40 accounts were blocked overnight! Amazon seller information was suspected to be leaked

The Dragon Boat Festival holiday was not peaceful, as Amazon had another wave of account bans. Some sellers had more than 40 accounts banned, while others had 16 accounts banned. After the holiday, the panic caused by the ban continued to spread among sellers, and this incident further fermented.

According to insiders, this wave of account blocking came from the platform's system sweep. The blocked seller accounts are mainly divided into two situations: 1. Historical problems caused the associated accounts to be blocked; 2. New accounts were judged as zombie accounts because of no sales. Among them, cases caused by associated factors accounted for more than 70%.

It is also reported that Amazon’s scanning efforts are very strong this time, and the platform may force payment companies to provide sellers’ sub-account information in order to better troubleshoot related issues. This is chilling!

As Amazon continues to strengthen its compliance efforts, the probability of Amazon account suspension due to association is higher, and this cause of death seems to have upgraded from the original frequent IP address association to the association in the operational details.

Another wave of account blocking is coming, 40 seller accounts are affected

Just when Amazon sellers were busy celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival, Amazon launched a new round of account sweeps. One seller had more than 40 accounts blocked overnight, and was stunned when he woke up, and hurried to find the cause of the blockage; another seller had 16 accounts blocked, some of which still had goods on the way, while others were vacant accounts.

There are many cases of sellers whose accounts were suddenly blocked, and most of them were discovered on the morning of June 4. However, some sellers encountered this problem as early as the evening of June 3.

According to an industry insider, Qingtianli, early on Saturday (June 4), many people said their accounts were blocked due to association. Based on the situation of the affected sellers, it seems that Amazon robots conducted a large-scale account scan the day before.

This time, the gun of account sweeping was aimed at two directions: association and new accounts. Because the proportion of sellers whose accounts were blocked due to association should be as high as 70%, the three boutique sellers he knew were all blocked due to association, and they were found to be affected on Saturday.

In the following days, some sellers also encountered similar situations. On June 5, an Amazon seller said that an account was suspended today because of association.

One seller said that he was tricked this time because he was linked to an account that had been removed from the shelves due to association. Apart from selling the products that had been removed from the shelves due to association, he did not commit any other violations.

The account bans caused by association this time are mostly historical problems, that is, the sellers have previously performed operations that may cause associations, but Amazon did not pay attention to them. The problems broke out during this scan.

Sellers whose accounts have been blocked have received an email from Amazon: Your account has now been deactivated and the listing has been deleted. Within 90 days of receiving this notice, you can apply for funds to be paid by contacting the payment method. We will conduct a separate investigation to evaluate your account. If we find that you have violated the policy again, we may withhold some or all of the funds in your account. This situation mainly occurs because we cannot verify the information related to your seller account, or we have not received any information about the listing and sales history.

According to Amazon's relevant tips, the seller whose account was blocked asked the service provider to check the cause of the account's death and found that the factors that caused the association were not one type, but multiple information points including developer account association, mobile phone number association, etc. The service provider believed that one of the important points was GCID .

After analyzing with the sellers, Qingtianli also believes that many of the causes of death associated with this incident should be from GCID, which may involve brand association issues.

Many Amazon sellers will perform the following routine operations: after registering a brand, they will register the brand to account a. If account a is shut down by the platform after violating regulations such as brushing reviews or merging reviews, the seller will cancel the brand of account a, and then register the same brand to account b, thinking they can sit back and relax. In fact, this will cause account b to be associated with account a, and account b will also be blocked in this scan.

This brand association can also lead to another situation. For example, if a seller's brand is sold on both the European site and the American site, if the account on the American site is blocked, the seller's European site may also be swept up in this sweep operation because of the association.

Therefore, some service providers and sellers have speculated that this brand association was the main reason for the account being blocked.

Of course, there are other cases where sellers were victimized due to association issues, such as credit card association, mobile phone number association, developer account association, etc.

Take mobile phone number association as an example. A victim seller registered two accounts with two mobile phone numbers. He thought there was no problem. However, he used the same number for overseas warehouse return contact. As a result, he was also compromised. So he guessed that it is not risk-free to register accounts with different mobile phone numbers. The same return phone number may also cause association.

Generally speaking, this connection is caused by historical problems. Based on the actual situation of the affected sellers, Qingtianli believes that Amazon's sweep this time is quite strong. The historical problems that were not swept up in the past were almost all swept out this time. One of the manifestations is that even if the account is forcibly closed and re-registered, it will be swept out.

Amazon sellers may often see that many service providers are promoting forced account cancellation services. Amazon account closures are divided into normal closures and forced closures. For sellers, if the account is closed normally and then registered, it is completely compliant. However, as the platform policy tightens, some sellers need service providers to help them forcefully close their accounts and delete related information. After the operation is completed, the seller thinks that the information has been cleaned up and can use this set of information to re-register the account. When service providers promote this type of service, they generally emphasize that it must be clean and there will be no association.

