What to do when your Amazon Seller Account gets placed on a hold?

Have you suddenly lost access either to your buyer or seller account without any notification from Amazon? Are you hopeless and desperate? Read the most detailed article addressing this topic from a seasoned advisor Kika Angelic to learn everything you need to know.

When something goes wrong on the Amazon marketplace, your Seller Account will typically get suspended following a deactivation e-mail, until you address the matter by preparing a Plan of Action. While the situation can be very upsetting, at least you can still login to the Seller Central and manage your store.

However, there are severe actions which Amazon routinely takes, that cause even more distress to third party sellers than regular suspensions. These are called “Account Holds” and formally referred to as “frauded accounts” or “frauded account status” by Amazon employees.

Amazon places a hold on an account when security concerns are raised – this can happen due to numerous reasons, which are not mentioned in public policies available in the Seller Central.

In addition, no e-mails or notifications are sent to the affected individuals informing them of this action being taken or advising any steps how to proceed and have the matter resolved. This makes the experience very scary and unexpected.

Here I am listing some very common reasons for seller or buyer account holds on Amazon:

• You suddenly logged into your buyer/seller account after a long time of dormancy and then immediately started making updates to account details or listing products.
• You accessed your buyer/seller account from an unusual location (distant foreign country) or using a new device.
• You repeatedly entered incorrect password or OTP code when entering your buyer/seller account.
• Your charge method on file was rejected when making a purchase as a buyer or paying for selling fees and a chargeback was filed or the card was reported as stolen.
• You used your buyer account to damage a competitor. This includes placing test buys.
• You misused your buyer account for facilitating drop shipping, especially through Amazon Prime.
• You are misusing Amazon gift cards for illegal activity to avoid being traced.
• You have a high purchase return rate exceeding 10% as a buyer and Amazon has evidence that you are sending back damaged/unsellable items, therefore causing them expenses.
• You experienced a sudden increase in sales as a seller and it appears to Amazon that you are not fulfilling the orders. This is especially the case with old accounts, which are not subject to disbursement holds.
• You are maintaining a high amount of sales without entering a sufficient tracking information and you have long shipping and handling times.
• You are confirming orders as shipped and then refunding, when you run out of stock, instead of properly cancelling orders.
• You sold or transferred your buyer/seller account.
• You appear to be aiming to artifically increase the sales rank of your products.
• You have a lot of unanswered Buyer-seller messages and your Seller Account is experiencing an increase of non-receipt claims.
• You are listing a high volume of new listings at a “too good to be true” price.
• You are offering replacements to customers reporting non-receipt claims.
• Your Seller Account is old and not subject to payment holds and you are requesting daily disbursements while seeing an increase of sales.
• You are e-mailing Amazon’s higher departments with frivolous complaints, including complaining that you lost the Buy Box or that your items are no longer selling.

There are many other reasons and the situations mentioned above are just some examples.

When a buyer or seller account is placed on a hold by Amazon, the buyer/seller loses his entire access and ability to login.

Amazon Seller Account holds typically don’t affect both the buyer and seller account. However, if you share the same login e-mail address with your buyer account as a seller, you won’t be able to login into the Seller Central either, despite your Seller Account remains fully active and accepting orders.

If you are unsure about your type of a hold, here are some notes which may help you:

Buyer account holds – The seller is unable to access his buyer account but his storefront still displays all products as available for sale. All Amazon-related notifications continue being sent to the seller through e-mail or Amazon Seller App. If the affected seller uses identical login details, then he is unable to access the Seller Central. He can still post on the Amazon Seller Forum and ask for help.

Seller account holds – The seller is unable to access both his buyer and seller account. His storefront appears suspended and no products are available for sale. No Amazon-related e-mails or notifications are being received. The affected seller is unable to post on the Amazon Seller Forum and if he posts there using a different Seller Account requesting help with restoring his access to the other store, one of the moderators will immediately permanently ban him from the forum and delete any thread started regarding the matter.

Amazon Buyer Account Holds

Buyer account holds are more common and they are quite easy to get resolved. Some of them are lifted within a few minutes or hours past enforcement, but it remains crucial to act quickly.

The affected individual can call the buyer Customer Service and explain the matter. Following this, he should be connected to an Account Specialist over the phone or advised to e-mail address-verification@amazon.co.uk. It may be necessary to provide Amazon some verification documents such as bank account statements or credit card statements.

