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Suspended for business type??
 

Hi guys,

Last week Amazon asked me to submit copies of my DL and utility bill for my stealth account. I managed to obtain these documents and submitted them. Today i received this email:

Dear Seller,

Thank you for registering with Selling on Amazon.

We attempted to call you today but we were not able to reach you.

Unfortunately, we have been unable to successfully process your registration as a private person. That means that you will have to update your Seller Category on Seller Central (https://sellercentral-europe.amazon....ion/index.html).

We have forwarded your case to our technical department in order to enable you to amend this information on Seller Central.

As soon as you can change this information on Seller Central we will contact you with further instructions.

Meanwhile, we would kindly ask you to confirm your business type by directly replying to this email.

Please find below some further explanations for the respective Seller Categories:

**Private Person
If you are registering as a Private Person you are doing so in the context of a private activity.

**Business
Registering as a Business seller means that you are acting in the context of a commercial or professional activity. Most of the time, Business sellers are registered legal entities.

**Sole Proprietor:
However, you may also act as sole proprietor without being registered as a company depending on the local requirements that apply to your activity. In this case, please make sure you choose the appropriate option in the drop-down menu. Note: If you are a Sole Proprietor established in the UK, you must select the UK Sole Proprietor option. If you are a Sole Proprietor established outside the UK, you should register as a Business.

Please note that your account will be suspended until you register with the correct entity type and your Selling on Amazon account is fully verified.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at any time using the link below.
(https://sellercentral-europe.amazon....azon-form.html)

Kind regards,
The Amazon Payments Team

I replied to the email explaining that we are a registered business. I then received this message:

Dear Seller,

Thank you for contacting us.

As in our previous emails stated in order for us to proceed with your registration you need to adjust your business entity type on Seller Central.

We are now pleased to inform you that you are now able to change this information on Seller Central.

In order to do so please proceed as follows:

- log into your Seller Central account
- Go to the top right "Settings" and click on "Account Info"
- Then go to "Business and Contact Information" and click on "Edit"
- Please adjust your seller category accordingly.

Please update the information as soon as possible to allow us to proceed with the verification.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at any time using the link below.
(https://sellercentral-europe.amazon....azon-form.html)

Kind regards,
The Amazon Payments Team

I have 3 choices from the options, Private person, Business registered, or Sole proprietor. Each one has different information which needs to be provided. Im pretty sure i can only choose from sole proprietor and business registered, so this is the one i selected and completed the information.

Currently my account is suspended until the information has been reviewed.

Has anyone had this before and what was the outcome? Ive never had this before and a little worried.

Thanks

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

yes its happened 2-3 times to me. just provide what they want. there is no alternative.

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Yes same here

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Same here. I've been waiting about 4 weeks for IT to make the change to my account so I can change business entity.

Can't believe it is taking so long. Can still sell though.

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Still nothing changed for me and still suspended. I have provided all details they needed and even opened a new ticket with a link to where our business details were registered.

Should i be worried?

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

It's not "suspended" account, it's just "in progress". Email them again and it should work. Everything depends on person who is working on your case. If no actions were taken - find other raps, and you should be fine.

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Any update razzcal? About 2 weeks have passed...

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Yes 2 weeks have passed and my listings are still inactive.

@galigusso - The account is suspended as it appears on the main page of my seller account at the top, every time i log in, explaining that the account is suspended until additional information is required.

I have been back and forth between the verification teams for the past 2 weeks, submitting driving license, utility bills, registration of business, business utility bills, business bank statements, certificate of good standing, all sorts.

Still today i am suspended as they are now asking for a copy of the counterpart to the driving license, which i dont have but hoping will be sorted over the next couple of days.

I cant believe the amount of messing about and time wasted this has caused.

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

I have 2 accounts going through the same thing, They told me I need to change my business type,
I replied that since this was not a full time business and therefore I would rather not register as a sole proprietor or a business.

In the real world this would be acceptable for someone who is just testing the water, why would someone with a full-time job want the complications of running a business?

So I did not change anything and the accounts kept running for 4 weeks with the message always at the top stating my account was being reviewed..

Then my listings were suppressed, no messages or contact from Amazon to explain why so contacted support who also stated this seems like a bug and would contact the verifications team.

Who respond-
we informed you in our previous email that we are unable to process your registration as a private person.

