an agreement, then stipulates you cannot sue them. So...basically, they are arguing that because you signed this, you have no recourse. But I would love to argue that point in front of an arbitrator, because it seems to me that a company that treats people the way they are treating third party sellers needs to pay damages. And they need to pay a lot of damages for their callous and reckless disregard.

And I am thinking that an arbitrator would hear that.

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

May I ask..which company u r using....I tried one lawyer company in NY.....dont think they are worth it....

The issue is something different here.....amazon is going after sellers importing from India, Malaysia....

IP violation notice seems an excuse....

BTW I am completely deactivated....I assume you are still live but most items are gated...right...?

Re: Taking Amazon to Arbitration
 

I just PMed you.

Not really sure what's going on behind the scenes though