Amazon scan number again before PD, sellers hang 30 accounts

"Doing business on Amazon is a heart-pounding game. You never know which will come first, tomorrow or an accident. Before Prime Day, Amazon came to scan numbers again, and many people around me fell into the trap!" Amazon seller Li Tianlin lamented.

Recently, an Amazon adult seller was hit by a scam, 30 accounts were blocked, and more than 6 million RMB of funds were frozen. One old account lost about 100,000 RMB in net profit in one day. This scam was not an isolated case, and all the affected accounts used the same keyword. After the account was blocked, after multiple communications, he found that there was no hope of appeal, but he still made a firm choice for the future.

30 accounts were blocked, and one old account lost 100,000 yuan in net profit in a single day

On May 27, Li Tianlin, an Amazon adult seller, was busy until 11 o'clock in the evening. He kept contacting the service provider to ask how to rescue his blocked account and get back the frozen funds, but the result was not satisfactory.

On May 26, Li Tianlin was targeted by Amazon, and all of his 29 accounts were blocked overnight . These accounts were all newly registered this year, and they did not violate regulations such as fake orders or reviews. An email from the platform informed him that Amazon's policies are designed to maintain a good market environment that is safe for buyers and fair for sellers. Violating these policies may result in your content being deleted or your account being suspended.

  (Li Tianlin received an email from Amazon stating that his account was deactivated)

The nightmare struck again the next day, and an old account of Li Tianlin that he had operated for four years was also affected.

According to him, the operating condition of this old FBA account was good and stable, with an average of about 80 orders per day, an average unit price of more than 200 US dollars, and a net profit of more than 1,000 yuan per order. Just because this old account was blocked, Li Tianlin's net profit loss for one day was as high as about 100,000 yuan.

( Old FBA account was blocked)

A careful estimate shows that Li Tianlin 's losses from the 30 accounts that were blocked this time were not small. Among them, 29 new accounts had balances ranging from 3,000 to 4,000 US dollars to tens of thousands of US dollars. The total amount of funds in these new accounts was about 730,000 US dollars (equivalent to about 5.16 million RMB). The balance of an old account was 123,000 US dollars (equivalent to about 870,000 RMB). The total amount of funds frozen in the 30 accounts was as high as more than 6 million RMB.

Perhaps because he was familiar with the operating risks of the Amazon platform, Li Tianlin's store had done risk monitoring before opening, hoping to minimize the risk of being blocked. When his store A sold for 50,000 or 30,000 or 40,000 US dollars, he stopped selling and waited for payment, and then store B continued to sell. After store B's sales reached tens of thousands of US dollars, store C came on the scene, followed by store D... and multiple stores lined up to sell in turn. Even so, his losses were still huge when he encountered account scanning, because half of these stores were waiting for payment and were in a state of suspension.

"These accounts were very active in placing orders, but they were suddenly blocked," Li Tianlin lamented. At the beginning of this year, his company had just started to pick up, and after a newly developed product was launched on the Amazon platform, the number of orders was very impressive.

Many sellers were hit before Prime Day, all involving one keyword

Just as the performance was about to explode, on May 27, Li Tianlin encountered an Amazon number scan. He believed that this was a routine operation of the platform before Prime Day, and he was not the only one who was affected.

" Many sellers around me have been scanned, some with one or two, some with seven or eight, and all of them were done for human purposes. So this scanning should still be done by the Amazon system, which told us that it was based on Amazon's third business policy. " Li Tianlin introduced.

In fact, about a week before Li Tianlin’s account was blocked, sellers’ accounts in the adult category had been swept one after another. A fellow seller in the same category had seven accounts swept, with a total amount of funds in the accounts of about 80,000 to 90,000 yuan.

After his account was blocked, Li Tianlin immediately contacted Amazon customer service, who informed him of the reason for the blockage: the system automatically crawled products using a keyword called Rose, and the products listed on Li Tianlin’s blocked account all used Rose, or had used Rose before. According to his understanding, the seller friends around him who were targeted this time also used or had used the keyword Rose.

Here, sellers in the adult products category are reminded to be wary of this keyword and beware of Amazon’s system scanning before Prime Day.

In Li Tianlin's opinion, Amazon system scanning is a matter of probability. If you are scanned , you are unlucky. He was particularly unlucky last year and this year. For example, not all stores that have used the Rose keyword will be scanned this time. Several of his other stores that also used the Rose keyword are temporarily safe, and some of his friends who used the Rose keyword have not been affected.

It is worth noting that when contacting Amazon, the first customer service directly told Li Tianlin that Amazon does not allow the sale of adult products. Li Tianlin was immediately dumbfounded. Later, he called the second customer service, who said that Amazon can sell adult products.

"The customer service's reply is vague, and I don't know which one to believe. Anyway, I feel that the platform did not say that you are not allowed to sell, it just turned a blind eye. This logic is hard to understand." Li Tianlin expressed confusion.

Amazon's policy clearly prohibits the following products: adult personal products that are pornographic or offensive; products that contain sexually suggestive images of children under 18 (or older, depending on local definition) in any form; second-hand products; sexual health products posted in categories other than adult products; products that contain sexual innuendos; and products that violate any applicable laws or restrictions on the delivery of adult products. The platform has not issued a clear notice that adult products cannot be sold normally.

I will continue to work on Amazon in the future.

What is most difficult for Li Tianlin is that after his account is blocked, there is basically no possibility of appealing.

On May 27, he contacted more than 30 service providers to inquire about the situation of the account being blocked. The service providers finally came to the conclusion that there was no way to save him, so he should be sentenced to death! At most, he would have to wait 90 days to file a fund appeal.

According to Amazon's email reminder, if you want to reactivate a blocked account, you need to submit evidence or documents to prove that the account does not violate the platform's "restricted goods" policy. If the required information is not provided, the account will remain closed, and the funds will remain in the account. The seller can request payment of funds separately after 90 days. However, after communicating with the service provider, Li Tianlin feels that the probability of getting the funds back is very low, and he can only leave it to fate.

After being blocked, Li Tianlin will continue to operate on Amazon. He believes that compared with other platforms, the overall profit on Amazon is still relatively considerable.

"It's exhausting to work on Amazon, but there's nothing I can do about it." After sighing, Li Tianlin continued to devote himself to his business. This seller's tenacity of not admitting defeat and not giving up really fulfilled the joke of his peers: "Amazon has abused me thousands of times, but I still treat Amazon like my first love."

  (Li Tianlin is a pseudonym in this article)

Amazon Platform

Scan number