IP product compliance
anyone have any ideas / help or advice or even a good plan of action template for a IP product compliance complaint?
i have had my account de-activated for a product compliance complaint - (IP)
I have acknowledged my mistake, contacted the brand owner who are refusing to get back to me but i have submitted several appeals on amazon with invoices for the product from a reputable supplier ( holland and barrat ) i have even highlighted stuff on invoice etc. literally spelled it out to them. i have included in my appeal stuff about lawyers, training, different suppliers, ive really gone in on the plan of action but constantly getting rejected.
any help / feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated as i am genuinely concerned about my account and my business. ( my account other than this issue is squeeky clean too)
11 replies
Seller_NoMNQDGnEW5Bx
Holland and Barratt are a retailer so that is probably your issue. Is it actually a full proper invoice or a receipt?
Seller_u1AdBEcsHujAa
Hello @Rhonors,
I understand your concern regarding Account deactivation due to Infringement issues.
Could you please post the following in this thread so that we will be able to help you?
Appreciate if you could provide the below details as follows:-
- The email you received from Amazon.
- The appeal you sent.
- Any notification you received post the appeal.
Response awaited.
Warmly,
Kavi
Seller_mZ1TTUGgKyJRG
Hi,
So with this retailer I have submitted the proper invoice.
Email from amazon:
Hello, Your Amazon selling account has been deactivated. 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 this issue. Please ship any open orders to avoid further impact to your account. Why did this happen? We arrived at this decision because we were unable to verify information related to your seller account, or did not receive any new information regarding your listings or selling history. We’re here to help. If you need help better understanding what is causing this, please search for “Intellectual Property Violations” in Seller Central Help ). How do I reactivate my account? To reactivate your selling account, please send us the following: A plan of action that explains: – The root cause(s). – The actions you have taken to resolve the notices of infringement or violation of Amazon’s policies. – The steps you have taken to prevent infringement or violating Amazon’s policies. For security reasons, we only accept attachments in the following file formats: .jpeg, .jpg, .pjpeg, .gif, .png, .tiff. These documents must be authentic and unaltered. How do I send the required information? Submit this information. What happens if I do not send the requested information? If we do not receive the requested information, your account will remain deactivated and funds in your account may be held for 90 days or longer. Depending on your account status and activities, you may be required to complete an additional review before funds can be released. Amazon may withhold payments if we determine that your account was used to sell inauthentic or prohibited goods, commit fraud, or engage in other illegal or abusive activity. You can view your account performance () or select Account Health on the home screen of the Amazon Seller app on your iOS or Android device. The Account Health dashboard shows how well your account is performing against the performance metrics and policies required to sell on
My latest appeal;
PLEASE NOTE I DO NOT HAVE A LOA OR LA as i am not licensed to sell this product as this was a error on my behalf and my team. i bought these items from a reputable supplier and did not consult the brand owner or the amazon’s policy’s and this why i have taken the action steps and preventative measures to ensure this does not happen again such as ;
Contacting lawyers to furthermore emphasise these policy’s and consult a team of lawyers to make sure amazons terms of service and policy’s are re-iterated and to make sure the lawyers have cleared me to sell future products that will not infringe the intellectual property of other brands
i will now be looking at other suppliers for products to look at and make sure they’re not infringing amazons policy’s or the intellectual property of other brands, i will be contacting numerous suppliers to sort this issue out and compare against amazons policy’s to clearly identify and further problems.
Training - i myself and my employee have now undertaken further training via third party software suppliers such as Keepa, seller amp, Buy bot Pro and fast track FBA this training has gone into extensive detail on amazons trademark policy’s, how to spot a potential IP branded product, how to find more reputable suppliers and how to query there products to make sure that these items are not infringing the IP of certain brands. we now have the confidence to challenge certain suppliers and find out about the brand owner and even contacting brand owners in future for LOA or La.
We have now consulted a team of lawyers for future preference so when we go to list a product this will be checked via a team of lawyers to make sure there is no trademark and a is not infringing on intellectual property of the brand owners
I HAVE PROVIDED INVOICES TO PROVE THESE, PLESE SEE MY PLAN OF ACTION AND INVOICES.
Invoices attached for the retailer holland and Barrett show the quantity of products bought and the authenticity of the products from reputable supplier such as holland and Barrett, I have attached 3 PDF documents - all invoices and receipts for the purchase of the products and have highlighted some of the key information for this supplier. In addition here are also the contact details for holland and Barrett; Holland & Barrett retail LTD Samuel Ryder House, Barling way, nuneaton, Warwickshire CV10 7RH 0370 606 6606 I DO NOT HAVE A LO OR LOA - I have contacted the brand owner to ask if I can receive one of those documents but I fear this may not be accepted, therefor I cannot get those documents and I will not be able to sell this product furthermore due to the brand owner protecting there brand - I have acknowledged this as a mistake and I should not have sold these items due to not having permission from the brand owner Hence why I have now created this plan of action to prevent this situation from occurring again. The Root cause and the reason for this unintended policy violation is that I purchased products from a reputable supplier known to sell authentic and high-quality goods. i did not previously check the amazons policy’s regarding trademarked product, in hindsight i bought this item to resell because i thought it was not trademarked and i thought this was okay.
Once i received the IP complaint i removed and deleted this listing ASAP from my inventory as i realised i should no longer sell this product. If I reviewed the policy’s in full before listing these products i would have known that there was a issue potentially and i would have avoided selling this brand of products. i received this complaint on Saturday 22nd may 2021 and the details as follows - ASIN: B07C829S85
Infringement type: Counterfeit
Trademark asserted: UK00003235314
Complaint ID: 7034022712
AS stated before - i listed this product after buying units from a reputable supplier - without reading the amazons policy’s in full which has led to this suspension, i have now taken steps to clearly acknowledge this and have now read amazons policy’s in full and have a better understanding and have now implemented procedures to further prevent this from happening.
