If anybody has faced the same issue - we have some advises to initiate investigation and would advise you to quit selling on Amazon and go for other transparent marketplaces which do respect their sellers and allow competent seller support.
We have been scammed by Amazon company itself. Our account was deactivated and access to US marketplace removed. Later on we reported the issue to Federal Trade Commission and Luxembourg Police (since Amazon is registered in USA and Luxembourg) - and our access to US marketplace was restored. But when we got to the account - we noticed that Amazon did steal our funds of 2,093.63 USD which were firstly safely kept on account level reserve - but as per some magic from Amazon - they were transferred to Others. Our first request regarding the funds that were fraudulently taken out from our seller account level reserve was replied by disbursement team on Tue, Mar 18, 5:38 PM - and since then nobody has provided us a clear answers on how exactly did Amazon take this money out from our account, in accordance to which policy and where this money is right now. On March 18th we were advised to wait 5 and 10 business days to receive a reply or decision - but of course nobody has replied to us or provided explanation or evidence on how money was taken by Amazon. We have created a second request about the funds on Tue, Mar 25 and received a reply to wait 7–10 business days - and of course by now we have not received any reply, decision or evidence on how money was taken out from our seller account by Amazon.
With this all being said - we have created multiple reports to Federal Trade Commission and Luxembourg Police on such scam behavior and the investigation is already taken place. If any of you sellers have faced the same issue - collect all the proofs and evidence if possible and open FTC and Luxembourg police complaints, since we were informed if more reports will be made - the more chances on Amazon will receive sanctions and fees for such scam behavior.
If we open new support case on Amazon - they just automatically close our case and do not answer where did our funds go and according to which policy Amazon is allowed to take out and use sellers account funds. Main case ID ID 17267192631 maybe the moderators can take a look. Other closed case ID's D 17395197081, 17395036361, 17395367261, 17395430321, 17395046761, 17395422011, 17395182891.
But of course, Amazon is not fraudulent only with blocking and using sellers funds. In the previous two years we made a complete investigation with all evidence and proofs of Amazon fraud behavior, and hereby provide the detailed information about this:
Amazon is stealing the contact information from seller's invoice files to establish the business relationship with these suppliers in order to sell products by Amazon itself. There are many different examples were Amazon was caught on that. Firstly, if you sell on European marketplace, there is category Topicals that requires Amazon approval and you need to provide Invoice from your supplier. Result - Amazon steals contact information of these suppliers to sell by themselves. Secondly, if you wish to sell some famous branded products you are also required to provide Invoice file from your supplier. Result - Amazon steals contact information of these suppliers to sell by themselves. Finally, we faced this illegal action by ourselves - just a few weeks after our Amazon account was deactivated and the access terminated, we were checking two brands that were selling good at our account, and what we discovered is that a new seller is selling these products: Sold by Amazon, shipped by Amazon. Before that, we had to be approved to sell these products, so we did provide Invoice files from our supplier. Result - Amazon steals contact information of these suppliers to sell by themselves.
There is no way to contact a real Amazon human support member if your seller account is deactivated or access is terminated. All you can do is write emails, but when you write emails and provide documentation that was required by Amazon, you might think about the General Data Protection Regulation, since you provide your business confidential information via email, which is not the most secure channel, as also there are many phishing emails that might look like from Amazon. We already informed the GDPR European department about this violation from Amazon.
Amazon is violating the European GDPR policies by asking to provide business related confidential company information via email channel, which might be insecure and all business related documentation, such as business registration information and documentation, Bank statement (Deposit method), Bank/Credit card statement (Proof of purchase transactions), Invoices and supply chain documents, copy of ID or passport might be hacked our stolen by hackers or phishing email addresses.
With all this being said, currently we are working and contacting together with European Commission, Rapporteur permanent Autorité de la concurrence. Bundeskartellamt Presse, Luxembourg Police and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to report all the violations from Amazon side to it's platform users. These organizations took it serious from our reports and they advised us to collect more people who faced the same issue. Please do not hesitate to report your situation on how Amazon scammed you, since if we look to Amazon Seller Forum - there are hundreds and thousands of topics and articles whereas Amazon seller's were scammed by Amazon platform. You are also welcome to share this information and link to Amazon Seller Forum, since we are not able to write any posts there without the access to our Seller Account.
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