I am constantly testing new products to sell on my Amazon account. I found some very cheap self-adhesive silicone backless bra’s on AliExpress which were selling way more expensive on Amazon.com
I sold 7 silicon bras within 24 hours after listing the item on Amazon. I was really excited because I thought I found a really new profitable item I can add to my Amazon store.The excitement lasted until the next morning when I got an email from Amazon stating that my account had been suspended for intellectual property rights violations.
I’ve been selling on Amazon for so many years and I always had an excellent feedback score and my key performance indicators were always within the targets set out by Amazon.
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I did not understand how Amazon could suspend my account for violating intellectual property rights, when the item I was selling was an OEM product.
I did some research online and I discovered there is are difference between having your Amazon account is suspended for inauthentic items or intellectual property rights violations.
If you’re selling fake Rolex watches your account would get suspended for inauthentic items, if you’re selling a product that violates someone’s patents Amazon will state ‘intellectual property rights violation’ as suspension reasons.
Apparently a company owns the patent rights for those silicone bras in the US and is taking down anybody who is trying to sell it on Amazon.
I believe having my Amazon account suspended without any warning is really unfair. I was selling those silicone bras in good faith that I am allowed to sell them on Amazon as they are not branded.
As I felt they have treated me very unfairly, I decided to appeal the decision of having my Amazon account suspended. The issue seems to be that if your account has been suspended for intellectual property rights violations, the only way to get your account reinstated is by having that IP owner retract their claim with Amazon.
Amazon was very kind by providing the company name and address of the company who made the IP claim, which led to my account suspension.
I wrote a formal letter, I tried to explain that I was selling for many years on Amazon and that those silicone bras where just a product I was testing. I asked them to retract their IP claim so I could continue operating my business. A couple of days later I got a reply where they offered me retract that IP claims for a one-time payment of $2000.
I got a really furious, this company is basically scamming Amazon sellers by making IP claims after offering them to retract those claims for a large amount of money.
I felt really scammed. I was making around 6-7k profit Amazon every month so I had no real choice other than to pay does scammers and get my business back.
I transferred the money and within 4 days Amazon confirmed that this company has retracted their intellectual property claims against me and my Amazon account was reinstated at the same day.
I am very careful now when testing new products and always make sure they don’t infringe on someone’s intellectual property.
I believe people need to understand that selling on Amazon is not as safe as you might think. In many cases Amazon does not give any warning before they suspend accounts and in many cases that can mean a lifetime ban Amazon selling ban.
Amazon is using highly advanced algorithms to link new seller accounts with old suspended accounts.
If you’re Amazon account had been suspended as well, please leave a comment below and show you store with us.
Resources:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-antitrust-case-against-facebook-google-amazon-and-apple-1516121561
http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/jessamine-county/article192370439.html