We have enabled you the option to change your legal entity and therefore ask you kindly to update the information requested in the settings section of Seller Central (https://sellercentral-europe.amazon....ion/index.html)

Please note: Registering as a Business seller means that you are acting in the context of a commercial or professional activity. Most of the time, Business sellers are registered legal entities. However, you may also act as sole proprietor without being registered as a company depending on the local requirements that apply to your activity. In this case, please make sure you register as a Business and choose the appropriate option in the drop-down menu. Note: If you are a Sole Proprietor established in the UK, you must select the UK Sole Proprietor option. If you are a Sole Proprietor established outside the UK, you should register as a Business.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at any time using the link below.
(https://sellercentral-europe.amazon....azon-form.html)

Regards,

Amazon Payments

So long and short of it is, the amazon payments team seem to operate as a separate entity, once an account has sold x amount of product, my estimate being about £6000, they insist on you switching to a business of some sort- this means you will have to supply a UTR number, unique tax reference supplied by the tax man.

I am assuming this is an arrangement they have agreed with HMRC so the tax man can locate all the revenue they are probably missing out on.

I am happy to pay my taxes but obviously using my own UTR number will link accounts, using a false UTR is putting you at risk of tax evasion.

Im going to have a chat with my accountant about this to see if there is away around this..

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Amazon is known for the runaround....so much bs "Proprietary"

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

£6,000 sounds about right actually, ive just passed £6,000 for my total sales.

Im also annoyed that they ask for copies of the DL which i supplied and then a week later ask for the counterpart for it, i dont understand why they couldnt ask for this at the same time.

The document should be sorted today, so i will update in a few days. Surely this is the last documentation they need from me? Ive given them everything but my shoe size so far.

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Sorry to hijack but it is relevant to this-
Just setting up another Amazon with stealth details, Im on the page that asks am I-
Individual (not trading professionally)
Business (icl partnerships)
UK Sole proprietor

So individual is the easiest option to complete- they will not ask for much but should the account do well and get near £6k it will ask me to change my business entity, which we now see can have issues with UTR numbers.

If I go with Business (inc partnership) it does not ask for UTR but will want company registered number and date registered.

If I go with sole proprietor it asks for a UTR number-

So which has proven to be the best route?

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

What is UTR?

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Its a UK tax code given to you when you apply for self assessment tax purposes.
If you have a job in the UK and are paid wages by your boss you are on PAYE and your employer deals with your tax so most individuals don't need to worry about it.

Anybody who is self employed or owns a business should have a UTR number, I am the director of 2 companies which both have a Tax Reference or UTR number.. I also have a personal UTR number for self assessment, which although I receive no other money from my companies apart from PAYE wages, is for any benefits in kind, ie the company pays me a bonus or divedend..

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Just an update,
I selected sole proprietor when opening the Amazon account, I have immediately been requested to supply,

Drivers license
Copy of household expenses
and document issued by HMRC.

Should have them all but maybe for a new account it is better to select individual and not have to worry about docs until it proves it is working well.

Oh well at least I get this out of the way early.

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

UPDATE: Still no updates.

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Ok so i got an email today explaining that our account had been verified and we can start selling again, however when i log onto the amazon account i still get the "your account has been suspended" message at the top and our listings are not active.

I spoke to someone on live chat and they said that it was because of our metrics… our metrics are above 99% and none of the metrics are above the level expected from amazon. I explained this to her and she said i will have to contact seller performance directly.

Anyone have any ideas? I have emailed them in the meantime

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

That happened with mine, it went back and forwards several time, still pending now. So far i have seen 3 different departments,
Seller support
Seller Verification
and seller performance..

Each one can not override what the other is doing.. I would locate a direct email for each, send them a polite message that your new business that they said you had to become is being damaged and cant understand what the issue is..and then hope the right person get the email and activates your account..

Their is definitely technical issues with their system at the moment, I have 3 non stealth accounts one is going through the same review, and one all the listings show as enabled and yet not visible for sale so we had to re submit the inventory files and another has listings we are trying to close but every time we close them they are still there the next time we look.

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

send email to seller verification team from ur az registered email address. i have tried and it worked for me

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Account finally opened after countless emails

Re: Suspended for business type??
 

Wow - nice reward to your persistence