Why is Amazon placing Buyer Accounts on a hold?

When detecting suspicious activity, including having a payment for an order rejected by the bank, incorrect password being entered or the account accessed from an unusual location (such as Egypt, Algeria by a Belgian or Japanese registered buyer), Amazon suspects that the charge method was stolen or account compromised. They will therefore place the account on a hold and request verification documents.

If a newly registered buyer uses $1000 worth of Amazon gift cards on their first day to buy the latest iPhone, this raises red flags as well. Scammers are routinely buying Amazon gift cards using stolen credit cards and then purchasing expensive goods. The illegal activity doesn’t end there. If they manage to receive the goods, they will often request a return and send back a box filled with dirt or a brick to receive a full refund.

There are buyers who are misusing Amazon’s generous return policies to send back faulty items from home and exchange them for a new unit or even returning half-empty boxes with accessories and content missing, claiming that it was received in this condition. While Amazon rarely refuses a return or a refund, they are silently monitoring the numbers and once the loss exceeds any profit, action will be taken against the customer.

Many sellers will place an order from a competitor to damage them or try to take advantage of their own knowledge of Amazon’s inner performance targets and extort their supplier by threatening them with a negative feedback.

Amazon can detect potential fraudulent activity and following this, they will take action.

How to prevent and proactively protect your business against Buyer Account Holds:

• Never purchase anything using the buyer account connected to your Amazon storefront and maintain a separate buyer account to buy on Amazon or don’t buy on Amazon at all. If you decide to buy through Amazon anyway (just like I do), don’t leave any Seller Feedback Ratings or Product Reviews and don’t initiate returns, cancellations, A-to-Z Guarantee Claims or Chargebacks. Don’t click on “Helpful” or “Unhelpful” votes on Product Reviews.
• Enable user permissions through the Amazon Seller Central for at least one alternative e-mail address. This way, once your Buyer Account gets placed on a hold, you will be still able to access your Seller Account using the backup e-mail address, which has User Permissions.

Amazon Seller Account Holds

Seller Account holds are less common than Buyer Account holds, however once they happen, their effects are extremely damaging to the entire business affected and it can take anything from a few weeks to years to have them lifted.

Merchants registered before August 2016 are more likely to have their accounts placed on a hold, because their funds are not subjected to rolling reserves and they are able to request a full disbursement anytime, prior to fulfillment.

You will most likely learn about your Seller Account being placed on a hold by seeing an innocently looking message in a red rectangle stating “Help us protect your account: We have detected unusual activity on your account and have locked it temporarily. Please contact customer service for further assistance”, when trying to login:

Alternatively, you will see a wording stating that you are not authorized to access the Seller Central or that specific user:

“Status – Status for your currently selected merchant and marketplace – (i) Welcome to Seller Central – You don’t have access yet. Sign in as a different user.”

There will be strange looking CID, MCID, MKID and S codes under the notice, along with a date and time, as pictured:

Amazon keeps changing the login screens when a “frauded” seller tries to enter the Seller Central, however you will most likely see something similar, as above.

If you think that you will be able to simply appeal and get reinstated, this is not the case here. Since you are not sent any explanation, you have no access to your account, you can’t post on the forum or contact Amazon in any other way, you will very soon become very desperate.

After spending several days escalating the matter and e-mailing all possible Amazon departments including the Seller Performance, Managing Director or Jeff Bezos, here is what will typically land into your e-mail inbox:

As you can see, the wording doesn’t mention any specific reason or an indication of a reason. It will be up to you to find out what is behind the account hold.

Sadly, this specific type of enforcement is typically enacted towards large, well-established sellers, who are processing thousands of orders per month, therefore they end up being presented with a hopeless situation – knowing that their metrics will explode if they don’t regain access quickly.

Many victims will immediately search for a prominent Amazon Seller Account reinstatement expert, thinking that a payment of a large retainer fee ranging from $1000 to $20000 will get them back to the platform. However, you should know that the vast majority of such service providers will reject this type of work or only promise assistance with no guarantee of a success. You will be told that “frauded accounts” are nearly impossible to appeal.

I have been reinstating Amazon Sellers subjected to Seller Account Holds since I was 19 and I possess a deep understanding of Amazon’s standard operating procedures. Rather than requesting a fortune from desperate businesses, I was mostly assisting them completely for free, just to perfect my skills and learn something new.

