Hello Amazon Forum Experts and Community Members,
I'm reaching out for your guidance and clarification on a situation I'm facing with my Amazon seller account. My account has been deactivated due to a violation of the multiple accounts policy.
Before I delve into the details, I want to take full responsibility for my actions and acknowledge that I should have better educated myself on Amazon's policies and rules. I'm here looking for a solution and hoping that my experience can serve as a learning example for fellow new sellers in the community forum.
The situation involves two accounts associated with me (Ömer Halit) and my friend (Ömer Yetkin). I will skip last names due to privacy. While we share the same first name, our middle names and last names are entirely different.
We each own separate seller accounts linked to official and verified businesses. My friends business is a LLC in IL, while mine is a Limited company registered in Istanbul, Turkey.
Last year, I joined Amazon using the link “satis.amazon.com.tr” (basically, it is seller.amazon.com but in Turkish). I enrolled using my Turkish ID also with my business (It was the only way for me to join since you have to be a registered business if you are a seller in Turkey) After my sign-up, I made the uneducated mistake of opening storefronts for both the EU and NA regions without fully understanding Amazon's policies. Because I want to sell to those markets.
Amazon requested a deposit method, but I encountered difficulties as I attempted to add my Turkish business bank account, which was not available in the dropdown list. To this day, I still think there is something wrong with this since I have to join a Turkish business (they don't accept personal info; you need to be a business), yet I can't add a Turkish bank for a deposit method. I believe Amazon won't accept Turkish banks. Anyway, lessons learned the hard way.
Facing this challenge, I sought assistance from my friend, who is a US citizen with a US business. We entered into a distribution agreement between our businesses to collaborate. After his enrollment, I made the multiple account policy violation by receiving access permission to access his account to assist with listing and adding images (I didn’t get his password or anything, but I received full editing rights by sellerCentral Invitation.)Plus, our storefront names were almost identical since I had no idea about the policy.
After extensive research, discussions, and introspection, I have come to the forum seeking advice on two key questions:
1-Is there any possibility of reactivating our accounts? Could anyone on the team kindly check it out?
2-What are your thoughts on the appeal I have prepared(below)?
I'm grateful for any insights, guidance, or suggestions the community can offer to help.
Thank you for your time and your expertise.
Here is my appeal:
“Dear Amazon Seller Performance Team,
I am reaching out to appeal the deactivation of my Amazon Seller account due to a violation of the Multiple Accounts Policy. Upon reviewing the policies more carefully, I now understand the specific violations that occurred:
1. I did grant and received access invitation to another account, allowing other accounts access to full editing rights.
2. Both accounts had similar storefront names within the same region.
3. There was a sharing of resources such as bank account information and phone numbers between the accounts.
I want to emphasize that these violations were unintentional and stemmed from a lack of awareness and education about selling on Amazon.
To address and rectify the issue, I have taken the following corrective actions:
1. I thoroughly reviewed the "Understanding a Multiple Accounts Policy Violation" documentation and watched the accompanying video on Seller Central.
2. I removed access for any other individuals from my account.
3. I changed my storefront name to a unique identifier that does not resemble any other name.
4. I requested the owner of the other account to remove my access from their account.
5. I removed any shared resources, such as phone numbers or bank accounts, that did not belong directly to me.
Moving forward, I am committed to preventing similar violations and maintaining compliance with Amazon's policies:
1. I completed all relevant sections of the Sellers University to gain a comprehensive understanding of the policies in place.
2. I will ensure that anyone granted access to my account in the future receives proper training to understand and adhere to Amazon's policies.
3. I will regularly monitor the health of my account to detect and address any issues at an early stage.
4. I will strictly adhere to Amazon's policies and refrain from accessing any other accounts."
