Appeal Nightmare - 24 Appeals Rejected

#1

I’ve been caught in an appeal nightmare for over 3 years now. My account was suspended for intellectual property violations, which we immediately resolved by removing the offending listings and making changes to our company policies. Our appeal was easily accepted in every Amazon marketplace (Germany, USA, France, etc…) years ago, except for Amazon UK.

I have now spent countless hours on the phone with Amazon support about this and submitted 24 different appeals to Amazon UK and each time the appeal is rejected. I am now calling Amazon every single day, and each time the appeals team gives me completely different feedback and assures me that as soon as I make these specific changes to my appeal, it will be accepted. However, each day the new appeal is rejected and I get a new set of feedback.

My appeals that were accepted in other marketplaces were far less comprehensive, and I can see that other sellers are having single page appeals accepted. This is becoming extremely time-consuming, and I am starting to wonder if there is some flag on my account causing every appeal to be rejected without even a proper review. Last night, my appeal was rejected within minutes of being submitted, and many times the feedback on what is missing includes items that I have already included.

Has anyone had an experience like this? Any feedback on my appeal or on what more I can do would be highly appreciated. Please see my current appeal below – as you can see, the appeal is now ridiculously long to incorporate the additional information they request after each rejection.

Latest, rejected appeal:

appeal%201
appeal 1.png1056×1544 297 KB

appeal%202
appeal 2.png1060×1536 361 KB

appeal%203
appeal 3.png1056×1530 384 KB

appeal%204
appeal 4.png1070×1538 396 KB

appeal%205
appeal 5.png1058×1532 361 KB

appeal%206
appeal 6.png1092×1282 176 KB

#2

That’s the Amazon bot rejecting your appeal.

I haven’t read your appeal but it’s way too long.

I would take it back to basics in the standard 3 point format. Take out all the waffle, just facts,
on one page.

Good luck.

#3

I’ve scanned through it now, Amazon are going to know you don’t have an IP manger and a Quality Assurance Manager if you’re buying fake belts from a market.

Your route cause is not what happened but why it happened. - Because you weren’t aware of Amazons policies, copy and paste the link.

It needs to be short and to the point, Amazon aren’t bothered about pleasantries and titles etc, they just want to ensure you know what you did, why you did it and that you won’t do it again.

#4

Would you be able to help in reinstatement of an account deactivated due to section 3, code of conduct drop shipping policy? If yes then please reach out to the following email, zhrbbramz@gmail.com.

Thanks

#5

Hello @FRONHOFER_Guertel,

This is Noor from Amazon to assist you.

We understand that you’re looking for assistance regarding your appeal rejection/account reactivation. For more assistance kindly attach the email of the account deactivation for a clear understanding.

Also, as far as account level appeals are concerned, the length of the appeal is not that matters for account reactivation, but the content that is being discussed to ensure that the violation will not be repeated again.

The 3 important elements of an appeal is Root cause, Corrective measures and Preventive steps.

The root cause of the violation has to be very clear and an acknowledgement on the same is necessary from your end as the Seller of the account. I see that, the root cause blames the employees for not checking the policies, etc., but

  • Why was the team not trained?
  • Why was the account access given to everybody?
  • Why were your employees not trained on the policies of Amazon when they were hired?
  • What is your role as the seller of the account?
  • Were you aware of the Amazon policies?

In the preventive measures you’ve mentioned that the new IP Account manager will perform all the checks, can you describe them?
You’ve provided the details of your new suppliers, and mentioned that your Account manager will handle everything, can you describe how exactly are they going to handle things and how are you sure that the new suppliers are authentic, what are the documentations that are going to be checked?
• Would be able to prove the reliability of your supplier?

  • How are your employees and yourself going to be trained?
  • By when is the training going to be conducted?
  • Resources that are going to be used while training?

Kindly ensure you check if the supplier has good rating and is a well-known and verifiable supplier with all valid documents/details.

Your plan of action has to be very strong that can ensure us that these violations will not be repeated again going forward.

You can also reach out to the Account health support team to have a thorough discussion on the appeal requirements through the Call me now button. You can also refer our policy pages from Seller university.

The forums community and I are here to help you. Do reach out if you need any further assistance.

Thanks & regards,
Noor.

#6

Griffin, portrayed by Claude Rains in the 1933 film :wink:

#7

If you were dropshipping then no, you won’t get your account reinstated but feel free to start your own thread.

#8

Hello Noor, thank you for your reply!

We unfortunately don’t have the original notification from Amazon, which was received 3.5 years ago and has been lost due to errors with our email backup system. Would it be possible to receive a new copy of it?

I’m finding it increasingly hard to provide sufficient answers to the types of questions Amazon is asking in the root cause section. The essential question seems to be “why” this happened. We have answered this, we are a tiny family company and were simply not educated on the regulations of large e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon. I don’t know how to answer “why” on a deeper level. We simply made a mistake and now we have fixed it. If there is a specific answer you are looking for, it would be great if you could tell me what it is so I can provide it.

I’m also confused about what more you want to see in the preventative measures section. I have explained the checks — we check each belt design to ensure it doesn’t look anything like the trademarked designs of other companies, and our IP Account Manager makes sure the item listing does not use any words or phrases that would be IP violations. There is nothing more to check, and our business strategy has completely shifted where we now sell our own belt designs rather than trying to emulate best-sellers.

I have already discussed in great detail the training that we hosted for employees, the quarterly education that our IP Account Manager will do, and the annual review that we hold for all employees. You’re asking when the training will happen, but the current plan includes dates. It seems like nobody is actually reading our plan anymore, because the feedback we are receiving always includes requests information that we have already included.

