Provide an official document which confirms the scope of your trading activity

I am sure that many have been asked this question but I have been unable to find much at all.

I’ve been selling on Amazon for many years. Around three years ago I was verified. Two weeks before Christmas, I was informed that I had to go through the process yet again, as follows:

1. They first asked for a recent bank statement. That is all. I sent it and they accepted it. I never got a notification that it was accepted but they no longer asked for it.

2. Amazon then asked for a HMRC document. I sent an official letter from HMRC (with all the correct details on it) stating that I was paying taxes per month by direct debit. It was rejected by Amazon. I contacted my accredited accountant for help (who was actually astonished by Amazon’s behaviour). He sent me a document showing that he had filed my accounts with HMRC and said that it was the most official document from HMRC that could be produced. I sent this and it seems to have been accepted, again, no notification from Amazon that it was accepted. However, it was still not enough for Amazon.

3. They now want me to provide "…an official document which confirms the scope of your trading activity’. I’d never even heard of this so I contacted Seller Support and, well, he was not very helpful. He’d not heard of it either and had to go away and seek advice. After some time on the phone, he came back and said the following:

“You need to provide a short descriptive text about your business for example what kind of goods and services you are selling or intend to sell and in which categories, for how long have you been doing it and whether you are manufacturing the product or have a source”.

I’ve searched the Amazon help pages and even Googled this term and found almost nothing that is helpful.

I am a very small sole-seller and not registered for VAT because I sell so little (although I do have a business account, which I am thinking of downgrading because of all this fuss). So, having to do this seems over-the-top. Not only that but how to I obtain an ‘official’ document on the information they want?

This whole process started two weeks before Christmas and each time I provide what they ask, they move the goalposts and ask for more! Why could they not ask for all the information in the first email? The first email states that providing the bank statement will open my account within 24 hours, which was a lie. Because it took several days for them to process the bank statement and then they came back and asked for further documents. I provided that and then I had to provide this scope of trading stuff.

Currently they have all my money that I earned over Christmas and I now need to pay my suppliers but I can’t because Amazon have stopped me from getting it. They are still allowing me to sell, though. So, the funds are building and I guess Amazon are earning interest off it.

Anyway, if anybody can help me with further information on how you go about providing this scope of trading activities in an ‘official’ way, I would be most grateful. Is there a template that can be downloaded? I am sure I cannot be the only one experiencing this and would be grateful for the help, too.

Thanks so much.