Account Deactivated for altered selling application - (6 month seller seeking advice)
Hello, all I will try to keep the intro brief! I genuinely respect all advice and criticism and am thankful for taking your time. I am a relatively new seller (6 months) on Amazon and have had a pretty good experience thus far albeit I undoubtedly went through many learning curves. For background I am a fairly hi-volume seller (50-100 items per day) with a focus on figures and am ungated in numerous brands. As most of you know the shipping issues have caused problems and I began to have some issues in September with pre-orders I even though I backdated them around 3 months. Additionally, I contracted Covid at the beginning of October as well as my family which I am responsible for. This led to some shipping flaws and my ODR to drastically change as I got my first negative feedback. This is where the initial problem started.
On 10/30-10/31, I was contacted by Amazon support about my order defect rate and issues with my account .I had significant problems with some of my shipping as I got the virus pretty bad along with members of my household whom I needed to take care of. It was a rough month, but I am much better and informed support. So today, when I checked my account and saw this deactivation, I assumed it was about this. My resolution for solving my order defect rate was to send all items to FBA until I was able to get up to speed. However, what I found was that my inventory levels exceeded the 1000 item level for standard items. I did some research and found that I had a lot of capacity left in the other categories.
At this time, I contacted a consultant and confidant whom I have known to have a lot of success on Amazon. I decided to let this person help me as I was just trying to get all my affairs back in order after COVID. I informed them of the situation and that I only had oversize capacity left, and that the only items I have in my physical store that meet those requirements are some star wars ships and 100s of large lego sets. I also informed the person that I had trouble getting ungated in lego about 3-4 months prior. I was asked about my documentation and told them that I believed I had all the documentation to be ungated along with the required ten pictures of the items. The issue I thought was I was told that I had a packing slip, not an invoice. I was told to send all the documentation I had as he was an expert in getting ungated. With this information, it would not be a problem. He told me that if I were ungated, I would be allowed to send all my large lego items in, and they would be accepted before the Holliday because they fit the requirements for large stock.
I was asked to send all the information I had packing slips, order receipts, documentation, as well as pictures for my lego items I had in stock and that they would be able to get me ungated. I was under the impression that he came up with a draft and would not be sending anything in without my consent. I was not informed of an official application going in for the items and was surprised to hear about an official application going in at 4:31 am. Support gave me this information and advice. I contacted this person right away to see what happened. I asked them for a copy of what was sent as I cannot see what was attached to any application for the ungating.
After getting off the phone with the support I immediately reached out to this consultant/”friend” to find out what happened. I told him of the situation and that my account was suspended, and I was told the documentation sent was not authentic. After an exchange, I was informed that he submitted the necessary documentation to get ungated and that this might of been an Amazon error. I let him know that he had no authorization or consent to send in an official application without my permission. After another heated exchange, I was told that I sent him enough information and that he was doing me a favor in helping me get ungated. However, I don’t believe this and would like to compare the documents I sent him to what was sent to Amazon as I don’t know what you guys received. What I do have is all the documentation and pictures that I sent him.
I believe that this is where something has occurred that may be falsified and fall under section 3 of Amazon’s policies aka(falsified documentation). I want to believe there was not the case. Still, after speaking with Amazon today, I have concluded that some misrepresentation of my documents must have been compiled in an inauthentic manner, albeit redacted or added information. I am unable to see what was sent in for the application and wrote a lackluster POA.
The first POA I sent was about Order Defect Rate which was immediately declined. I quickly responded with some invoices as I was not informed of what the deactivation was for. I then talked to seller support who informed me. I turned in a second POA which was more of the background and rootcause. After doing some research I dont think my POA was great and have not been contacted by either seller support or Merchant accounts team.
I am concerned as I have thousands of items in FBA for the hollidays and care about this account and looking for any help. Negative or Positive I appreciate any advice and will gladly provide more context if needed.
If anyone has experienced or seen this action before any comments are greatly appreciated.
This is a new case it just happened yesterday morning and I have not been able to sleep trying to get information. Thanks again for taking the time to read this.
Seller_aVd8LKa5ewtbO
For those who want the short version . The OP hired a consultant to get ungated in Legos . As has been posted in the past by others , the consultant sent in falsified documents . The OP is now suspended for sending in falsified documents .
Saying the consultant sent the documents without your knowledge will not work . Yeah we have heard that one before ,
You knew you did not have the proper documentation to get ungated . What did you think the consultant / friend was going to do ?
Seller_pBEwo8CxxHc63
You consented by giving him access to your account.
I’ve heard many horror stories about these ungaing services that your VA/friend/consultant used. I’ve never heard of anyone getting their account back.
Seller_jZWpyInw8RkYT
@Collectibles_and_Eve, please copy>paste here the deactivation notice from Amazon and your forged documents POA.
Seller_pBEwo8CxxHc63
Also:
While I am glad you recovered, why didn’t you go on vacation mode during this time?