However, this is not absolutely safe. This situation may have been peaceful before, but some sellers who were forced to cancel their accounts have encountered account scans this time.

Collection agency or submitting seller information to Amazon?

The reason why Amazon’s scanning efforts are so strong this time may be related to the issue of the collection company submitting the seller’s account information to the platform.

From the key information in Amazon's email, some sellers pointed out that the account may be blocked because of problems with the payment account. There have been similar cases before, where sellers have encountered account scanning, and new and old stores registered with real information have been scanned multiple times. The cause of death may be that the payment account was judged as a high-risk account.

A senior seller in the industry pointed out that it is possible that there is a problem with the payment account. Currently, many domestic sellers have sub-accounts of the payment account, that is, the seller registers an account of a payment company, which will be divided into many sub-accounts, and each sub-account corresponds to a store.

If Amazon asks the payment company to provide information on how many stores are linked to the main account, the seller's information will be exposed.

What’s scary is that, according to speculation from some sellers, some payment collection companies may be cooperating with Amazon’s requirements and providing information about sellers’ payment accounts, because this is a relevant requirement of the platform and the payment collection companies have no say.

This senior seller said frankly that faced with the platform’s requirements, the collection company may have no way to deal with it.

After Amazon learns the seller's payment account information, if the seller has 20 payment accounts under one main account, then when one of the accounts has a problem, Amazon can check the other 19 accounts. If they are found, it may involve violations, because according to the platform's policy, a company can only open one account.

Amazon seller Da Bing said that this Amazon account scan has sounded the alarm for sellers: they must operate in compliance, because it is difficult to appeal against account suspension caused by association issues, and if a seller is affected, it is difficult to restore the account. In the future, the wiser approach for sellers is to have one account for one brand. Amazon's ultimate goal is to have one account for one company.

Da Bing further said that as the platform strengthens the compliance operations of sellers, operational details can easily lead to associations, resulting in seller accounts being blocked. Take the brand registration issue as an example. If a brand registration may cost about 3,000 yuan, the cost of a store is also around 3,000 yuan . The seller's inventory for a link may be more than 6,000 yuan. If the account is blocked due to association issues , the loss of the account, product transfer fees and other losses may be far more than 6,000 yuan.

Therefore, sellers should weigh the details of the operation and try to avoid losses.

For sellers, if they want to be safe and compliant, the usual approach is to have one store, one brand, and one listing, completely isolating some non-compliant or dangerous factors, so as to minimize losses. If sellers need to add listings, they should analyze the benefit-risk ratio in advance.

In addition to the above-mentioned account bans due to association, some new accounts were also cleared during Amazon's cleanup.

New accounts are considered zombie accounts and are difficult to recover.

The blocking of new accounts has always happened frequently, but during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, the blocking of new accounts also broke out in a concentrated manner.

"New accounts being scanned happen every day, but on Saturday many people sent me messages saying that they were scanned. No one was at work on Sunday, so there wasn't much feedback. But as soon as I got to work on Monday, many people in various groups sent me messages saying that they were scanned again." said Da Bing.

The emails these sellers received are as follows:

Amazon's Seller Performance team said that the seller's Amazon.com seller account has been deactivated and the listing has been deleted because the information associated with the seller's account could not be verified or no new information about the seller's products or sales history was received.

Next, sellers need to send outstanding orders to avoid further impact on their accounts. 90 days after receiving this notice, sellers can request funds to be paid by contacting [email protected]. Amazon will conduct a separate investigation to evaluate its account. If the platform finds that the seller is engaged in deceptive, fraudulent or illegal activities, or abuses the platform system or repeatedly violates its policies to protect customers and sales partners, Amazon may withhold some or all funds in the seller's account.

If a seller registers an account but does not sell anything, the platform will consider it a zombie account. This is why some accounts that have not been operated for a long time were swept up in this action. In addition, some accounts that have sales records were not spared.

One seller said that 16 of his accounts were cleared out overnight. Most of them were accounts registered last year, but there were also a small number of accounts that had just been put on the shelves, had just placed orders a few days ago, or whose goods were already on the way.

It is reasonable to clean up zombie accounts, but it is hard to explain why accounts with sales were also closed. According to sellers’ feedback, it is possible that it is related to virtual credit cards. Because the reason for the closure is unknown, sellers are very dissatisfied with being caught for no reason:

"I just placed an order the day before, but I still received an email the next day. How can I seek justice?"

"I appealed yesterday and the normal orders were not accepted. My account clearly placed orders every day, but they said I was inactive."

"We were also issuing orders normally, but they were suspended for no reason and asked us to submit materials."

In February this year , Amazon also had a similar cleanup of new accounts. A seller registered an account at the end of last year, but it was closed one month after the sale began. There were still hundreds of thousands of goods in the account. He submitted relevant information as required by the platform, but after waiting for a few days, the platform still did not respond and the account was still closed.

As things stand, this type of ID scanning problem is difficult to resolve once it occurs. Amazon made it clear in the notification email that it may not respond to emails on this issue.

