Last chance to Appeal - Please review Plan of Action

We had been suspended for Review Manipulation and our plan of actions were all rejected and we got the dreaded kiss of death yesterday (we may no longer reply to your emails) and are planning on sending one last Plan of Action to save our account. Will be sending to managingdirector@amazon.co.uk as well. If you have any other email address recommendations please share. The Plan of action is as follows:

Amazon Account Name: [Account name]
Reason for Suspension: Manipulating product reviews

Dear Amazon Seller Performance Team,

We have now discovered the root cause of the problem. Our company had a relative write reviews for us as well as we made orders from our seller account from a buyer account. We are extremely apologetic for this occurrence and have thoroughly explained our situation in the following appeal.

The root cause(s) of the Sales Rank & Search and Browse violation

• On 04.16.2019 and 04.18.2019 an Amazon customer and a relative of our CEO by the name of [relative name] ([relative email]) left reviews for ASIN’s [ASIN1] and [ASIN2].
o He bought these items and all their varients on Amazon and left positive reviews with pictures.
o All communication was performed through a phone call with this relative of the CEO of the company. There is no written communication between us and this person.
o There were no payments made to this relative for this act. This was done as a favor.
• We created the Gmail account [email address] to purchase our products to send to our photographer in Ukraine.
o This was done only because we did not want to purchase our products from our own or relatives accounts because we were afraid Amazon might see that as review manipulation (even though we had no intention of reviewing the products now that we had received a notice from Amazon)
o The customer account for these orders was [name of account].
o We have attached the conversation we had with our Ukrainian photographer from upwork.
o The order was supposed to be delivered to the address of a company that provides the service of shipping packages across the EU (website of service provider)
• On 04.26.2019 we refunded a customer for order ID 026-0419147-1872356 and added £10 on top because they claimed the product wasn’t delivered to their home and they couldn’t access it.
o We added the £10 so they could purchase the product again if they wanted.
o We did this after consulting with Amazon chat support and were told that doing so is not against Amazon’s policies and it is up to us.
o We did not ask the buyer to leave any reviews.
o We have attached a screenshot of the conversation with the chat support rep as well as our communication with the buyer.

• We did not study and fully comprehend Amazon’s policies when it comes to manipulating sales and reviews.
• We should have researched the following in Amazon Seller Central:
o “Misuse of Ratings, Feedback, or Reviews,” “Misuse of Sales Rank,” and “Misuse of Search and Browse” policies.

The actions we have taken to resolve the policy violation

• Since this occurrence we had our relative remove all manipulated feedback they have left.
• We have deleted our customer account and will never use it to make orders again.
• There will be no more manipulated reviews or feedback on our account again.
• We have supplied Amazon with the conversation we had with the Amazon chat representative regarding the other order.
• Our company now completely understands Amazon’s “Misuse of Ratings, Feedback, or Reviews,” “Misuse of Sales Rank,” and “Misuse of Search and Browse” policies and will enact them completely moving forward.
• We have ensured there will never be any more relatives, employees or customers manipulating any reviews on our account.
• The following includes a detailed plan of the steps our business has taken to correct this Review Manipulation issue Amazon raised.

The steps we have taken to prevent this violation in the future

1. Re-read and studied Amazon’s Seller Agreement, Terms of Service, and Prohibited Seller Activities and Actions
   • We have come to realize that our biggest mistake was not fully studying and comprehending Amazon’s Seller Agreement, Terms of Service and Prohibited Seller Activities and Actions.
   o This led to our relative wrongfully providing us manipulated reviews.
   o It also led to us making orders from our seller account with a buyer account.
   o We have since fully read and studied these policies.
   o We also read “Anti-Manipulation Policy for Customer Reviews” in the Amazon Help Center.
   • We understand that this error is extremely serious, so we have enacted a new system to fix this issue and make sure it never happens again.
   • The main reason this blunder occurred was because of our company’s oversight of Amazon’s policies.
   • So, in response to this suspension, we have re-read every one of Amazon’s policies and better understand why customers cannot receive our items for free and leave reviews.
   • Here’s our plan to avoid future mistakes like this:

2. Initiate an employee workshop centered around Amazon’s Seller University, Seller Agreement, TOS, and Prohibited Seller Activities and Actions so every employee can understand Amazon’s policies when it comes to providing manipulated reviews.

3. We have also hired a legal adviser and professional Amazon Seller Account consultant to guarantee that we will strictly adhere to all applicable laws and strictly abide by all of Amazon policies.

4. Never participate in any form of sales, feedback or review manipulation again
   • After completing step 1 we have realized how wrong we were in committing this sales manipulation act.
   • We will NEVER participate in any form of manipulation on any of Amazon platforms again.
   • All of our sales, feedback and reviews will be earned in a policy abiding way and we will never offer customers more money than the refund.
   • No family members, close friends, or employees of a seller on Amazon will write reviews for our items or negative reviews for items sold by competitors.
   • If any 3rd party offers us a manipulated product sales ranking or feedback service we will immediately reject their offer.

5. Ask Amazon to remove any reviews or feedback currently on our account that they deem necessary
   • We ask Amazon to retract any reviews they deem necessary if these customers do not remove it themselves. We are unsure if these reviews were manipulated but we are fine with Amazon removing it.
   o This is an extreme effort we are taking as a company to show Amazon that we are very serious about being trusted partners moving forward.
   • Our company sincerely believes that by wiping clean our Amazon account of any misleading reviews, it will help us as we strive towards our goal of being the most virtuous and ethical sellers we can be.

6. Work towards getting honest and fair sales, feedback and reviews

• As a company we need to work on getting fair and honest sales rankings.
• We will address this issue by working to resolve customer issues quickly and by actively seeking more positive feedback and reviews. Once our account is reinstated, we plan to:
o Keep negative reviews and feedback low by addressing all issues and concerns within a 24-hour timeframe with the buyer.
o Initiate a customer feedback program that will encourage more positive feedback and make it easy for customers to reach out to us through Amazon’s system, return their product and/or ask for a refund.
o As per Amazon’s policy, we will only send one email requesting feedback.
o Have negative feedback removed that is against Amazon’s policies (manipulated product reviews, etc.)

Thank you again for this opportunity to appeal our account suspension and regain Amazon’s trust. We look forward to hearing back from you.