Amazon seller account review

Dobbie81

Hi everyone,

I thought I would post my problem and see if I can get some help.
I have been a long time customer of Amazon's and I occasionally sell some of my offcasts (books or dvds).
Recently I decided I would finally sell my collection of dvd box sets, I had quite a few.
I started to sell them and they flew off the shelves, I sold 20 odd in the first 2 days. By the way I didn't at the time have any feedback because people don't bother on Amazon.
Suddenly I had a notice that said I was under review, it did not say why.
I appealed the review and they asked for me to supply them with proof of delivery etc etc, by this time I was selling more.

They told me to continue to fulfill orders so at first I did.

I supplied them with scanned images of the receipts I had from the post office and the recorded delivery notices. Most were simply proof of postage as frankly £1.26 does not stretch to the £8.00 it costs to send some boxsets by recorded delivery.

I wanted to get some of my money out as the postage was starting to rack up, they refused. Yet they took their fees!

I thought I would try to contact them again and again and never once have they replied, I cancelled my listings as I honestly couldn't afford the postage. I thought better of it and put them back up as I didn't want Amazon to think I was a fraudster. I had to borrow some money to tide me over, postage has cost me several hundred pounds so far believe it or not.

My emails were polite, and I sent out requests for feedback.
Since september 15th I have sold 114 items and received 26 positive feedback.
This is a 22.8% return, no problems and no issues with the customers yet.

The worst thing is that Amazon closed my fiance's seller account claiming that she was me, if they checked their records they would have seen that we lived in two different counties when our accounts were opened and only got together just over a year ago! I wouldn't mind but for the fact that she was only selling 1 book.

My collection is now almost sold bar a couple of single discs.
Amazon are holding £945 of my own money, they have taken a huge amount of fees and now I need that money back.

I have bent over backwards to accomodate them, they have not told me why I am under review or what they need to see to complete the review.
If it's fraud, clearly that has been disproved with my scans and my feedback, if it is a case of velocity again the feedback should have cleared that up now.
All I can see now is Amazon rubbing their hands together with the amount of interest they are making from me on my money.

How on earth can a company this big be allowed to behave in such a manner, no actual contact except for automated emails.
What do they want from me, why should I have to wait when it is clear that there is no issue with me at all?
I have read that it !might be 90 days before I can get my money, why?

Can anyone help at all.

soolin

Amazon can be extremely strict with sellers, in fact they are easily worse than Ebay when they get their teeth into someone.

Personally I think a 22% feedback return to be extremely good, mine is nowhere near that- probably less than 10% overall. I can only suggest that you keep phoning them and assuming your seller metrics are good (ie no late despatches no customer returns etc) they might relent.

Irn-Bru-Kid

As much as I hate to tell you this OP, but the chances of you getting your money before 30 days has expired is remote.

The same thing happened to me last year. Quite simply, you have had too many sales in a short period of time and amazons system has flagged you up for a review. Your funds from all transactions will be held for 30 days. They did it to me and no amount of emails or calls made them change their mind. I just had to accept it and wait patiently for a month.

You can't speak to the actual 'review team' over the phone either if I remember correctly, only by email. Even then, it an automatic response.

I appreciate your issue with postage, I was the same. It mounted up and with limited funds (hence reason selling on amazon!) it was difficult. But you really need to maintain your account, don't cancel sales, that will only make matters worse.

Soolin is absolutely right, amazon take no prisoners! Far worse than ebay. At least if your funds are held by paypal, you can get them released quite easily, not the case with amazon I'm afraid.

As mentioned, this is purely my experience and I hope someone can help you succeed where I failed.

All the best

cestlavie

thanks for useful post. i had no idea that amazon judged you on feedback. all mine has so far been positive, but i have never requested fb and have no idea what ratio ot is to sales - probably very low. i will now ask for fb...!

soolin

cestlavie wrote: »

thanks for useful post. i had no idea that amazon judged you on feedback. all mine has so far been positive, but i have never requested fb and have no idea what ratio ot is to sales - probably very low. i will now ask for fb...!

Seller metrics are important as wel, Amazon have been using them as a way of judging sellers long before ebay came up with the dashboard idea. You can for instance be penalised for having too many buyers request a returns under the DSR requirements.

