Recently, there has been a massive wave of aggressive enforcements by Amazon towards dropshippers. This time, they are not targeting just shady accounts operated by scammers based in Asia, but the company is shutting down all kinds dropshippers, including legitimate businesses operated by established US-based entrepreneurs.
Amazon is not just suspending Seller Accounts, but they are closing (“frauding”) Buyer accounts belonging to sellers who are fulfilling sales received on eBay, Walmart or other platforms by purchasing from Amazon sellers to have them ship to their customer’s addresses. This now applies even in cases where the seller isn’t using Amazon Prime for placing the dropshipping orders.
Amazon simply no longer allows anyone to fulfill commercial dropshipping orders using their site!
Suspensions related to dropshipping are now announced with a deactivation wording:
” We deactivated your Amazon.com account, because you have consistently used your Amazon account for the purpose of reselling in a violation of Amazon Terms and Conditions. ”
The following forms of business practices are no longer allowed on Amazon:
- Buying from Amazon to fulfill Amazon orders using Amazon Prime
- Buying from Amazon to fulfill Amazon orders (even without Amazon Prime)
- Buying from Amazon to fulfill other marketplace orders (even without Amazon Prime)
- Buying from Amazon to later resell on their platform (even without Amazon Prime)
Here is how Amazon detects dropshipping violations that lead to account closures:
- Tracking numbers from Buyer Account purchases inserted into Amazon customer orders are an obvious trigger. Don’t even think about doing this!
- Entering the same tracking number repeatedly, across different orders.
- Entering incorrect tracking numbers showing delivery in a different country and with a different shipping date.
- Confirming shipment and refunding.
- Placing large volumes of purchases on Amazon to different addresses and then claiming no -receipt and seeking refunds.
- Placing large volumes of purchases as a buyer on Amazon to different shipping addresses.
How Jacob lost access to his 17 years old Seller Account with 2 million USD yearly turnover
Jacob – a young American man, has been selling on Amazon since high school. He has a large warehouse, where he stores products purchased from other retailers for a resale. At the same time, he manages a massive dropshipping business involving eBay, Walmart, Amazon or AbeBooks. With a team of developers, he created a fully automated software, which identifies the lowest offers for a specific product, advertises the merchandise across e-commerce platforms with a small markup and then places orders and has them fulfilled directly to the customer. Thanks to this profitable business model, Jacob was able to generate millions of dollars in profits per year.
It all started two days ago, when Jacob was unable to access his 17 years old Amazon Seller Account. The login screen greeted him with the following scary message:
“ Account Closed – Your account has been closed for misuse of Amazon’s services. We have sent you an email with additional information. ”
Despite this, his Seller Account storefront remained active and orders were getting received. He was just unable to login to the Amazon Seller Central.
At the same time, Jacob received the following scary e-mail from dsappeal@amazon.com :
In a shock and despair, Jacob sent several frustrated e-mails as a response to the appeal option, which resulted in him getting a final decision, without realizing that he was running out of his appeal attempts:
Jacob did not understand what happened to his account and spent a lot of time searching the internet for answers. Then, he found my recent article about Seller Account Holds and subscribed to my Onlyfans page, in order to get help with his account.
What actually happened to Jacob’s Seller Account
After investigating the matter with Jacob, I informed him that his Buyer account has been placed on a hold, which is internally referred to by Amazon as a ”frauded account” or terminated / closed account.
Since his Buyer Account is closed, he is unable to access his Seller Account as well, despite it remains fully operational. Thanks to his automated software which works through API, Jacob can still remotely process Amazon orders and mark them as dispatched. This gives him more time to resolve the situation and prevent damage to his metrics.
If you would like to learn more about Amazon Account holds, read my article regarding the matter: https://seller-union.com/what-to-do-when-your-amazon-seller-account-gets-placed-on-a-hold/.
We quickly determined the cause of the Buyer Account closure – Jacob has been placing hundreds of dropshipping orders per day directly using his Buyer Account that belongs to his Seller Account.
He also told me, how he noticed that all of his other competitors – all large dropshipping businesses, appear to be suspended as well and their storefronts are empty. This reiterates that Amazon is cracking down on dropshipping.
The e-mail address from which he received the original deactivation notice is dsappeal@amazon.com, which stands for ”dropshipping appeal”.
What is shocking about this case – the orders were not placed through Amazon Prime, they were regular purchases. Additionally, he never submitted any A-Z claims, cancellations, returns or refunds.
So this is a complete game changer! Amazon is now entirely outlawing dropshipping on their platform performed by buyers, despite they originally only prohibited misuse of the Amazon Prime Program for this purpose.
Regardless, all Amazon sellers need to remember NOT TO EVER use the Buyer Account connected to their actual Amazon Seller Account for making purchases.
I would strongly advise you not to ever buy on Amazon, if you are a seller on the platform. Even the slightest issue – such as leaving a negative Seller Feedback or requesting a return from another seller could land you into a trouble.
Additionally, you should always maintain a separate e-mail address with User Permissions into your Seller Account, which will enable you to access the Seller Central even after your Buyer Account gets closed.
Next Steps for Jacob
Jacob will need to appeal the Buyer Account closure with a good Plan of Action. We will see, if Amazon still responds through the dsappeal@amazon.com channel, since there were many appeal attempts made before he contacted me.
If there is no response, we will submit the appeal using different channels for executive escalations.
Here you can find the full Plan of Action, which I prepared for Jacob to appeal his Buyer Account closure: https://onlyfans.com/268410699/kikaangelic.
In case that you are a dropshipper, who is worried about his Amazon business or you already received the dreaded deactivation notice, feel free to subscribe to my OnlyFans page at www.onlyfans.com/kikaangelic, where I will assist you for $24.99 per month.
Additionally, here you can watch my YouTube video, where I am presenting you several secret tips about appealing Amazon Seller Account suspensions (don’t be confused by the opening of the video, where I am enjoying a vacation – it’s a part of the story):
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