Amazon’s motto is: “Customer comes first”. The platform provides its users top-notch customer service every day. As a result, it has very restrictive rules when it comes to its sellers to maintain the best quality of services. Locking a certain offer, or even an entire account can occur regardless of whether you are a beginner or a more advanced seller.
Locked Amazon account – what do you need to know?
Amazon may block your seller account if it detects any suspicious activity. Therefore, each seller is obliged by Amazon to comply with the existing regulations and provide their services ensuring highest quality.
What are the most common causes of an Amazon account being locked?
- Providing false information to Amazon – Entering false information is one of the most common reasons to get locked out from Amazon. The platform has multiple ways to investigate if you’ve entered a false name, billing address, and any other important information.
- Two accounts – one seller can only have one account, so if you register more than that, you will be breaking the rules. In such cases, the block will be imposed on at least one market or one of the accounts, but most of the time it comes to Related Accounts, i.e. complete suspension.
- Delays in shipping – one of the ways that Amazon evaluates sellers’ performance is to look at how quickly they ship their orders and how often they cancel them. For each seller account, an LDR (Late Dispatch Rate) is calculated, and it cannot be more than 4% over a period of 10 and 30 days.
- Frequent order cancellations – If the rate of canceled orders exceeds 2.5% of all orders, your account will be locked.
- Ignoring notifications – it is highly recommended to follow notifications you receive, as very often they may include valuable information regarding your Amazon account, such as: warnings about the account approaching critical values, about the presence of prohibited content on your list, upcoming Amazon updates, etc.
- Selling counterfeit goods – as it is one of Amazon’s greatest struggles, no wonder that accounts caught selling counterfeit goods are locked (after several warnings), and the chances to restore such accounts are extremely low.
- Using Different IP Addresses with varying locations – If you open your Amazon account in different places and use different IP addresses, there’s a good chance Amazon will assume your account has been hacked and will immediately block it.
- Failure to comply with the basic rules related to account security – safety of all users is extremely important for Amazon, hence an account lockout may occur if certain suspicions arise, such as that your account may have been hacked, or you have not properly secured it or you have violated the regulations.
As you can see, there are a lot of reasons for Amazon to lock an account. Selling on the Amazon platform is very complex and requires comprehensive knowledge in seller account management specifically. If your account get locked, not only do you lose the ability to sell your products, but your financial assets on Amazon get frozen, too.
How long does it take to unlock an Amazon account?
Unfortunately, there is no clear to this question. Tt may take several hours, but also several months. Everything depends on the cause and the complexity of the problem.
What are the types of lockouts on Amazon?
The type of lockout depends on why the account was suspended in the first place. Usually you can come across short-, long-term, and permanent suspensions (with or without the possibility to unlock).
How to unlock a seller account?
When an account is locked, Amazon usually tells you what the reason is. Once you’ve found out why your account was suspended, the only way to unlock it is to prove you didn’t do anything wrong.
- Contact Amazon by email – when your account gets suspended, Amazon will send you an email stating the reason for the such operation. In response, you may send relevant documentation for verification, and ask about the steps you need to take to have your account unlocked again.
- Call Amazon hotline – you can call the Amazon hotline and request to have your account unlocked. Once your identity has been verified, you will be given instructions about the next steps you need to take to finalize your request.
- Amazon Chat Bot – it can be a useful tool, but there is one downside – you need to be logged in to use the chat, so the only way around it is to create a new account. Once you’ve managed to start a new conversation, ask for an account specialist, provide necessary verification details for your locked account, and follow further instructions.
In the above article, you could see for yourself how complex the problem of a locked seller account on Amazon is. We discussed the causes, effects and gave instructions on what to do if you’re unfortunate enough to experience it firsthand. If your account is still suspended and you are struggling to recover it, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Remember, a suspended account equals constantly increasing losses for your company, so you’d better act quickly!
