Unexplained change of brand name
We’ve been selling a bespoke made sign for 15 odd years on Amazon and it always had been listed as the brand name Avalon, which is what we entered (because that’s us) all those years ago when we first created the listing. We have been the only business to sell this item. We built up 150+ 5star customer reviews and was selling very well…up until now!
The brand has suddenly been changed and we now require permission to sell it. It has now been made inactive. Spent all last week trying to reinstate the listing without succes. Customer support only provide stock answers and replies. Does anyone have any ideas on how this can happen? and how it can be rectified?
We don’t have any brand registry or ownerships, just the listing we created many years ago.
TIA.
40 replies
Seller_5iXIFMdaFkFpG
Unfortunately your listing has been hijacked as your brand is not registered with Amazon brand registry. I presume new brand is registered and so you will not be able to change any details on ASIN anymore. They will benefit from ASINs sales rank. Your only chance is to contact seller support, they might help or might not.
Seller_uMvpmbB4v6kJJ
Exactly the same thing has happened to us. We have a listing with our brand name that only we sell and it has lots of 5* feedback and now it has been changed by a hijacker. We have tried to get our brand added to the registry as we own the IP and Trademark but Amazon are refusing to add us to the registry as they say we have been abusive which is completely untrue. We have been trying for weeks to get Amazon to help us but they keep sending the usual copy and pasted email replies. It is so frustrating as it is looking like we will have to remove all our ASINS now as they will be vulnerable. It is a Chinese hacker for sure. It makes a total mockery of feedback ratings on Amazon when ASINS can be stolen like this.
Seller_uP9LqiYV3yKFy
Data Glitches on Amazon platform is getting worst
Dont even try anymore with customer services, they just think its right regardless of the evidence we can provide
Had listings of 8 years old altered making it impossible for them to be displayed correctly, no update from our side changed the listings but 8 years of good reviews and rankings gone in a second
Nothing we can do about it which is really annoying
Seller_kbRpLD8MlBEyt
our brand was not change however title and pictures were changed, it took us while to figure out that the listings were changed in amazon.es (Spain) account by the hackers and eventually it was changed in UK by the catalogue team, We have to deleted listings from all other markets and block the automatic global listing, UK was restored once refreshed by the Catalogue team, my advise is to check all other market place and delete listings from there it can give you good chance to restore your listings.
Seller_5qPnuycMicgTU
We have had the same and getting a 5461 error saying we cannot list under the brand. Have been going back and forth with seller support for a month. Extremely frustrating. We may need to re-brand and start all over again with a new brand for those products.
Seller_Z0KJE0XhVJBsw
Unfortunately this is an ongoing and long term issue see: https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/forums/t/listing-has-been-hijacked-amazon-refusing-to-help/490807/44
Brand registered or not doesn’t really matter. Amazon’s own listings get hijacked sometimes! You can try a flat file upload otherwise realist and start again with the understanding that Amazon’s platform is easily corrupted and Seller Services are useless.
Seller_EIGBPAYhT1mVy
Like most people are saying - this is a clear sign of being hijacked. Its happened a few times to me and its almost impossible to get it resolved even when you’re brand registered.
In my case they removed the listing tantamount to making it impossible to relist i.e. deleted. If you provide the ASIN I might be able to figure out how they are using it and with that you’ll have evidence that its being misused. Once you get the evidence escualte higher i.e to managingdirector@amazon.co.uk or ask support to direct it to in-house team.
For the evidence try this: go to add new product and enter the ASIN and look for where it appears as a child listing and from that look at the html source code and get the parent ASIN.
From there you’ll see that the hijacker has probably many other hijacked listings as child ones with no inventory but gives positive reviews to the main one if that makes sense.
If you can get that evidence you may have a chance but as mentioned I did provide that evidence which showed over 100 other peoples listing being hijacked! However despite the overwhelming evidence in my case support deleted the listing due to complete ineptness even when I gave them clear instruction to remove the listing as a child and then change the brand name back…
For me this is probably the number one thing Amazon needs to sort out… As others have alluded too it always seems to be chinese hijackers and more insidiously some form of corruption/bribery possibly going on with insiders helping them but that’s mere specualtion and another story… Noting the hijackers in my case seemed not to get punished at all and carried on listing there bs stuff!
I hope that helps!
Seller_x1xMSBwZsJrTE
Yes.
Amazon seem to have a policy of allowing sellers from a certain part of the world change brand names at the drop of a hat. However, if you or I wish to change a brand name we have to jump through an endless string of hoops.
It could easily be prevented by Amazon not allowing a brand name to be changed in the first place without sufficient proof. Sadly Amazon couldn’t care less. We are not their prefered type of seller.
Even with brand registry it’s 50/50 whether Amazon will change the brand name back, as others on this thread have already attested to.
It’s a shambolic state of affairs for a supposedly ‘professional’ company who publically claim that they take IP issues seriously.
Seller_OwG1S9JedjAdO
I once had a brand name changed, listing removed and a policy warning for grey import. They changed it to gain the highest ranked for that item so they could monopolise sales for it. In my appeal I attached a cached image showing the original branding and stated they had changed it to manipulate the ASIN for their own benefit. Amazon changed the brand name, removed the policy warning and I was allowed to relist on the ASIN.
Edit. This was done by a U.K. company
Seller_ZIaersoaXN4lv
What you could use in your appeal is to screenshot shipped orders on Amazon, I have had something similar before and luckily the shipped orders for the ASIN showed the original title, you can show a year for instance and it will say how many you have sold at the top.
