amazon - sellers nightmare

[renegade600]

very interesting article about those who sell on Amazon and the different ways their stores gets stolen.  It made me wonder if the third party I am buying from scammed their listings from the original owner or if they are legit. 

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketplace-scams-seller-court-appeal-reinstatement

[DarylMac]

That's actually pretty scary. You put in so much effort in trying to set up a quality store and someone just steals it? Amazon should get involved a bit more proactively in stuff like this.

[jwlv]

There's a lot of black hat sabotage going on between sellers competing for sales on Amazon. Same goes for search results on Google. It's quite easy for a bad actor to screw up hundreds of hours of building a reputation and getting it all messed up in one day.

I used to be one of the top 1000 reviewers on Amazon. One day without notice I couldn't post reviews any more. Came to find out that Amazon accused me of participating in manipulating product reviews.

Unfortunately when that happens there's nothing you can do to reverse their decision.

For sellers it is almost just as difficult to get a decision reversed. In the Amazon universe you are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

Think of my situation. They claim I manipulated product reviews because I've written hundreds of reviews. I wrote reviews on just about every single thing I've bought. Heck I've even wrote reviews on the design of Amazon gift cards. My intention was actually to catch Amazon's attention so I can get invited to their Vine program. I got the wrong kind of attention. How can I prove to Amazon that my reviews are legit? The big problem is that the proof doesn't exist. It's like asking someone to prove that they never walked on the moon. If Amazon claims you are guilty of walking on the moon, can you prove that you didn't? How can you possibly provide proof that you were never on the moon? Yes it's that crazy.

As you can tell I have a love-hate relationship with Amazon. I love their Echo products. I run the largest Echo forum on the web. I love the convenience of buying from Amazon. I spend thousands of dollars on Amazon every year. I've been a prime member for I don't know how long. Probably 10+ years. I am an Echo/Alexa developer and yet I can no longer participate in the developer forum. It's kinda strange to be in this situation.

[renegade600]

unless I read the article wrong, very seldom does a real person get involved with banning and appeals and to me, that is not fair for those who abide by the rules but get banned for whatever reason. 

[jwlv]

unless I read the article wrong, very seldom does a real person get involved with banning and appeals and to me, that is not fair for those who abide by the rules but get banned for whatever reason. 

That is correct. If you do manage to get a real person, most likely they can't help you. I believe that the first tier people don't have access to view any kind of account violations or actions. All they can do is refer you to a manager that's never available, who never calls you back no matter how many messages you leave for them. At least that's my experience.