"This email is different from associated emails. Associated appeals may be successful, but basically no one has had their appeal passed. It is 100% unsuccessful. Some sellers spent money to check the cause of account death, but the result was that it was unrecoverable." said Da Bing.

During the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, in addition to a large number of accounts being directly shut down, multiple accounts were given yellow cards - they received account deactivation risk notifications.

It is understood that most of the accounts that received yellow risk warnings had received warning letters for violations before. "In January this year, we received a warning letter for manipulating reviews and rankings, but we did not appeal. Before the Dragon Boat Festival, we received a risk warning and our account suddenly turned yellow! Should I appeal? If the appeal is not successful, will the account be closed? Should I admit that I had faked orders before?" A seller was very confused.

There are many similar cases. Many sellers said that they had received warnings on their accounts before but did not appeal. During the holiday, the backend homepage suddenly showed a yellow label, which frightened them. In response, the customer service said that the account team was doing an inventory recently and sent reminders to all seller accounts that violated the policy.

Industry service providers analyzed that this time the store had a record of violations and also received a suspension risk notice. Amazon's account status panel is designed to remind sellers to pay attention to the health of their accounts. If violations are discovered, they need to be stopped and corrected in a timely manner.

One seller said that he had violated the review policy before and was about to expire the 180-day observation period, but he received a yellow warning. So he went to the company to work overtime to write an appeal letter, which was quickly approved after submission and the warning was lifted. It is still recommended that everyone appeal according to the requirements.

Triggering changes in correlation factors, sellers need to pay attention to operational details

Account suspension due to association is very common. For example, in the payment account, it is common practice to set up multiple sub-accounts under one main account, and about 90% of sellers will do so. However, Amazon will not catch all such operations, but will select stores generated within a certain period of time for scanning.

"For example, before the New Year, he chose a new store registered in a certain period between 2021 and 2022 and started the operation. If there is no problem with your 20 stores, then there is no problem. When one of your 20 stores has a problem and touches his bottom line, then the other 19 stores will also have problems. The reason why most sellers have not reported that their accounts were blocked due to the association of the payment account is because of this: first, he will choose a time period, and second, he chose the time period where your account is located, but there is no problem with your account." Qingtianli said.

However, judging from this large-scale related incident, the reasons leading to the account blocking have gradually changed.

Previously, IP address associations were frequent, but now the main association factor seems to have been upgraded to operational details. Qingtianli said that this time he contacted multiple sellers to collect information, and has not yet found a correlation caused by environmental and IP issues. The main cause of the association this time is operational and operational issues.

How can sellers avoid potential association risks? First, ensure the authenticity of the registration information; second, operate the store in compliance with regulations after registration, and do not easily associate the secondary account with the main account through trademark authorization, etc.

"Amazon is now forcing everyone to have only one account per company. This is the ultimate goal. Generally speaking, the most compliant approach for sellers is to move closer to Amazon's requirements. You should try your best to give yourself sufficient reasons to tell Amazon, 'I only have this one account for my company,' instead of asking the platform why the rules are so strict.

Amazon didn’t care before, but this rule has always existed and has not changed. Suppose a law prohibits this, and you say it’s difficult, but you have to do it despite the difficulties. ”

Last year, Amazon vigorously shut down a number of heavyweight accounts. Now there is another wave of cleanup before Prime Day. Will the revenue contribution of third-party sellers be affected? Qingtianli clearly stated that it will not be affected. "The stores that are closed are those that do not comply with regulations. This will not affect the GMV of the platform."

After experiencing this platform turmoil, most sellers regard compliance as the first operating principle, and gradually achieve transparency in operational details, account ownership, etc. In terms of account registration, the changes of the big seller Yibai Network are quite representative.

Before 2020, Yibai Network had opened a large number of stores in the name of its employees. In 2018, Yibai Network opened 223 online stores on third-party e-commerce platforms in the name of its employees or third-party entities, with sales reaching 388 million yuan; in 2019, the number of such stores soared to 333, contributing nearly 20% of the company's revenue, reaching 668 million yuan.

However, considering the problem of operational standardization, Yibai Network began to reduce such stores, changing and restoring third-party stores with good operating conditions to Yibai Network or its subsidiaries, and closing smaller stores. By mid-2020, the number of stores opened in the name of employees or third parties had dropped sharply to 34.

A few days ago, Huakai Yibai announced the "Cross-border Export E-commerce Business Online Store and Store Company Management System", which clearly mentioned two points. First, when opening an online store on a third-party platform, one must strictly abide by the platform's operating rules and apply for an online store through the company or subsidiary; second, Yibai Network still has online stores in the name of third parties, but from the date of issuance of the system, it is no longer allowed to operate online stores in the name of third parties, and it is necessary to gradually complete the cleanup of online stores in the name of third parties.

The attitude of the big sellers is very clear. At the same time, the presence of various illegal operations in the industry has also been significantly reduced. Sellers are trying to stabilize the situation with white hat tactics and operate within the compliance area circled by Amazon rules.

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