Amazon Suspended Because of Related Account
I am living in a house share with two other friends and we always using Amazon. My friend started to sell widget spinners on Amazon.com around six months ago.
He basically used AliExpress as drop shipping company and his margins on sales were pretty impressive.
But there was just on the one little problem that sometimes the delivery of those widget spinners directly from China just took to long.
He was selling before around 60 and up to hundred items a day. But he started to get into trouble when people were asking when they would receive the items, he told them that the items were on their way but his buyers were really not happy with that answer so they started to leave negative feedback on his Amazon seller account.
So his feedback score took a dive and he did not meet the performance targets set out by Amazon anymore. He got several warnings but at the end, it took a couple of days and he had his Amazon account indefinitely suspended.
There was just only one more small issue. I was using Amazon as well to make money and I’m actually a long time selling for around 12 years. I did not think that the suspension of my roommate wouldn’t have an implication on my business.
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But as it turned out I was dead wrong because around two days later after my friend account was suspended, Amazon suspended my account as well.
I started to literally pack because the money I got from my Amazon business was the only income I had to support my lifestyle and I knew if I would lose that business I would need flip burgers a McDonald’s very soon.
My roommate and I were totally running two different businesses which were not related in any way. The only thing we shared together was the Internet connection in our home otherwise there was no affiliation whatsoever.
So next to contacted Amazon and told them that my account is not related to my roommate’s account. Amazon.com got back within two days and told me that unfortunately, they cannot reinstate my account because based on the evidence they looked at they do not believe that those two accounts are not related.
I can only emphasize that using the same IP address in your home to run two different Amazon businesses can be very risky.
I was angry at my roommate and I was angry at Amazon because I felt that I have been let down by both. My roommate was really sorry but it didn’t help because I needed the money I got from Amazon to survive. I am not a person who easily gives up so I decided to contact Amazon one more time and try to get my account reinstated. I spend a lot of time writing a very convincing and professional appeals letter I also included a plan of action because I really wanted to get this Amazon account back so I can start selling again.
This time Amazon got back to me after one week. To my frustration, it was again a pre-written template where Amazon.com again just declined to reinstate my account and also told me to never contact them again.
In my desperation, I started to open new Amazon accounts without much success because all of them got suspended again with just a couple of hours stating the reason for multiple accounts.
The big issue I see with Amazon as the day is now a monopoly online and did use their dominant position in the market to bully many small sellers.
If Amazon had your account suspended as well please leave a comment below and share your story with us so we can learn from each other
Resources:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452869/amazon-technology-monopolies-politics-21st-century