Seller_aV1Bh32hE0KND
Please provide a copy of the deactivation notice you received from Amazon and your latest appeal so we can further assist.
Seller_gQYj2zQCuoz6y
I am sorry, you seem to be an honest good person. But at the end of the day, you flasifed documnets. I do not see how you can get back from that.
That a friend or consultant did it does not matter. It was done from your account on your behalf.
It may be a defense if this would had been a criminal case in a court of law, because you are considered innocent until proven guilty. Not on Amazon. They don’t have to allow you to sell on their site and respectfully so far you had only been trouble for them.
They don’t care that you had covid, that your family had covid, or anything at all.
The only way I see you can have your account reinstated is if you hire a real consultant, with a proven track record of reinstating sellers. There are a few. Make sure to get the one. This cannot be rushed. Thread carefully. For every good one, there are ten like your “friend.”
A good one will not talk too much. Will first listen to your case.
(Old Chinese proverb. The longer the talk, the bigger the lie.)
Sorry,
Best of luck
Charles_Amazon
Hello @Collectibles_and_Eve,
Charles with Amazon here. Just wanted to step in and applaud our forums group for some great posts. We appreciate our sellers that take the time to help other sellers with terrific insight and experience.
Just to add to some insight – it may be time to go back to the basics: What you have here are two different issues.
- You had an issue with your account health in regards to you order defect rate
- You hired a third party acting as an ungating service who submitted falsified invoices on your behalf.
As we would advise, try communicating to this third party to fully understand what they did, and it sounds like you did however, it didn’t turn out well.
The reason for your account being deactivated is not the order defect rate, but as a consequence of this third party’s actions. This is what you will want to clearly explain in a written appeal.
The only path forward is to clearly articulate this in a concise manner with just the facts:
a. What happened and why
b. What action step you took
c. How this can be avoided in the future.
This particular kind of policy violation (falsified invoices) is one of the more egregious, therefore the written plan of action is most challenging.
The forums community is here to assist you. Perhaps you can compose a response and post it here for further assistance
.
Wishing you success with your appeal.
Regards,
Charles
Seller_y2sNJRVgrj4VW
Hello, all. Thank you again for taking the time to read this. I appreciate @This-N-That for the redacted version. All your comments have been much appreciated. @Charles_Amazon I want you to know this is a double post as one of the posts I sent in did not show up for at least 6 hours. I then went to bed / passed out. Account Suspension and Deactivated "altered documentation"
-My actions so far have been out of acting hastily. Whether you believe it or not, it actually was driven by the storage limits. I clearly made a rookie mistake. My solution was rushed, and I am paying for that
@ThisIsTheWay - this was a rookie mistake. I didn’t want to lose my position in the category and was negligent to the vacation mode.
@Medic & @papyrophilia, I will add the notice - I responded 2x because I thought it was about the Order Defect Rate. I wish they were more straightforward. I will add my response, and if you could please give me some feedback, it was written quickly as I was trying to push the issue and was very mad at the person.
@I_Kid_You_Not_Sorry, thanks for the response. I agree with your logic as it’s a quazi “Amazon Criminal Case.”
In the Covid situation, they were very reasonable and helpful.
I am a little worried about hiring anyone for anything, but you are suitable for everyone. There are probably 100 that will mess this up. So for myself, it seems I should take a breath and bullet point the facts without the ramble.
I was trying to give too much context to what led to those actions because that was the root cause. The storage size and how I handled that situation was another hasty decision. I should have slept on this before I responded, but I didn’t talk to Amazon a few days ago and just assumed. Either way, you can never go back, only forward.
I am an NYU Graduate Student dual Business & Law student. I can write this and would prefer to give it a logical shot before trying to get counsel @I_Kid_You_Not_Sorry, but I will have to do some research. I will attach the POA that was emotionally written. The first POAwrote was just a instantaneous response to ODR as the suspension was not precise at all, like 4 sentences.
@Charles_Amazon Thanks for the logic. It is two issues, one leading to the other, and communicating this clearly without the unnecessary fluff is what I will attempt today. I will post my first long-winded POA, but after seeing some, mine is not up to par (Especially for this issue/s)
Thanks again all for the responses, and please shred my last POA if you have the time. I am grateful for the help, and if any other new user reads this, I have some advice.
-Do not rush any decision on Amazon. All your actions have consequences
-Do the legwork @ research when you get on Amazon as your learning just begins
-When in doubt, post here clearly that there are years worth of knowledge at your disposal
I will post the POA and initial Amazon message now and reach out to see if I can get more clarification to know what was sent. I will update after my POA is swiss cheesed by the forums.
Thanks again all
Seller_pBEwo8CxxHc63
See how others have formatted their poa’s, but short answer, yes.
12pt font 1.5 line spacing, printed your poa should be NO MORE then one page
Seller_1yqCSp7wxEUMi
Just STOP with the using Covid as an excuse.It’s not going to win you any sympathy points. People get sick all the time and you don’t hear people using cancer or stroke as an excuse.
