Account deactivated due to inauthentic item
Hi there, my account has temporarily deactivated due to listing under a brand name which is not very known and I didn’t think as well this would be registered until I got suspended. I made a POA. Please, can anyone suggest me it any this needs to be rewritten before I submit?
Amazons original email-
Dear seller
Your Amazon Seller account has been temporarily deactivated and your listings have been removed. Funds will not be transferred to you but will be held in your account while we work with you to address the following concern(s).
Why is this happening?
We are reviewing your Amazon Seller account for the reason(s) listed below. In order to ensure that customers can shop with confidence on Amazon, we routinely request additional documentation from sellers to verify their account information and confirm authenticity of certain items.
How do I reactivate my account?
To reactivate your selling account, please address the following concern(s):
You are offering items that may be inauthentic. A list of these items is provided below:
ASIN
BRAND
TITLE
ASIN
BRAND
TITLE
ASIN
BRAND
TITLE
Please send us the following information:
– Copies of invoices, receipts, contracts, delivery orders, or authorization letters from your supplier issued in the last 365 days. The quantity of items shown should match your inventory.
– If you are not the brand owner, provide an authorization letter and a complete set of documentation, including authorization letters, to prove a valid supply chain.
– If you are the brand owner, provide a copy of the brand registration certificate, and business license or personal identity card.
– Contact information for your supplier, including name, phone number, address, email, and website.
You can send .pdf, .jpg, .png, or .gif files. These documents must be authentic and unaltered. We may call your supplier to verify the documents. You may remove pricing information, but the rest of the document must be visible. We will maintain the confidentiality of your supplier contact information.
How do I send the required information?
Please submit this information to pq-seller-assessment@amazon.in.
What happens if I do not send the requested information?
If we do not receive the requested information within 17 days, or after two unsuccessful appeals (whichever occurs sooner), we may not allow you to sell on Amazon.
You can see your balance and settlement information in the Payments section of Seller Central. If you have questions about those, please write to payments-investigate@amazon.in.
Sincerely,
Seller Performance Team
My draft POA-
Dear Amazon seller-assessment team,
Our account has been suspended due to recent issues related to inauthentic items of ASIN ----------------. We take these issues very seriously and we are fully accountable if we have violated policies and guidelines.
We understand that Amazon prohibits the sale of inauthentic products and we apologize if above listings have infringed on the intellectual property of brands or rights owners.
We have made changes to our business to ensure that our inventory does not contain any more infringing content and we assure Amazon that all of the issues that caused our suspension have been fully addressed. We have implemented appropriate steps (as outlined below) to resolve the issues and prevent any further intellectual property violations of this nature.
Please consider our appeal and plan of action below.
The issue that caused the suspension:
We performed a thorough investigation and we found that:
• As an inexperienced seller, we made the mistake of listing under ASIN -------------- which items are listed as -----name and we didn’t make enough research to identity that -----is a registered brand. We thought we are listing our socks as a generic item where the item’s photo, description and material was matched with our item which we understand now is our mistake.
• We didn’t have a proper understanding of how listing under someone else’s item on Amazon works. Also, we didn’t take any advice from an experienced Amazon seller.
• We have purchased our products from a local socks supplier. As lack of experience, we had not verified them if they are a trusted source and proven validity of the supply chain and as a result of this error, we could not guarantee the authenticity of our items. We sold infringing content to our customers that we were not authorized to sell which is unacceptable.
• The issue here is that we did not have approval from the rights owner to sell the products that we had offered to our customers which is unacceptable. We understand this infringement is against Amazon’s policies and we can confirm that we have removed all relevant listings from our inventory. (Please Note: we have contacted rights owner of the item and they have confirmed that they haven’t complaint to amazon against us and they are happy to assist us, if amazon contact them, to reinstate our account
The above issues above are the root cause of our suspension and can assure Amazon that all of these issues have been fully addressed. We are unable to attach invoices for the ASIN’s in question due to our poor vigilance when sourcing from an unreliable supplier although both the products and supplier have been permanently removed. Although we have attached invoice from our local supplier where we bought items from.
The steps we have taken to resolve the issue:
• We took training from an experienced Amazon seller about listing on Amazon and we provided full training to our staff so that we list our item with accurate photo and description.
• We will not list under any listing where there is a brand name and we will make our own listings with our own photos and descriptions.
• All our suppliers are vetted to ensure we only buy authentic goods and they do not infringe intellectual property.
• We do a large amount of research on new products to make sure that we do not purchase goods that have high amounts of complaints.
• When researching goods, we make sure we look at the full supply chain. Any goods where large amounts of inauthentic products are sold, we will avoid these.
• We constantly monitor products to ensure that they are receiving good feedback, and any problems we can look into straight away.
• We check which products have high counterfeit complaint rates before we source them.
• All staff training will be updated every 3 months to ensure we do not make any mistakes and make sure we do not get any intellectual property problems.
