Imagine if you went into work on a Monday morning and as soon as you walk in the door, the boss pulls you into the office and tells you that you are being suspended. He says he doesn’t have any proof that you did anything wrong, but until you can prove that you are innocent, you cannot come back to work. Also, the paycheck that you were supposed to get on Friday for last week’s work is being withheld until the investigation is over, and possibly indefinitely. Sounds like complete bullshit, right? Well, that’s exactly what happened to me on Amazon.com.
As some of you may know if you have seen my Community Tab on YouTube, I have been selling my game collection so we can get out of our shitty apartment. There are also a lot of other things that we need money for, so I have been doing everything I can to make sure we meet those goals.
So I decided to start listing stuff on Ebay. Things were fine there for a while, but I started getting annoyed chasing down deadbeats who didn’t pay right away, and some auctions ended a lot lower than they should have. Was getting fed up with the situation over there, so I decided I would start selling on Amazon. I used to sell there and really liked how easy it was and I made some pretty good money. It had been a while since I sold on there, probably about 5 years or so, but I was still fairly active buying stuff. Went to start listing items and discovered that the seller portion of my account had been closed due to inactivity, and if I would like to start selling again, I would have to create a brand new account. Alright, no biggie, I’ll just make a new Seller Account then.
It actually was a big deal though, as selling on Amazon has changed quite a bit. It used to be just providing a name, email, bank info, and possibly a credit card. Now you not only need all that, you also need to scan or take pictures of your ID and utility bills along with filling out like 80,000 other pieces of information. Another thing is that you have to start off with the Professional Seller Account, which costs 40 dollars a month. You used to be able to choose the free Individual Seller Program right from the start, but not anymore. After that comes the waiting process to be approved.
After about a day or so, I was given the green light. My first order of business was downgrading to the free account. Unfortunately I was already charged for the first month, and could not find any way to get my money back. I did find out a few months later that you can request a refund for this, but Amazon tries really hard to bury the link in hopes that you don’t find it. I can’t even begin to imagine how much money they have made off of people that couldn’t find this link.
Anyways, I started listing some items, and got some sales within a few days. Everything was working out well for about 5 or 6 weeks. Then one day, I log onto my account to see if I had any orders, and I see a notice from Amazon saying that they have suspended my account and removed all of my listings. Here’s the email that was sent to me;
So let me get this straight; you think I either have counterfeit merch or I don’t have them at all, and if I don’t prove it with receipts from my supplier, you’re going to deactivate my account and steal my fucking money? So I sent an admittedly hasty and not so professional appeal stating that I have no supplier. These are all games from my personal collection that I’m selling, and provided pictures showing that I do have the items and they are in fact legit. Aaaaaand I got back a very plastic response from someone that obviously didn’t read what I wrote. Basically, they didn’t see any receipts, so they would not accept my appeal. I thought it may have been some kind of bot responding to me, but after doing some digging it seems that the people that look at these don’t speak the best English, and they have to review a ton of these every day. You can see that the poor person that reviewed my appeal was so over-worked that he completely forgot to put my name in the response.
If they did think I was selling fake merch or items I didn’t own, wouldn’t it make more sense to just take down the items in question instead of suspending my entire account? The thing is, my account had 100% positive feedback, I always provided a tracking number, I shipped everything on time (within 2 business days), and had no negative stats such as return requests. So why the hell am I being punished without any proof? I guess that’s another part of their scam. Not only do they get to rip off 40 bucks from every new seller that can’t find the refund link, but they also get to keep earnings after deactivating people for no reason.
One thing I don’t understand about all of this is that I have been doing everything right, and got suspended. Meanwhile, there are sellers that have feedback hovering around 80% or less, and they get to keep selling? WHAT THE FUCK?!? You can’t tell me people like this are keeping within the ‘strict’ Amazon quality guidelines.
I’m not the only one this has happened to either. After doing some research, I found that many other users have been suspended for stupid reasons, and many of them never got their accounts back. What’s even worse is that it can take Amazon 6 to 9 months to give you the money you have earned, and in some cases, they will just keep it. I am out about 80 dollars (not including the 40 they ripped off from me when I joined), but many others have had thousands of dollars being held while Amazon conducted their slow investigation and appeals process.
So what are my options now? Well, I can just wait and let things take their course and pray that they do the right thing and give me the money they owe. I could also go through the arbitration process, which typically takes a couple of months. I will probably choose the latter option. I can also do what I’m doing now; getting the word out on social media and informing others about some of the slimy stuff this company is up to. Maybe if I can make enough noise on social media, I can get them to expedite the appeals process and give me my money.
Has Amazon or any other company tried to screw you out of money? Let me know in the comments section down below!
Bawesome Blog 