Know Your Customer verification
Hi,
Just over 2 weeks ago I woke up to find my active listings shown as ‘currently unavailable’.
I got in touch with SS who said I must have inadvertently put my holiday settings on, which I hadn’t. We went round in circles for the next 48 hours as I emailed, live chatted and desperately called trying to catch someone that could help find out what was going on.
It was only on the 3rd day that one of the associates mentioned a Know Your Customer verification was underway on our account which had been triggered by a sales threshold and that they couldn’t do any more to help as the seller verification team would be in touch in due course.
Despite my best efforts since, I’ve had no response from emailing;
seller-verification-enquiry@amazon.co.uk
or
cn-seller-verification-enquiry@amazon.co.uk
So our listings, our selling privileges and our disbursements were all suspended and withheld without explanation, which has decimated our business.
I am pulling my hair out with the cryptic performance notification I keep getting, which is to upload;
– A copy of the company’s most recent share allotment document. This usually takes the form of a Statement of Capital, an Annual Return or a Confirmation Statement. It may show the number of shares held by each beneficial owner and the number of shares issued for the company. You can download this document from the UK Companies House website (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/). Please note this may not be the most recent Confirmation Statement.
I have tried clarifying with the associates, with my accountant and the company formation business I used, to ensure that I am uploading the correct document, as I’m sure you’re aware once you upload the document it can take anywhere up to 10 days to get a response back! So despite uploading our most recent confirmation statement, then our share certificate, they still keep sending that message.
Does anyone know what document they need?
Has anyone had a KYC check done for hitting a sales threshold?
I think I already know the answer, but is there a possible claim here in some form?
I can’t seem to find any way to escalate a complaint?
Sorry for the rant but any help would be much appreciated…
Many thanks,
Tom
17 replies
Seller_f5cnodyVjLD4S
It sounds like you may have hit the 15,000 euros disbursement limit. You will need to register as a business with HMRC.
What happens if I cannot provide the information requested?
If you do not provide your information within the specified time period and prior to reaching EUR 15,000 of disbursements, your selling privileges will be suspended. Your privileges will be reinstated once you have entered the requested data and your information has been verified.
Seller_ejwc84JNL5Uk6
I understand your frustration but you cannot make a complaint due to Amazon carrying out their legal responsibilities. its surprising you were unaware of their KYC checks though if you have been selling for a while.
There are thousands of new/existing sellers in the queue - recommendation is not to chase as this puts you to the back of the queue each time.
It will happen to every seller about every 2 years now as Amazon are legally required to check their sellers are compliant. Ive just had my third check in 12 years.
Seller_jMlY4xxNRffJD
Thanks all for the kind responses and advice.
We’re UK based, born and bred and formed the company through Companies House back in 2017 when we passed the verification process at the time.
One of the associates I spoke with that mentioned the threshold said that typically an email sequence would go out around £10,000 in order that the process can be underway and completed in time for hitting £15,000, although things picked up quite quickly for us which took us over the threshold quicker than normal which is why they locked us down.
I understand they have a job to do, and it’s all for the greater good, although it does seem very harsh to be ultimately punished for performance, and without explanation…but hey, small fish whole ocean!
Thanks again for the advice I’ll act upon it now in the hope that I can make some progress…
Seller_jMlY4xxNRffJD
Hi Guys,
Just a quick update on this in the hope it might help others / anyone can help us.
It’s now been just over 3 weeks since our account was effectively shut down, with all our listings showing as currently unavailable; 0 sales and 0 disbursements whilst the Know Your Customer verification remains ongoing.
Since creating this post 6 days ago we’ve received another of the same performance notifications from the seller verification team which we’ve received from the start;
(Please upload)
– A copy of the company’s most recent share allotment document. This usually takes the form of a Statement of Capital, an Annual Return or a Confirmation Statement. It may show the number of shares held by each beneficial owner and the number of shares issued for the company. You can download this document from the UK Companies House website (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/). Please note this may not be the most recent Confirmation Statement.
For reference, none of our business, banking, identity or other information has changed since we opened our professional selling account with Amazon back in 2017, when we passed verification to start selling. The fact that none of our information has changed was also reflected in our most recently filed confirmation statement to Companies House.
Over the last 3 weeks we’ve uploaded every downloadable document from our account on Companies House, including firstly our most recent confirmation statement, then our share certificate, then our statement of capital etc… although we still keep getting the same performance notification.
I’ve spoken with our accountant, Companies House directly, and sent email after email to both seller-verification-enquiry@amazon.co.uk & cn-seller-verification-enquiry@amazon.co.uk trying to find out exactly which document they’re referring to. However, both my accountant and CH were both flummoxed, and we never had a reply from either of the 2 email addresses.
We understand SS have a hard job to do and we’re a drop in the ocean to the other thousands of sellers in the same boat, some no doubt going through / have gone through much more pain than we are, but there’s no getting away from the crippling effect this is having on our business byway of lost revenue, lost sales rank, customer loyalty and 0 disbursements…
Any advice, insight… or hope anyone can offer will be much appreciated!
Seller_jMlY4xxNRffJD
Hi Guys,
Just to update you that we got reactivated on Saturday. The total time we had everything suspended for was 5 weeks.
The performance notification that we kept getting whilst we underwent a Know Your Customer (KYC) check, was;
(Please upload)
– A copy of the company’s most recent share allotment document. This usually takes the form of a Statement of Capital, an Annual Return or a Confirmation Statement. It may show the number of shares held by each beneficial owner and the number of shares issued for the company. You can download this document from the UK Companies House website (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/). Please note this may not be the most recent Confirmation Statement.
And we were reactivated after re-uploading our company share certificate (from 3.5 years ago when the company was formed) for the 3rd time.
Hope this helps somebody in the future.
Seller_4q0H8LiAbMT3H
Hi Guys,
I am in the same boat since August, I couldn’t find the link to upload the documents required.
Any suggestion or advice will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Khaled
Seller_nTnzP8Ebne8ms
Hi Guys,
I have been waiting for my account verification since sep2020 and have no luck. I started to lose hope to sell on amazon. I am a top-rated seller on eBay in USA, Uk and Australia I think I just stick with what I m doing to just forget about selling on Amazon. It just causing unnecessary stress even before I started to sell even any stock just imagine what sort of stress it will cause in future.