We are no longer trying to sell any belts that could possibly be considered anywhere close to another brand’s IP. We have totally unique designs and make most of our belts by hand in our family factory. We aren’t sourcing official Hermes belts from an official supplier, so the type of documentation you’re referring to from our suppliers simply doesn’t make sense in our case. There is no “authorized seller” verification for unique and non-trademarked designs.

Our account has been reinstated in every other marketplace including Germany, France, Canada, and the US. We have had a perfect seller rating and track record for years now. We are demonstrating that we understand the mistakes we made, and have taken extensive measures to ensure they will never happen again. For 3 years now, we have demonstrated that we can successfully do this. Amazon is asking for more and more reasons “why” this happened, and the simple answer is that we made a mistake, we understand the mistake, and we will never make it again. How better to prove this than a 3 year track record of demonstrated success?

Sincerely
Marlon

#9

Your POA is too long. You have all the information Amazon needs within it but there’s lots of ‘fluff’. You need to condense it down to get it past the bot so a real person reads it.

#10

Agree - FAR too long. I lost the will about two paragraphs down !

#11

Dear @Betsy

what kind of bot?

#the length of the POA
We reviewed the plan live with multiple amazon account health team members. Noone complained about the length, in the contrary: they wanted us to add more stuff!

Sincerely
Marlon

#12

I agree with @Betsy it is far too long.

POA’s are reviewed two ways, firstly is a BOT (which is just a computer program). The BOT can reject the POA. The second way it is reviewed is by an actual person.

If an actual person had that land in their inbox they are likely to have multiple POA’s to read on that day and approve or deny. Your’s is just far too long for any one time pressed to read. The best POA’s I have seen are always very concise.

Of the couple of POA’s I have submitted and sent in they were at best a few paragraphs.

I really would start this again from scratch reducing it down to the standard 3 point POA that Amazon ask for keeping it as concise as possible.

#13

This will be seller support who will actually have no idea why your plan is being rejected. It’s a computer program rejecting it.

They need to know you understand what you did, WHY you did it, HOW you have sorted it out and most importantly how you will ensure it doesn’t happen again. This person will be reading 100’s of these every day, make it short and factual, less than a page, bullet pointed.

Something along these lines but obviously it needs more work. The last section is the most important.

Root Cause

(You are writing WHAT happened. It needs to be WHY it happened. You don’t need to put all the ASINS separately, just a line at the top saying that you infringed ASINS xxxx xxxx xxxx)… For instance…

We purchased belts which were similar to another brand thereby infringing their Intellectual Property
We made a mistake, we were not aware we were infringing anyone’s IP.

Measures you have taken to address complaint…

We removed all the listings and have destroyed the infringing stock.

Steps you have taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

We have been through Amazon University (Links)

We have read the following Amazon policies (links)

We have retrained all stall on infringement laws. (links)

We no longer purchase any stock unless we have a full paper trail and can authenticate the items.

#14

Just to check, have you ever received a response stating we may no longer reply at the bottom , as 24 appeals is a lot …

#15

Exactly what I was thinking- there used to be a limit to how many times you could submit- 3 or 4 wasn’t it?

#16

Thanks to everybody for the helpful comments. We have written a new plan of action, completely from scratch.

We will let you know about the result.

Please note: the only reason our plan got bloated to 7 pages was that the Amazon consultants on the phone were telling us to add and include ever more information.

Sincerely
Marlon

#17

Hello @FRONHOFER_Guertel ,

Thank you so much for posting here.

This is Mary from Amazon here to assist you.

From your post, we understand that you need help with reactivation of your selling account.

As correctly stated by @Noor_Amazon do make changes to the appeal, as per the above appeal that you have submitted after reviewing it you need to make changes to the corrective measures as well according to the respective root causes that you mentioned,

Do mention the below points in your corrective measure:

  • Did you go through the policy pages?
  • How did you trained yourself and staff to comply with policies?
  • Which policy and help pages did you referred?
  • Are you still sourcing the products from the same supplier?

Please refer Amazon intellectual property policy

For any further assistance, please feel free to reach out to us as we are always here to help you.

Regards,

Mary.

#18

Hi everyone, hi @Mary_Amazon, thank you for your replies. Based on the advice, I have significantly reduced the length of the appeal while being sure to leave in every essential piece of information that Amazon has directly told me to include during my dozens of phone calls.

Unfortunately, this new appeal was again rejected today. I am at my wit’s end here and desperate for a solution. Does anyone have any more ideas?

@Mary_Amazon, I have provided answers to all of these questions. My longer reply links to all of the policy pages that have been reviewed, I specifically say that I’ve discontinued my relationship with previous suppliers and I specifically name my current two suppliers, and I list extensive details about the topics that were included in my staff training.

I don’t mean to be rude, but it seems that nobody is even reading these appeals and giving personalized feedback. I can also see that others are having appeals accepted with far less information. Can you please read my appeal and assist me in getting it accepted? My company has very clearly resolved the issue and that is reflected in our extremely comprehensive appeal.

Our newest appeal:

image
image.png1067×1377 374 KB

image
image.png1084×1326 306 KB

Here is the rejection E-Mail which came 40 minutes after submitting the new appeal.

image
image.png1255×1473 419 KB

#19

Would it not be fairer to indicate whether ANY apoeal would be considered after 24 have already been submitted?

#20

Not only 24 - actually 25 now but also