Crowqueen

soolin wrote: »

Seller metrics are important as wel, Amazon have been using them as a way of judging sellers long before ebay came up with the dashboard idea. You can for instance be penalised for having too many buyers request a returns under the DSR requirements.

Ouch. And people think eBay is strict. That doesn't really seem fair - I make a mistake and return an item (theoretically), like I did in the summer with buying an Angela's Ashes CD instead of the book - and the seller gets penalised?!

I guess very few people actually do return purely for change-of-mind or mistaken buying, and Amazon do reciprocate with buyers being given limited ability to use the dispute process any more than a few times every year - but it seems rather sharp of them - and I'm an advocate for eBay's DSR system.

soolin

Crowqueen wrote: »

Ouch. And people think eBay is strict. That doesn't really seem fair - I make a mistake and return an item (theoretically), like I did in the summer with buying an Angela's Ashes CD instead of the book - and the seller gets penalised?!

I guess very few people actually do return purely for change-of-mind or mistaken buying, and Amazon do reciprocate with buyers being given limited ability to use the dispute process any more than a few times every year - but it seems rather sharp of them - and I'm an advocate for eBay's DSR system.

It doesn't have to be a lot of returns though, as a small seller 2 people returning an item due to change of mind in say a 3 month period could mean my metrics put me up for review.

Crowqueen

soolin wrote: »

It doesn't have to be a lot of returns though, as a small seller 2 people returning an item due to change of mind in say a 3 month period could mean my metrics put me up for review.

Jaw-dropping. At least eBay give the disputes settled amicably and outside the dispute procedure no weighting when reviewing metrics.

johnnyboyrebel

Dobbie81 wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I thought I would post my problem and see if I can get some help.
I have been a long time customer of Amazon's and I occasionally sell some of my offcasts (books or dvds).
Recently I decided I would finally sell my collection of dvd box sets, I had quite a few.
I started to sell them and they flew off the shelves, I sold 20 odd in the first 2 days. By the way I didn't at the time have any feedback because people don't bother on Amazon.
Suddenly I had a notice that said I was under review, it did not say why.
I appealed the review and they asked for me to supply them with proof of delivery etc etc, by this time I was selling more.

They told me to continue to fulfill orders so at first I did.

I supplied them with scanned images of the receipts I had from the post office and the recorded delivery notices. Most were simply proof of postage as frankly £1.26 does not stretch to the £8.00 it costs to send some boxsets by recorded delivery.

I wanted to get some of my money out as the postage was starting to rack up, they refused. Yet they took their fees!

I thought I would try to contact them again and again and never once have they replied, I cancelled my listings as I honestly couldn't afford the postage. I thought better of it and put them back up as I didn't want Amazon to think I was a fraudster. I had to borrow some money to tide me over, postage has cost me several hundred pounds so far believe it or not.

My emails were polite, and I sent out requests for feedback.
Since september 15th I have sold 114 items and received 26 positive feedback.
This is a 22.8% return, no problems and no issues with the customers yet.

The worst thing is that Amazon closed my fiance's seller account claiming that she was me, if they checked their records they would have seen that we lived in two different counties when our accounts were opened and only got together just over a year ago! I wouldn't mind but for the fact that she was only selling 1 book.

My collection is now almost sold bar a couple of single discs.
Amazon are holding £945 of my own money, they have taken a huge amount of fees and now I need that money back.

I have bent over backwards to accomodate them, they have not told me why I am under review or what they need to see to complete the review.
If it's fraud, clearly that has been disproved with my scans and my feedback, if it is a case of velocity again the feedback should have cleared that up now.
All I can see now is Amazon rubbing their hands together with the amount of interest they are making from me on my money.

How on earth can a company this big be allowed to behave in such a manner, no actual contact except for automated emails.
What do they want from me, why should I have to wait when it is clear that there is no issue with me at all?
I have read that it !might be 90 days before I can get my money, why?

Can anyone help at all.

Too many sales in a short period of time = review. What are your metrics like in general? If they are all good, then 30 days will pass and the review will end. It is just another automated piece of crap from the Amazon robots, they don't review anything other than your metrics but just like to show everyone who's boss.

It is unlikely for an account to be closed over this unless you have bad metrics etc. as the review will probably be the only time that Amazon actually look at your account at all.