Amazon is frantically scanning numbers, and a large number of accounts have been suddenly deactivated!

On March 20, Amazon’s spring sale kicked off in North America and Europe, but for many sellers, it was a Black Wednesday.

Yesterday afternoon, a large number of accounts were directly deactivated in batches, involving many old accounts. Amazon emailed that these accounts were abused, and the sellers had no idea why the accounts were blocked, and were extremely anxious. In response, a manager speculated that this was a routine cleanup before the big promotion, and that the operation that was originally loosely reviewed was strictly enforced according to the terms.

Amazon is in trouble, and a large number of accounts have been suddenly suspended

On Wednesday evening, Amazon sellers were in an uproar, with many sellers saying their accounts were suddenly blocked and the reason for the account scanning was unknown. Feedback from the industry continued:

" We have already had three accounts scanned, and I've seen dozens of them. "

"Two accounts received it, both of which were old accounts with no violations."

"I lost 5 accounts today. I am so tired. They are all clean old accounts. The oldest one is four or five years old."

"An old account with no violations was swept, and many people in the seller group received emails."

" The store is closed . The goods were shipped last week, but the store is closed today. "

Judging from the time, the emails for blocking the accounts were not sent at the same time, but in batches. As for the affected accounts, there are old accounts that have been used for many years, and new stores that have just uploaded products, and the violations of the accounts are different. Many sellers also said that their accounts were swept without any illegal operations, and now the goods they sent are still floating on the sea, and they don’t know how to deal with them.

There are two things that the industry is confused about this account sweep: first, the account was directly shut down, and second, the reason for the account closure was described in a vague manner, making it impossible to analyze where the problem lies. Amazon only said in the email that the sellers violated " Article 3 " :

Your Amazon seller account has been deactivated and your listings have been deleted in accordance with Section 3 of the Amazon Business Solutions Agreement . Please continue to ship open orders and respond to customer inquiries to avoid further impact to your account. Funds will not be transferred to you but will remain in your account while we work with you to resolve this issue in accordance with the Funds Disbursement Eligibility Policy.

Amazon said the reason for the ban was that these accounts were used for abusive activities, violating platform policies. From the summary information, the abuse includes the following:

1. Taking unfair actions or abusing Amazon features or services

2. Providing inaccurate information to Amazon customers

3. Attempts to influence customer ratings, feedback, and reviews

If the seller believes that Amazon has suspended their account in error, they can click "Reactivate your account" on the top banner of the "Account Health" page to submit an explanation. The explanation should include: 1. The reason why the suspension should be reversed; 2. Evidence supporting the explanation, including but not limited to invoices, receipts, orders or emails.

However, the reasons for the suspension are unclear, and sellers have no way to appeal, so some sellers choose to wait and see. Some sellers bluntly said that the suspension is serious and that a suspension with an appeal box is rarely approved, which is equivalent to liquidation.

This incident has caused heated discussions on Zhiwubuyan. A seller analyzed that the several stores that were swept were pure white hat games, with independent IPs, no reviews, fake orders, or follow-up sales. They were all linked to a single store, and the brand was also newly registered. Because the possible reasons for the account suspension could not be sorted out, the seller has contacted the account manager to make a medical examination report.

There are many similar cases. Another seller said that her store that was shut down this time was also operated by white hats. She asked for help from the account specialist, but the other party said that they did not have the authority to view the reason for the account closure and suggested submitting the business license, legal person ID card and utility bills. The staff member’s point of view is that as long as the seller has written that he has self-checked and there are no problems such as fake orders, it should be the platform’s mistake to close the store, and he can submit an appeal.

Scan the number before the big promotion, the policy implementation may be strict

Regarding this number scan, a manager speculated that this was a routine cleanup before a big sale, and that the operation, which was originally subject to loose review, was strictly enforced according to the terms.

Amazon North America held a March Sale from March 20 to 25, which was the first time the North American site held a big sale in the spring. In addition, the European site also held a spring sale from March 20 to 25, and the Japanese site will hold an April sale from March 29 to April 1. Amazon held a promotion in the off-season in the hope of attracting a wave of heavy traffic, so it is not surprising that some problematic accounts were cleared before that.

Before this wave of account bans, Amazon had already sent out signals of strict investigations.

Merging variants is a common operation for sellers, and Amazon has previously turned a blind eye to it. However, since this year, sellers’ links have been checked and they have received variant warnings. Since March, a large number of sellers have been caught and have directly received red warnings from the platform. Amazon’s email pointed out that the account was deactivated because one or more ASIN variants created by the seller violated the ASIN creation policy. Some sellers were banned for variant violations, all listings were cleared, and the 3 million account balance was frozen. After that, sellers almost completely stopped illegal variant operations.

The sellers whose accounts were blocked this time are looking for the reasons for the violation. Some service providers said that the reasons for the blocking may include problems such as old stores having performance infringements, newly registered stores being directly swept, and accounts having variant violations.

A banned seller's backstage reminder: "Act fairly" - You must act fairly and legally and must not abuse any services provided by Amazon. Examples of unfair behavior include:

1. Providing misleading or inappropriate information to Amazon buyers, such as creating multiple detail pages for the same product or posting offensive product images;

2. Manipulate sales rankings (such as accepting false orders, accepting orders that you pay for yourself, accepting orders with refunds outside of the order, or receiving orders with discounts outside of the order) or claim sales ranking information in the product name or description;

3. Trying to raise the price of goods after the order is confirmed;

4. Artificially increase network traffic (for example, using robots or paying for clicks);

5. Trying to increase search rankings by manipulating keywords or influencing buyers’ search behavior through incentives (making it appear as natural search behavior);

6. Allowing others to act on your behalf in a manner that violates Amazon policies or violates your agreement with Amazon.

In the past, sellers were often banned for violating Article 3 of the Amazon Agreement, which can be summarized as fraud, false or illegal activities, refunds or payments without sufficient reasons, and most of the time, sellers manipulated rankings, fake orders, etc. Sellers can look for clues from this.

At present, some service providers claim to have found a solution for this number scanning problem, but the service price is relatively high, so sellers can wait and see.