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Originally Posted by AmazonStealth  This post is 100% a joke, and anyone who read it, please ignore it. Dont try to contribute false accusations, as it will only confuse other people. |
I've actually had Amazon do that to me twice on two different accounts (that were not linked, they were stealthed)
1. I had set up our first store to sell adult DVD's and adult toys (vibrators). Amazon shut us down without explanation. When I called them for one the customer service rep actually told me "we do not sell erotica or adult toys".
Guess what? you can go look right now, out the of top 100 products in "health and beauty" a huge portion of them are vibrators, there are also adult instructional sex DVD's and erotica including some of the ones I CREATED THE PAGES FOR.
On those product pages THAT I MADE the products are now "supplied and shipped by Amazon".
I told her not only do you sell adult toys but the pages I made that I was banned for are now supplied by Amazon; she told me I am a liar and hung up the phone. Would you like some links? Here's the "sexual wellness store by Amazon"
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...words=vibrator
The same section of the site I was selling in and banned for that their own CS rep tells me doesnt exist.
I turned a $50 investment into $80,000 in just a few months and than Amazon shut us down and stole it from us.
2. Our other account sold DVD's and video games. Last year when Amazon began selling "Star Wars the Old Republic", the collectors edition was $150 on pre order. Amazon sold out in just a few days. That weekend the "sell yours here" button was available. So what did I do? I started selling pre orders.
Over the weekend in just 48 hours I was able to sell more than 20 copies at $250 a piece. It should have been a $5000+ weekend.
That Monday Amazon got confirmation of their pre order stock being available again. I along with many other sellers who were selling their pre orders were promptly BANNED from the site, all of our orders were cancelled and all of the orders were than sold to those people by Amazon instead of us.
Their excuse? The customer service rep tells me that I am NOT ALLOWED TO SELL PRE ORDERS? Oh really? So why was the "sell yours here" button even visible or usable on the page? Why were a dozen different merchants including myself allowed to sell pre orders over the weekend while Amazon was out of stock?
How is that not a shark tactic? Had Amazon not been able to get in more pre orders they would have been happy to let us sell ours and take the commission. But since they were able to get in more stock they decided to steal all of our sales.
They think nothing of banning small sellers if it means they can take the profit directly.
3. They have actually done similar tactics to large retailers. Toys R Us once had an exclusive deal with Amazon for certain toys. That ended in litigation and Toy's R Us no longer selling on Amazon. This is a quote from a senior exec at Toy's R Us about it:
"It's the worst-kept secret in the retail industry," said Mulpuru. "When you partner with Amazon, they are looking at your data, learning your business and have ambition to get into every category and effectively steal your clients out from under you when they are done."
Even the judge presiding over the lawsuit between them commented on the nature of Amazon's business practices as being deviant and deliberately vague or misleading so they could always twist it in their favor; one of her quotes on the topic:
Judge McVeigh complained about the ambiguous use of language in Amazons contract agreements and discussions, concluding that “the language as drafted whether intentional or inartful gave Amazon the words to play the game their way.”
Those quotes are from news articles on NBCnews.com and Reuters news services:
Toys 'R' Us wins suit against Amazon.com - Business - US business | NBC News Analysis: EBay lures big retailers in Amazon battle | Reuters 
