Brand abuse is spreading! Sellers: It’s too difficult to file a complaint

“Working on Amazon is full of pitfalls, and here comes another one.”

"Brand abuse issues suddenly emerged." Recently, many sellers have been troubled by brand abuse issues. At present, there are multiple factors that cause brand abuse, among which the most reported are the problem of chasing copycat sales and the problem of lawyers.

The affected sellers said that the road to appeal is not easy. Although some sellers have successfully appealed, many sellers have been judged by the platform to have failed in their appeal.

Brand abuse is widespread! What are the reasons why sellers are caught?

Recently, the problem of brand abuse has intensified. Both new and old brands are not immune. Some sellers have even had multiple accounts and brands convicted of abuse, and their brands have been removed, and product reviews have also dropped sharply. According to insiders, the premise for synchronizing reviews on the same link on different sites is that the brand name of the link is the same and the brand has been registered. If the listing brand is removed, the reviews will naturally not be synchronized. The peak season is approaching, but the "brand can drop at any time" incident keeps happening, and the affected sellers are wailing:

It happened very suddenly, and without any other performance announcements, the brand was gone.

This old brand that has been around for many years has been removed from Europe, the United States, and Japan. What does Amazon want to do ?

The lawyer was normal, but the infringement performance was not dealt with in time, but several accounts and brands were removed .

The brand was abused the month before, and now the reviews on other sites are no longer visible.

It is very easy to abuse a brand by copying and selling it , and then the brand will be removed .

It was also removed and I lost the right to edit the listing. I submitted an appeal but am still waiting for a response.

…

Xiao Zhang detailed that the brand was removed from the US site half a month ago, the brand function was restricted, and international reviews were not shared. After checking with the service provider, he learned that there was a problem with his brand agent lawyer , who was either on Amazon's internal blacklist (some lawyers are not on the blacklist, but they are not qualified) or is being sanctioned by the Trademark Office .

In addition to the lawyer issue, a large number of sellers have encountered "unexpected misfortunes" because of the pursuit of copycat sales. Someone has issued a warning: Don't follow the copycat sales recently! Don't file a copyright complaint or a patent complaint if your pictures are stolen, or your title and copy are plagiarized. Because no matter whether the complaint is successful or not, you may receive a system notification that your brand registration has been revoked due to suspected brand abuse!

This makes Amazon sellers panic. Why do complaints about follow-selling and lawyer issues lead to brand abuse? According to the online investment manager, the Amazon platform does not punish sellers who complain, but when seller A complains about seller B, the platform must first verify the identities of "both parties", that is, it needs to verify whether seller A is the brand owner. During the verification process, the brand's information including "lawyers for registered trademarks" will also be reviewed. If it is found that seller A's brand/trademark registration lawyer is "illegal" during the in-depth understanding, then the situation of "seller A originally wanted to complain about seller B, but caused his own brand to be removed from the shelves" will occur.

According to insiders, the factors that cause brand abuse are not limited to the above problems , but may also include the following factors:

1. Other sites violate the rules with the same set of information, or different stores of the same brand violate the rules ( such as infringement, evaluation, second review, etc. ) , but the problems are not resolved, resulting in collective punishment .

2. If the brand has been registered, authorized or whitelisted for more than 5 times, Amazon will question the legitimacy of the illegal use of brand registration or authorization.
3. Frequent complaints of violations through brands ( abuse of reporting tools RAV and Project zero, beyond the established scope of use ) and a low success rate (some sellers said that the complaint success rate was 76% , but they were also removed from the violation reporting rights and their brands were gone) will be considered as abuse of Amazon services, violation of the Seller Code of Conduct, and cause of brand abuse.
4. The trademark registered by the brand is not applied for by itself but purchased through other channels , the store where the trademark is located is in violation of regulations, or the trademark has been revoked by the Trademark Office. The trademarks , stores and brands that are rumored to be exposed online will be marked by Amazon, and even if they are re-registered, they may be judged as brand abuse again .

It is understood that after seeing follow-selling, many sellers will use the Report a Violation tool to report it. In fact, according to the platform, sellers can only use this tool to report suspected infringement of trademarks, copyrights and intellectual property rights to Amazon and seek processing. As long as the follow-selling products are genuine products of your brand, no matter which channel the products come from, they do not infringe your intellectual property rights, and you cannot use RAV. If the seller believes that the follow-selling product "does not match the description", he should go to Amazon Seller Platform -> Performance -> Account Status, and click "Report Abuse of Amazon Policies" on this page to report it.

The success rate of appeals is very low? Experience sharing

Encounter a problem - analyze the cause - solve the problem. Currently, many sellers only stay at the first stage.

Many sellers checked the factors of brand abuse one by one and found that the lawyer problem was the main reason. They changed lawyers in time , but ultimately found that it was of no avail.

One of the sellers said that he was informed of the brand abuse several months ago, but the brand was removed again not long after he appealed. Judging from the notification from Amazon, it seems that the problem can only be solved by using the lawyer recommended by Amazon.

Regarding the lawyer issue, an insider said that changing lawyers may not be helpful, but not changing lawyers will definitely not work . " Some sellers who receive brand abuse emails do have lawyer issues , while some sellers do not only have lawyer issues, but also have brand violations or non-compliant operations. The lawyer issue is only a factor that will inevitably fail the appeal . " According to the insider's summary, the information required for general brand abuse appeals is as follows:

1. If it is a private brand, the merchant needs to provide the trademark acceptance notice and registration number. If it is a brand agent or an authorized brand, a trademark authorization letter is also required.
2. Provide product photos and product packaging photos, which can clearly show the actual photos of the logo.
3. Store business license, legal person ID card and store screenshots.
4. A genuine purchase VAT invoice, which must include the brand name, product ASIN, supplier information, etc.
5. Sales link of the brand’s official website (corresponding to the registered brand).

6. Proof of production, such as a contract or supply agreement with a supplier, needs to reflect the brand name.

According to feedback, appeals are particularly prone to being rejected. Even if an appeal is successful, the brand will face the possibility of being removed again. In addition, the time required for appeals is now very long. One seller who was affected said that he had appealed for more than two months but still had no result, while another seller had been waiting for four months. Because appeals are too difficult, some sellers have chosen to give up.

However, there are also sellers who have successfully appealed. It is said online that the approval rate and response speed of internal appeals such as investment manager/transparency program manager are good, but this method is not generally applicable to sellers.

Another seller successfully saved the brand through payment managers and sending emails to his brother-in-law. The payment manager told him that the root cause of the removal of the brand was the abuse of the US trademark lawyer, which led to the involvement of the European trademark. So he appealed according to the lawyer's abuse and wrote emails to his brother-in-law's email every week. The content was improved and adjusted every time, and the brand was finally restored.

Do you have any experience to share about brand recovery? Feel free to leave a message to discuss.