However, because of my success, I became targeted both by unsuccessful rival advisors and their befriended Amazon Executives, who got me defamed and removed from the Amazon Seller Forum, where I was providing the free assistance. If you don’t know my story, here you can learn more and even support me, if you found this article helpful: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-for-victim-of-cyberbullying-on-Amazon-site.

I am currently still offering assistance with Amazon-related matters, however because of my situation and increased expenses, I started charging a small fee of $24.99 through my OnlyFans page, where anyone can subscribe to access my Amazon appeal work at www.onlyfans.com/kikaangelic. There, you will be able to find example appeals addressing Seller Account Holds or even message me privately and have me assist you.

The vast majority of Seller Account Holds which I witnessed in my client’s cases were enforced towards foreign sellers, often drop shippers, who processed thousands of orders, frequently refunded, didn’t ship using tracked shipping carriers supported by Amazon and setup long shipping and handling times.

Others were small sellers who got into a conflict with a competing merchant over a listing, which they shared and unwisely placed a test buy to leave them a negative feedback.

But each case is individual. The most important thing is not to run out of your appeal attempts by emotively bombarding Amazon with e-mails – you only have a few attempts available.

Account Holds are not appealed with a Plan of Action, but by proving Amazon that they “erred” – were wrong when making the decision.

I have seen cases where sellers did not appeal at all but instead aimed to “go public” and “go viral” and achieved a restoration of their account by publishing a catchy blog or a shocking LinkedIn post, evidencing their outrage and frustration.

Why is Amazon placing Seller Accounts on a hold?

Amazon has a so-called “Good Seller Gone Bad” policy, which describes a common scenario, where someone sells their aged dormant Seller Account to a different entity. That entity then lists a large amount of expensive and popular products at a fraction of their recommended retail price and sets up very long handling and shipping times to ensure a 1-2 months Estimated Delivery timeframe.

The aim is to generate as many customer orders as possible and disburse all earnings daily, without fulfilling anything. As you know, aged Seller Accounts are not subject to any rolling reserves, therefore they can request a full payment every day. This is the reason, why are you seeing so many suspicious individuals inquiring across Facebook groups, whether someone would be willing to sell their “aged” account. The sellers will implement various stalling tactics, including offering replacements or refunding just the customers who complain, while still keeping a large portion of the earnings from those who did not notice that their purchase never arrived.

Sadly, many innocent sellers, including dropshippers, international sellers from smaller distant countries without reliable carrier networks or nomadic freelancers are wronged by Amazon’s automated bots scanning through the Seller Central interface hoping to catch bad actors.

Thousands of such sellers lost their accounts during the coronavirus pandemic, seeing a surge in sales, while delivery of shipments was being delayed due to various restrictions imposed in the buyer’s destination country.

What is happening inside your Seller Account, while it is placed on a hold?

If it is just your Buyer Account, which is placed on a hold, then you will be able to view your active storefront, receive e-mails with notifications regarding Buyer-seller messages, return requests, FBA notifications, order notifications and similar… the only difference will be that you won’t be able to login. And keep in mind that Amazon will still issue you defects for any A-to-Z guarantee claims or negative feedbacks complaining about unresponsiveness.

If it is your Seller Account which is placed on a hold, then you will stop receiving any notifications from Amazon, effective immediately. Any pending orders will be cancelled. Amazon will start reversing all of your historical credit card chargebacks which were covered by them or decided in your favor and charging them out of your Seller Account balance. All of your recent customers will be e-mailed and informed that you abandoned the platform and invited to ask for refunds. A special team of Amazon Account Specialists will begin “cleansing” your account, which may include removing listings which you created.

To learn what will happen following account reinstatement, wait till the end of my article.

How to prevent and proactively protect your business against Seller Account Holds:

