About six months ago I started to sell on Amazon iPhone accessories and phone cases.
I used Aliexpress for sourcing my products and also to manage order fulfillment. For those who don’t know Aliexpress, it is the largest and cheapest marketplace in China to buy cheap products.
Usually, you can order from them phone cases or iPhone charging cables below one dollar including delivery to the US or anywhere in the world.
So it is a very attractive way to start your e-commerce business without ever actually ever touching any goods with your own hands.
However, there is an issue with that marketplace as many items sold are inauthentic or fake. So in my case, I had some buyers compliant that my iPhone charging cables are not original, even my Chinese supplier told me that they got them directly from the Apple factory.
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As it only had one buyer complaint out of 200 orders, I didn’t think much. Two months later I had two more item inauthentic complains I’m starting to get worried maybe Amazon will suspend my account.
And that’s what happened the week after. I got an email that my so account has been suspended indefinitely and the reason stated was inauthentic goods.
I felt let down by Amazon because they didn’t give me any proper warning before they banned my seller’s account. I also felt let down by my suppliers in China who guaranteed me that all the goods are 100% authentic.
It also made me feel really sad because in the first time in my life I actually started something by myself that really helped me to escape the 9-to-5 rat race. Also, the first time in my life I had a feeling of freedom. It just felt amazing not to have a boss tell me what to do all time.
Because of this Amazon seller suspension, my whole life came crashing down. I just didn’t want to go back to work in an office again and feel horrible.
The only option I saw was to try to appeal the suspension and get back to selling on Amazon. I knew that nothing in this world could make me go back to work again in some dead-end job like I did before
So I got in contact with my Chinese suppliers and asked them for the invoices I could use to appeal the account suspension.
I spent almost entire day writing the perfect appeals letter, and I explain to them that all my items I will seven work 100% out then take and I also included all the invoices to prove my case.
At this point, I started to feel that confident that Amazon would reinstate my account and I will be able to start selling again within one or two days.
However, I started to get really frustrated when they got back to me and basically told me that my appeal has been declined.
As I started to panic I did some research again online and I came across some different appeals companies who claimed that they have a 100% success rate in appealing Amazon seller account suspensions.
I ordered an appeals packer (appeals letter and plan of action), which cost me almost $500. The company had hundreds of positive feedbacks online so I was very hopeful that they will be able to help me.
As it turned out that 100% success rate did not include my case, what a coincident. I also started to look into more detail at all the feedbacks that the company claimed if it came from “real” clients and I noticed that the writing style as well it words used in all the feedback comments were very similar. I am very confident that those reviews were all fake.
Appealing Amazon account suspension might work in some cases but in most cases, it won’t. If somebody is claiming that they have a 90% or even 100% success rate it’s all a lie. In many cases, the only really realistic solution is to open a new Amazon account and start over again.
If Amazon has suspended your account please don’t forget to leave a comment below and share your seller accounts especially the story with us.
Resources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/business/media/amazon-roy-price-isa-dick-hackett.html
https://pagesix.com/2017/10/14/suspended-amazon-execs-fiancee-calls-off-wedding/