I understand that the brand owner was not happy with me using there trademark to sell this product and according to the amazon policy’s i should have clearly seen that this could of been a issue and i should not have sold this product, which today after reviewing all policy’s i have now really learned my lesson and this will now no longer happen.
We understand that listing restricted items for sale is a serious issue and have allocated time to:
Analyze our current listings practice
Identify all inauthentic items contained within our listing
Create a new process for listing items to ensure compliance with Amazon policies
We are now confident that our listings will not violate policies for restricted products or brands. We have allocated training for the team via software developers to further understand how these claims can be avoided and how to understand how a IP claim works in terms with amazons’s policy’s. This is done via software training with in depth analysis on brand protection and trademarked products, these include software such as Keeps , Seller amp & Buy bot pro - these are all paid softwares that integrate information about IP - branded categories and in line with amazons policy’s to ensure you do not buy these products as they are strictly prohibited. In future I will work with my suppliers before purchasing products to make sure I am communicating with the suppliers to make sure all products are not trademarked and they are able to provide proof of authenticity and make sure they do not infringe the intellectual property of the brand owner - all my team has now been trained to do this. Contact suppliers work out the details of the certain products and also in depth training on software that teaches you about IP protected brands and amazons policy’s.
We have reviewed all recent policy violation messages in order to gain a better understanding of the issues relating to the products that we have listed in violation of Amazon policy.
We have analyzed our listings to understand the cause of policy violations. These can be summarized as follows:
We work closely with our suppliers and have a daily updated list of restricted or inauthentic items.
The restricted items were made ‘inactive’ in Amazon by setting the available stock to Zero.
Restricted items (previously made inactive by setting stock to zero) were allocated stock by the new system, resulting in restricted items being made active in our account.
We have closed all Amazon listings of inauthentic or restricted items, as opposed to making them out of stock.
We have identified the cause of the issue with restricted items and are now 100% confident that no further policy violations will occur.
Our Proposal for Ensuring Compliance with Amazon Policy
Regular Review of inauthentic Items Policy Carry out a regular review of restricted items in Amazon and work with our suppliers and warehouse team to ensure that we have an up to date list of restricted items.
Carry Out an Impact Assessment On Any New IT Systems / Processes, before launching any new IT system or automating any processing relating to our Amazon business.
I would like to thank you for allowing me and helping myself resolve this issue. I always strive to be the best in customer service to our shared customers and operate my business with integrity and professionalism. to summarise this appeal - i want to make it clear that i have fully acknowledged this complaint and how i violated the policy’s and identified the root cause of how this has happened. i have now read the policy’s again in full and further understand them and make sure i will now abide by the policy’s and i have put further actions in place to prevent this situation happening again.
AMAZONS LATEST RESPONSE
Hello,
Thank you for submitting information to reactivate your listing. We reviewed your appeal and determined that you have not submitted required documents or the documents submitted are invalid. Please include the missing information listed below and resubmit in your plan of action.
Please provide any one of the below documents for proving authenticity of your listings:
– A letter of authorization (LOA) or licensing agreement (LA) from the rights owner indicating that you are authorized to use their intellectual property. You can find the contact information of the rights owner in the listing deactivation communication you have received.
– An invoice to indicate that your products are original and are not duplicates or copies thereby infringing on the intellectual property.
– Retraction from the rights owner to be sent to Amazon directly. You can find the contact information of the rights owner in the listing deactivation communication you have received.
Has your listing been deactivated in error?
If you believe there has been an error, please tell us why. Your explanation should include how your listing(s) have not violated the brand’s intellectual property along with documents mentioned above to support authenticity.
Where do I send this information?
If you are appealing an action we have taken on your listings for an intellectual property complaint, go to Received Intellectual Property Complaints in the Product Policy Compliance section on Account Health Locate the deactivation record for the product listings you want to appeal and click on the Appeal button next to the record to submit your appeal to reactivate your listings. If you want to submit additional information, click on the “View appeal” button next to the deactivation record. Click the “Submit additional information” button to submit information necessary to reactivate your listings.
What happens if I do not send the requested information?
If we do not receive the requested information, the listing will remain removed and your account may be deactivated.
ASIN: B07C829S85
Complaint ID: 7037133712
You can see your balance and settlement information in the Payments section of Seller Central. If you have questions about those, please send an email to payments-investigate@amazon.co.uk.
You can view your account performance or select Account Health on the home screen of the Amazon Seller app on your iOS or Android device. The Account Health dashboard shows how well your account is performing against the performance metrics and policies required to sell on Amazon.
Sincerely,
Sincerely, Buy Box Qualification Team Amazon.co.uk
Seller_NoMNQDGnEW5Bx
Have you looked at this?
Account Deactivated - UK Account Health - Amazon Seller Forums
Amazon does not allow you to sell items as new when bought from retail, so they are never going to accept receipts as invoices. Do you buy any stock from proper wholesalers?
I’m not going to comment fully on your poa as its not my area however:
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Its way too long
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It needs to be in the correct format
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It needs links to the policies you’ve read
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You will need to have deleted all restricted items not just closed them and from your POA it sounds like you have a lot
Seller_NoMNQDGnEW5Bx
Post it on here before you submit it, see if people will look at it for you
Seller_BS5lg2keRs2QO
To add to other comments, since you have to redo your appeal there’s a lot in there that isn’t really credible. All the talk of teams of lawyers and IT impact assessments doesn’t really ring true for a two person business buying stock from a high street retailer.