On June 25th 2019 we applied for a USA seller account via the global selling link from our UK Seller Central dashboard. Our UK/EU account is verified (all ID accepted) the business has been selling on Amazon for over 2 years. Within 10 minutes of receiving the Amazon USA welcome email the account became suspended. We submitted our Utility bill and business certificate of incorporation. The response email told us to send in the documents we had just sent in. We resubmitted the documents, still the response email - please send in these documents. We then uploaded new company documents via the appeal section on the seller central account to then get a response that our documents were over 90 days old so not illegible. This was alarming. The only document older than 90 days was our certificate of incorporation dated 2018 which of course is going to be dated past 90 days. It was clear these reviews were rushed, or the emails are not actually being read by real people and are automated responses. 12th December I wrote an email to the Amazon executive team and Seller performance with new documentation explaining my concerns and requesting answers and clarification. We just received a response from seller performance about how the account remains suspended and to submit a plan of action. We collated an extensive amount of company documentation consisting of; -Utility Bill (pages 1-4). -Company Bank Statements. -Company Incorporation Certificate. -Intellectual property office Trademark Certification. -HMRC Government Corporation Tax Bill. -Directors Passport. -Directors Proof of address (Share Statement). -Appeal Letter. Monday January 6th at 8:52 PM with submitted the above documentation via email to seller performance. We waited 21 days and never received a response. Monday January 27th at 7:13 AM we escalated to the Amazon executive team and seller performance requesting a review of our documentation. We waited 17 days. No response. Wednesday February 12th at 12:19 PM we escalated again to the Amazon executive team requesting a response. This never happened. This has severely affected our operations on the UK/EU marketplaces and our business has stalled entirely. Our UK/EU account can no longer protect or register our own trademarked brands on Amazons brand registry program thus leaving us exposed on the platform. We also can no longer request a second seller account for our new brands because of this verification suspension on our USA account. Why were we given the chance to sell in the US (via the global selling link) in the first place. The fact that Amazon emailed us promoting this opportunity to then get suspended without reason and be treated in this way for the last 6 months is not acceptable. I understand there are verification procedures in place to protect customers and businesses but to do this to a genuine company? I recently submitted a complaint to the BBB explaining my situation and for Amazon to respond to us. 10 days have passed and nothing. No response. What other options do I have? Go down the legal route? Write a letter to Amazon? Ben
I am sorry to hear this.
What was the format of the documents which you submitted?
I would suggest you to always use photos of paper form of the documents. No screenshots or PDFs.
Regarding the BBB complaint, they will definitely get back to you within no more than 30 days and it is very likely that they will reinstate the account.
I used scanned PDFs of all my documents as this is what was recommended on the suspension emails, hopefully they are ok with this. Ok thanks for the clarification Kika with the BBB situation… this gives me hope. The last 6 months have been a nightmare. Fingers crossed someone looks at my case.
Scanned PDFs are bad. They have to be photos of actual, original documents.
But you will see that Amazon will get back to you regarding the complaint.
Feel free to update the thread once you have more information.