My funds have been withheld by Amazon since 8th October and every penny from sales is going into reserve, after disbursing daily for nearly 2 years. Account is healthy and not suspended or under review, sales are continuing, bank, card and tax info is all verified. No A-Z or outstanding orders. I have no idea why they have withheld the funds and they refuse to provide me with an explanation. This is the same response I get every time:
After carefully reviewing your account, I have found that your funds are held due to balance reserve. The unavailable balance is the amount of money reserved to ensure enough funds are available to fulfill any claims or chargebacks.
Common reasons for an unavailable balance include:
** Awaiting order delivery: This ensures you have enough funds to fulfill any claims or chargebacks.*
** A-To-Z Guarantee Claims: We may reserve a claim amount until the claim resolves.*
** Performance Benchmarks: We may reserve an unavailable balance if your performance metrics fall below our benchmarks.*
** Tax Registration Status: Amazon may have a responsibility to withhold and pay income tax based on your sales and tax registration status.*
The factors, data, and transactions we use to calculate the funds reserved from a specific settlement are part of Amazon’s risk management systems. We do not publish data on or expose the rules by which we calculate reserves for a particular settlement. The amount that we have reserved will always appear in your unavailable balance, and we will always release reserved funds to you as soon as any risk arising from these orders has passed.
Has anyone ever experienced similar or know a way to release the funds or when they might release them? The policy they refer me to on account health page only refers to fund holds suspended or deactivated accounts, mine is still healthy and selling. Balance just remains at ÂŁ0 for nearly a month.
thank you for joining our forum. As long as your Seller Account isn’t under a review, you should go to the Account Health Dashboard and check to see if you have the below banner displayed:
Having listened to feedback from sellers, we have extended the transition of your seller account’s reserve policy to 31 January 2024.
As of 31 January 2024, your seller account will have a Base Reserve policy called “Delivery Date Based Reserve,” or “DD+7.” This means that your funds will be available for disbursement according to the delivery date of a shipment, plus seven days.
Please use this additional time to prepare, by ensuring you are able to manage any short-term cash flow challenges your business may experience when transitioned on 31 January 2024. If you have any questions about this change, please contact us through [email protected].
Alternatively, if this isn’t the Payment Based on Delivery Date Reserve, then check your performance notifications to see if your account isn’t under a review.
I wonder if that is driven by UK law or is amazon even more cash poor. The 2 week payments amount to a 6 month interest free loan for an amount that is close to 50% of all the 3P sales. Now add another week or so onto that you get a 9 MONTH INTEREST FREE loan.
UK sellers should pull the plug on selling and direct an expletive and a single digit toward amazon.
There’s no banners on account health, everything showing as healthy. Account definitely not under review as I asked them this directly and they said it wasn’t.
Just baffled to be honest. I’m waiting for the 30 day period to be up next week just to see if anything miraculously happens and then I’m going to have to get an external service involved. Completely derailed me at the worst possible time.
I don’t understand that either. I have been selling on Amazon for nearly 10 years now and they just introduced this Payments Based on Delivery Reserve that applies to everyone, not just new sellers!
How does it make sense to place a 100% hold on an established sellers balance and to keep the funds for weeks after the order’s delivery date?
And it is happening ONLY in Europe. No other Amazon marketplaces are affected. I am 100% sure they wouldn’t be able to get away with it in the USA.
Here you can learn more:
You will need to open a Seller Support case and request that the Payment Based on Delivery Reserve is lifted from your account.
I had it exactly like you and needed to do this to have it lifted.
But its not even based on delivery reserve is it, they haven’t paid me since 8th October, or am I missing something? Even DD+7 the payments are way overdue. And there were no emails or anything in performance notifications when it just happened, the balance all went to reserve overnight and that was it. Just a guessing game now and being fobbed off by bots. Spoke to Account Health on the phone and they said everything was fine and no reason for it and only Seller Support can give and answer, which they is the one they have given me above several times, basically saying they don’t have to disclose anything. This paragraph is the killer, they’re a law unto themselves. Thanks for input though.
The factors, data, and transactions we use to calculate the funds reserved from a specific settlement are part of Amazon’s risk management systems. We do not publish data on or expose the rules by which we calculate reserves for a particular settlement.
Counterfeit is being appealed with invoice and Account Health team said its only minor anyway and they wouldn’t hold funds for it, just suspend the ASIN. Plus I’ve had them before and just got rid of them with no issues, even when my account was new.
Nothing really changed in terms of sales, standard ramp up towards Q4, steady month on month growth as last year was. Same with item value nothing really different from last year
It’s absolutely ridiculous, one complaint on a £15 item and now they confiscate 25k. Just a terrible business model and I’ve been robbed of the biggest 3 selling months in the calendar. I’ll probably walk away after this. Thanks for your help.
amazon will get away with it, way to many 3p sellers that don’t understand what is going on. 90% of the 3P sellers are hobby sellers anyways. So it might thin it down a little bit.
Those that were hanging on by a thread no longer can rely upon eBay since they have turned toxic. That will be an unpredictable interaction, can see it since both are weak to poor revenue streams. It would not be worth the time spent, pretty sure both have to work in tandem if you want a strong customer (3p seller) base. Marketplace cross over and how it is so deeply entrenched could become greater risk for both sites.
Europe market is much smaller so that would be the first logical step for a live attrition analysis. When they do it in the USA it will be scheduled and timed so it would not negatively impact the share holders perception of amazon.
Bottom line is they are going broke and starting to claw at anything they can. They burned the bridge with so many sellers, thus losing a good portion of their “free sales force”. Not good for getting new customers (3p sellers).
Why don’t they send an email or issue a performance notification when this review is initiated either? We’re just left to guess and ask questions that get no answers. It’s almost like something that’s hidden in the backend and we aren’t entitled to know about it. I will seriously be considering my options once I have my funds back. It’s disgraceful to do this to established sellers for pretty much the whole of Q4. I have to sit out this entire period with no revenue and be reinstated again probably in January ready for the new year slog and the worry of it it happening again next year.
They know it is a “hot button” topic with sellers, in the eyes of amazon its better to test it on a disposable market demographic (3p sellers).
Would amazon every consider doing anything negative to sellers based out of China? Since they are the sole source driving profits at amazon…directly and indirectly via global 3P sellers re-marketing goods originating from China.
What ever you do, don’t submit a plan of action. That is considered an admission of guilt. If you do feel the need for a plan of action LET YOUR ATTORNEY DRAFT IT, NOT you.
Lawyer up.
You and your company have been damaged, obviously if you are “guilty” don’t waste your time because the truth will come out in court.
If you are 100% innocent and damaged by others you have legal recourse. In the USA your attorney can have amazon subpoenaed and they have to release all the information regarding the takedown. Then you get the names and addresses of those making false claims or what ever nefarious acts that have damaged you. Now you can pursue legal action against those that attacked your company. If it turns out the actions are criminal and amazon facilitated the attack on your account they are now exposed.
Early days, I am pretty sure it was 100% greed. Now 20 years later, it might very well be survival mode driving that. Hence, the ship is sinking. They backed themselves into a corner with FBA services. That is a huge mess to manage, I don’t care how much AI is applied. If it did work others would have been or would be doing something like that.
All these big tech companies have cross-over investors, they are all buddies. When one is bragging the other is following suite. One rotten apple will spoil the others, it looks pretty obvious the wall street crowd does what ever they can and gets what ever they want. Look at who got all the initial covid bailout money, THE GROUP THAT NEEDED IT THE LEAST got the initial round. Their money comes from wall street investors, not a bank note that is payable on demand. It was all dried up by the time I called our bank.