• Never confirm shipment and then refund as an alternative to order cancellation. Amazon is secretly monitoring your refund rate and they are also scanning Buyer-seller messages for evidence of sellers initiating contacts and apologizing for running out of stock and offering a refund. Cancelling may damage your metrics but not as much as trying to game the system.
• If you are based in one of Amazon’s partnered countries, purchase shipping from Amazon or use FBA. Even if you are shipping untracked or using a carrier not supported by Amazon and you have a very long handling and shipping time, offer an Expedited delivery and Next Day or Second Day service and deliver those orders using FedEx or a different carrier integrated with Amazon. Amazon investigators looking for a proof of fulfillment will accept this as evidence that you are able to fulfill orders quickly if needed and it will prevent a hold being placed against your account.
• When drop shipping, try to have at least one unit of every product which you sell available in stock, so you can fulfill the order yourself, in case your supplier runs out of stock.
• If you are a FBM seller, answer Buyer-seller messages on time and login to the Seller Central at least once a day. Otherwise, having many messages piled up and no activity on your part may attract Amazon’s investigators, thinking that you have abandoned the business.
• Never offer buyers any incentives for removing a feedback, editing a product review or withdrawing an A-to-Z Guarantee claim. Having your Seller Account placed on a hold is not worth it.
• Never place any “test buys” or attempt to participate in wars with competing merchants. If someone is genuinely infringing your intellectual property, take a legal action or sign up for the Amazon Brand Registry, alternatively have your brand gated.
• Never hire any virtual assistants to manage your entire Amazon Seller business. I can confirm that 90% of those who appointed me to assist them with having their account holds lifted were either successful British, American or Israeli businessmen, who wanted to earn without putting much time and effort into managing their business. They had a lot of inventory and resources, however instead of investing into appropriately trained local staff, aware of Amazon’s policies and performance targets, they appointed cheap Fiverr-grade virtual assistants from Asia, who destroyed their accounts. The account’s metrics looked perfect, however if the business owners looked closer, they would be able to see that their virtual assistants were heavily incentivizing any unhappy customers by refunding and sending additional credits. After having their account access restored, my clients had to promise me that they will never use any virtual assistants again.
• When experiencing a sudden increase of non-receipt complaints (which includes Buyer-seller messages, not just A-to-Z Guarantee claims), place your Seller Account on Vacation Settings until the whole situation improves. Many such sellers are instead trying to increase their sales and improve their metrics, which actually worsens the matter in Amazon’s eyes and attracts the attention of Account Specialists, thinking that you are a “Good Seller Gone Bad”, who is trying to generate a lot of sales and then run away with money.
• Don’t file a credit card chargeback when Amazon charges you through your Seller Account, even if you disagree with the amount.
• Only contact Amazon or submit appeals when you really have to. Agressively appealing every defect/enforcement and demanding to have it removed may attract unwanted attention to your business from senior Amazon employees, who may not appreciate your proactiveness and find it suspicious.

Warning signs of an account hold incoming

I should also mention, that you can see warning signs in your Seller Account indicating that a Seller Account Hold may be incoming.

Velocity reviews are one of them.

If you ever receive a Velocity Review and your funds are withheld, DON’T try to aggressively appeal and have it lifted (like most sellers do) unless your Seller Account is deactivated during the review.

In such case, appeal the enforcement by providing Amazon with all of the following:

Additionally, don’t place your Seller Account on Vacation Settings. Wait for Amazon to carefully review your account and ensure that orders are still getting fulfilled, despite you aren’t getting paid (yes, I know how badly it sounds).

This is typically the last pre-account hold measure, where Amazon is still giving you a chance to recover. Velocity Reviews can take anything from a few days to up to 90 days to be completed, however once this is done, your funds will be automatically released and you may continue trading undisrupted.

I would advise you to always keep a financial reserve, which you can use in case you experience a Velocity Review.

What will happen following account reinstatement from an account hold?

If it was just your Buyer Account, which was placed on a hold, while your Seller Account remained active – just inaccessible, then you will have a bad time dealing with all the resulting defects and complaints from customers. Amazon will not help you remedy the situation in any way.

Since reinstatements following a Seller Account Hold are extremely rare, Amazon prepared very interesting remedies for affected sellers. Once you return back to the Seller Central, the account will be in a pristine condition, regardless of any metrics exceeding the targets.

All existing suspended accounts, which are a part of the account placed on a hold will be fully reinstated and operational, including accounts which were suspended many years ago for unrelated issues.

Any A-to-Z guarantee claims for orders placed just before the hold will be funded by Amazon and historical issues will no longer be considered against the seller.

What to do if you know someone who can no longer access his Amazon Seller Account

Every day, I can see desperate sellers begging for help on social media with what are clearly Seller Account Holds, but no one can provide them proper assistance.

If you ever encounter someone like this, please show them this article or advise them to reach out to me at www.onlyfans.com/kikaangelic, where they can get a genuine resolution to their problem.

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):