Amazon India Abruptly Suspends 2000+ Seller Accounts; Crores Of Payments, Inventory Stuck Suddenly

Amazon strictly controls sellers to maintain the high standard of its marketplace, which receives 2 billion monthly visitors. However, Amazon’s policies are very strict. Even the best sellers’ accounts have been terminated. Through filing an appeal, sellers will get their rights returned.

According to multiple sources familiar with the situation, more than 2,000 Amazon India sellers have been denied access to their seller accounts on the e-commerce site without notice or explanation, resulting in lost revenue in the last three months.

Sellers Violated Business Solutions Agreements (BSA) 

Amazon invoked contractual conditions to suspend seller accounts, alleging that these sellers violated certain business solutions agreements (BSA) meant to protect the interest of consumers and the marketplace, sellers told Inc42.

Sellers, on the other hand, vigorously deny any misconduct, even though some of them have been licensed Amazon sellers for more than five years. Amazon terminating accounts without warning, according to sellers, has placed them in financial distress; the bulk of them are small businesses with little working capital. Sellers also say that they have been unable to respond or resolution from Amazon, raising a question about the real reason for the account suspension.

According to Inc42, several sellers believed that their registered accounts had been hacked.

They added that the initial account suspension email was sent from the“UK” Amazon domain, even though the sellers were from India. Some sellers also have reported suspicious activity on their accounts days before the company decided to remove them from the marketplace.

“On 25th February midnight, I got a message saying that my seller account has engaged in deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity. But just two days before this, I got an OTP SMS from Amazon India stating that someone had tried to reset my password from a location outside India. I ignored this, but days later my account was suspended,” the Delhi-based seller told Inc42.

A third Amazon seller who sells audio accessories told Inc42 that “someone tried to de-register my account from India region, and relate it to the EU region.” Her Amazon India account was suspended a day after she received an SMS alerting her to this operation. She also claimed that she never intended to sell goods in the EU region, but she received a request to register in the EU region.

“I have been constantly following up with the support team and various managers at Amazon but there is no response at all. The category manager assigned to me is also clueless. I had a call scheduled with the Amazon Team to help me with my issue, but that call got cancelled without any explanation. Payments are stuck, and inventory is another issue because there is inventory worth multiple lakhs that is stuck in the warehouses,” she added.

 Responding to Inc42’s queries on the development, an Amazon spokesperson acknowledged that there has been a suspension of accounts, but did not comment on the instances of suspicious activity reported by sellers as quoted in Inc42’s.

“As a customer-centric company, Amazon is committed to maintaining a high bar on customer trust and making consistent efforts to keep the marketplace safe for our customers to shop on. We have processes and technology solutions to monitor customer complaints and take action on accounts that may violate Amazon’s policies. We have taken similar action on potential suspect accounts. Some of the enforced sellers have reached out to us with more information and we are currently reviewing this to provide an early resolution,” the spokesperson added. 

  

Identifying Your Reason For Suspension

To regain Amazon’s trust after your account has been suspended; you must clearly state the steps you will take to address the issue, in your Plan of Action.

Revisit the notice that Amazon sent to inform you of your suspension. Or simply recheck all the details based on Performance, product policy or sellers policy. If your selling rights were revoked as a result of a performance problem or a breach of a seller policy or product law, the email should specify.

If you were suspended by Amazon due to poor performance, look at your Account Health Dashboard in the “Performance” tab of your seller account to see which metrics aren’t meeting Amazon’s standards.

If you received a notice from Amazon stating that you were suspended for violating a seller policy, you should consider whether your selling activities comply with Amazon’s community guidelines.

If you were suspended by Amazon due to a product rule breach, you’ll need to look at your inventory and inventory intake process to see which parts of your stock are restricted and need to be removed.

Amazon has previously indefinitely suspended vendors, so give yourself the best chance of getting your suspension lifted by crafting the best appeal you can.