Hi all,

We have recently set up a new Seller Central account for our business. However it was immediately suspended by Amazon, due to being incorrectly linked with another seller that is prohibited to sell on Amazon (appeals and messages below).

We have raised an action plan, outlining the steps we have taken and have spoken to Amazon multiple times through their Seller Central support team, but we have had the suspension in place for close to 5 months and there are no signs that Amazon will engage with us about overturning this suspension. We are now looking to close this account and start again - although there are fears we will run into the same issue. Please can anyone provide advise about how to successful appeal and issue such as this? Or recommend any solutions to this issue? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

_ List of correspondence:_

From: Amazon <seller-performance@amazon.co.uk>
Date: 2 October 2019 at 19:45:33 GMT

Hello Your Amazon selling account remains deactivated. Your listings have been removed. Funds will not be transferred to you and may be held for 90 days or longer. Please ship any open orders to avoid further impact to your account. Why is this happening? This decision was made because you are associated to an account that is prohibited to sell on Amazon. We may not respond to further emails about this issue.
Sincerely, Seller Performance Team Amazon.co.uk

From: XXXX
To: resolution-uk-sellers, seller-performance
Date: 3 October 2019 at 13:12:19 GMT

Hello,

I have been advised to get in touch with your team for support in resolving a Seller Suspension account we currently have.

We highly value and understand the processes Amazon have in place to protect buyers and sellers from damaging activity on the platform, and so would like to understand more how we as a brand can work better with Amazon moving forward.

XXXX is a well known UK brand selling XXXX ( XXXX ) and other healthy snacks. We have a Vendor Central relationship with Amazon and are found in most grocery/retail outlets.

The Root Cause of the Issue

• As part of our launch into other Europe marketplaces and introducing new ranges of product to market, we registered recently for a Seller Central account under the Account name XXXX.
• We were just about to ship our first product set into Amazon Fulfillment Centers when the account was suspended temporarily across all marketplaces. The reason that has been cited is that the account is associated with another account that is not permitted to sell on Amazon.
• We have presumed this is a deactivation in error.

What actions have we taken to resolve the issue

• We confirmed with all business email accounts that nobody has ever worked on an account not permitted to work with Seller Central.
• We have confirmed with all bank accounts associated with this account that they are not permitted to work with Seller Central
• We have confirmed that Vendor Central team are happy to continue working with XXXX.
• To our knowledge there is no person or business that is associated with this account that has had permissions removed.
• We wrote to Amazon to request further investigation to check if this is a deactivation in error.

The steps you have taken to prevent the issue going forward

• We have had written confirmation from all account holders and businesses associated with our Seller Central account that they have not had a closed account with Seller Central in the past.
• We have included extra vettings in place to ensure no one will join our business account without these written assurances.

Amazon is a key platform for XXXX as it moves to launch the brand into new marketplaces. We trust the information supplied above is enough to resolve to Amazon’s satisfaction and look forward to selling with Seller Central, building on our present relationship with Amazon.

11 November 2019 12:57 GMT

Additional information:

The Root Causes that led to this issue:

Amazon deactivated our account as it found that our account was linked to an account that is not permitted to sell on Amazon.

The Actions we have taken to resolve the issue:

We have confirmed that no individuals or businesses linked to this account have a seperate seller account not permitted to sell on Amazon. We have received confirmations from all businesses and individuals linked to our Seller Central account.
We have confirmed that our Vendor Central account is in good working order and there are no suspensions.
We have now submitted an IP Infringement to stop any other accounts linking to our account without our consent or knowledg.

Steps we have taken to prevent further issues:

We have limited the number of emails linked to our account to core individuals and teams responsible for working on our Seller Central account.
We will look to take appropriate legal action against any individuals or businesses that are linking themselves to our account without our knowledge or consent.
We are working with Amazon to confirm an IP Infringement.

We’ve submitted many similar appeals to the above, updating the action plan but have heard nothing back - Having called the Seller Support line, they advised that they have escalated the case, but we have seen no evidence of this.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated- Thanks in advance.