Details of the steps taken to prevent similar issues from happening again:
• We have deleted the listings for all products that were flagged up as infringing intellectual property.
• We have rechecked all of our inventory to ensure that we have the right to sell all of the items, this will prevent any future complaints of violation of intellectual property or counterfeit infringement.
• Before we purchase anything, the product is researched to make sure that we are not infringing any intellectual property rights, and that the products are authentic. We do not purchase the item until we can guarantee it is authentic.
• When adding details for products we will ensure that none of the words we use will violate anyone’s intellectual property rights.
• We will not use any brand names or images of any logos in the listing of our items.
• We will ensure that all our products are listed and labelled appropriately and contain the correct/relevant information.
• We constantly research any recent policies of products we selling as well as the industry, including laws applicable to those products.
• We will always consult an appropriate advisor regarding any products that we are in doubt of selling.
• We make sure customers are provided with instructions on how to use and store the item.
• We check which products have high counterfeit complaint rates before we source them.
• We have cross-referenced my listings against Amazon’s guidelines and listing policies to ensure that my items are 100% compliant.
• All staff training will be updated every 3 months to ensure we do not make any mistakes and make sure we do not get any intellectual property problems.
• We always ensure we have the correct permissions to sell items to ensure we do not infringe on others rights, and we always purchase from reputable retailers or suppliers to ensure the products are 100% accurate.
In addition to the above to avoid generic customer complaints, we will ensure our queries are dealt with efficiently and all messages are responded to within 12 hours during working hours. We will also carry out daily performance audits to monitor and review our performance metrics to ensure we are performing to and maintaining Amazon’s targets.
We can assure Amazon that we have taken note of, and we will make sure we work to the following policies and guidelines:
• Prohibited Seller Activities and Actions
• Product Detail Page Rules
• Condition Guidelines
Additional Information:
Our suspension has taught us a number of lessons and we ensure that we only source good quality items from authorized suppliers and we will make sure that we have the permission from brand and rights owners to sell these products to our customers to avoid infringing counterfeit or violating intellectual property in the future.
We have put the above systems in place straight away and can confidently ensure that we will not have any more issues of this nature. We are fully committed to operating our business in full compliance with Amazon’s policies and we sincerely apologize for the mistakes that we have made which were due to our misplaced intentions to grow as a business.
We take full responsibility for this suspension and we would be grateful if you could reinstate our account as soon as possible.
Best Regards,
NOTE: I have deleted ASIN and some item details.
28 replies
Seller_hC0hNVDuILaKO
@WideSolutionLTD
I’m sorry but IMO that POA will not work.
At first glance it is too long and contains a lot of “waffle” and fluff that could be cut out straight away
For instance
None of that tells Amazon anything.
What specific changes have you made, and how exactly will they improve your business?
Your root cause section needs trimming down to eliminate duplication and to make it clearer to the rep reading the appeal.
Your “Steps taken” section needs more specifics about how the steps shown will improve your business in detailed terms, not general terms
eg
How? Who vets them? and for what?
Go through your plan again, remove the fluff and trim the length, but add in more details to show Amazon what you are doing.
Seller_EJIX7rqDNQJi2
I am sorry to hear that your account has been suspended.
Unfortunately, this appeal is not only too long but doesn’t properly address the issue and shows that you are unaware of the Amazon policies.
On Amazon, all ASINs belong to Amazon and you were not suspended for “not having understanding of how listing under someone else’s item on Amazon works“.
The entire Plan of Action will need to be reworked, once you review all relevant Amazon policies.
But also, since you don’t have any valid invoices, your last hope of a possible reinstatement would be to delete your entire inventory and then appeal with a good Plan of Action, promising Amazon that from now on, everything will be sourced from reputable suppliers.
Here is an example appeal. You can write a similar one based on it, which will address your specific situation and then post it here for feedback:
Seller_4XZrl7isjt4Xg
Just some thoughts …
Overall this could be condensed a lot. Give us the actual root cause in 1 sentence. Then elaborate just a bit more for Amazon on what you did to reach this conclusion.
The simplest statement based on what I think I see here …
- You listed a generic, or maybe the wrong brand, item on this ASIN
(If this is the case much of the content above does not pertain and should be removed)
If so you build around that.
Without the actual root cause your appeal wont work.
Seller_dWotggKOhyRrT
of those people in the sunday club, how long did it take the suspension to lift across your seller central and your products to go live from receiving the email amazon payments had verified your account?
Seller_dWotggKOhyRrT
Morning all, just reaching out to the Sunday club. Got my authentication email yesterday (mid-morning) but I still appear “suspended” and my inventory doesn’t look like ist live. I know we’re all in the same boat so how long has it taken everyone else to get back to “normal”?
Seller_dWotggKOhyRrT
PeterB I got my verification email yesterday (mid-morning) but my account still appears “suspended” and my inventory isnt live. When do you think the suspension will be lifted and everything will be back to normal?