As an Amazon seller you can face many difficult situations dealing with fraudulent customer complaints.

In many cases it can result in getting your Amazon selling privileges removed and banned from selling or buying on Amazon for life.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the problems and challenges a person can face when selling on Amazon.

As an new Amazon seller there many rules to follow and customer expectations that can create serious hassle.

I was selling music records for 6 consistent months before my Amazon account was suspended. Yes, I was banned and for no good reason. As a seller on Amazon I successfully managed to sell my product to approx. 500 customers. Things were going good, but three out of those 500 transactions were the reasons that caused my suspension.

The first transaction was from a man from Germany, who had complained that his record was not delivered after 60 days of making the transaction, in this situation I did what I thought was best and provided him with his refund and that settled the whole debacle between him and me. As a human being you cannot control everything right, sometime mistakes happen!

Now talking about the second transaction, it was a silly mistake from my part, but hey, I was new to Amazon I didn’t know the right thing to do! The situation was that a customer accidentally purchased a wrong item and requested for an exchange. So I agreed to it and asked him to place a return through Amazon. I had no idea that later on it would cause a dent in my performance rating. But it was a mere case of mismanagement on my part and the situation was solved quickly.

However, the third transaction is what complicated the matters more. The customer was a notorious one and he had complained that the records didn’t have the original cover. I had clearly described the product as it was and yet, it was written in my comment that it doesn’t have original cover’. The customer insisted that the cover was not original and that he has been facing the same problem with other record sellers on Amazon as well. In this situation I told the customer that if he wants to return it then he will have to pay the shipping charges for the product. He agreed to that condition at first but then soon placed a return request with Amazon’ where he put the item as “not as described or equivalent” and that was when he didn’t even receive the product in the first place!

After this case, I received an email from Amazon saying that my account was in jeopardy. So I tried to explain them in the best way possible that the buying behavior of the customer seemed suspicious and that it may be a case of fraud. I also tried to explain that I was new to Amazon and that returning/replacing the item for customer number 2 was only fair. And that refunding the item for customer number 1 was the right thing to do. But all this was in vain it seemed because soon after my account got suspended.

I tried to appeal my account suspension but with no success and in the midst of all the problems, Amazon held my money for 90 days. The situation was getting worse so I sent them many emails, which is the only best way of communication with them, and explained the whole thing.

I hope it is a temporary seller ban and it will be possible to restore my account. 

Resources:

http://www.geekwire.com/2016/trump-vs-bezos-washington-post-amazon/

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/if-youre-returning-a-lot-of-amazon-purchases-heres-your-cautionary-tale-2016-03-21