Amazon review: rip off 46

Somebody needs to tell them to go ### in their hat. I have owned and managed several businesses over the last 55 years. I retired and decided to sell (almost as a hobby) new and used books and other small items that I could handle from my retirement home. I spent months slowly developing and operating my new partnership with Amazon. One customer made a stink (she didn't know how to put FILM into the DIGITAL camera she bought from me. My account is now suspended with no opportunity to discuss it with this idiotic outfit. (I refunded that sale.) You don't want to ally yourself with these foolish people.

Amazon Seller support is the biggest joke I have ever seen in my life. The Technical Support staff has no authority to do anything and there beyond dump when you talk to them about anything technical. The only positive is you can call them and at least talk to a human but they can't help you with any issues or concerns. As for the Seller Performance team there even a bigger joke then the technical service. Lets start off with they have the power to turn off your account or even ban you from selling on Amazon but there is NO customer service hotline and it takes them 24-48 hours to respond to each email you send them and when they reply its just canned emails. Amazon prides them selfs on customer service but treats there sellers like pure crap. At some point enough merchants will get together and force change on Amazon.

In our case they blocked not only our seller account before it was activated but also blocked our phone # so I can't contact them to resolve the issue. All I know is that The Seller-Performance Team and Amazon.com are not working together. Every time I send email to either one they point to each other without any solutions. It's very frustrating to find out why my account is blocked. How can I resolve it if they don't tell me reason why it's blocked?

Any help would be appreciated.

webbster

Same problem here I was selling for a week i made $800 and my account was blocked now they are holding my money for 90 days so wee need to do something about it its not like just wanna keep the money from all the sellers because they feel your competing with them.

This just happened to me. I have been selling for years on Amazon.com I have 91% positive feedback. I canceled 6 orders and they closed it. I have no claims, No returns, etc. They wont talk to you. Thats bull. Where else do you sell?

I've been in the online retail business for over 10 years and I just had my account blocked after 1 year. My feedback rating was 94% positive. I had one negative feedback in the last 6 months by a customer who literally could not read. No chargebacks and only 5 refunds in 6 months because the items were damaged and they were the last ones I had, so I was not going to ship a defective or damaged product. No good retailer would do that, except Amazon of course. Some sellers have feedback ratings at 0% and most are in the 60-90% range and they still continue to do business on Amazon. I do not have a problem with that, but I do have a problem with the way Amazon selectively enforces policy that is not clearly defined. I received an email that said my account was under review and I had 24 hours to respond and 2 hours later, my account was suspended. I am planning on filing a lawsuit against Amazon and have the proof to win. All of the comments before mine only help. The Amazon seller performance team is a joke. They violate so many laws and are so arrogant that it is almost comical. They have made changes to my account without my consent in the past to cover their errors. I have the documentation to back it up. What I pointed out to them fell on deaf ears and I honestly think irritated them when I pointed out mistakes and problems the Amazon Seller Team created in the first place. The only way Amazon will change its policies is if they go to court and they lose. With the information I already have and any addition complaints or any other information

I have been watching multiple boards over the past few months and there seems to be major issues with the Seller Performance team. We all know Amazon Seller Central is a great product for both Amazon and the Merchants but if you have a group of people who run this business model who do not follow there own rules and do whatever they want will destroy this revenue generating tool Amazon has created. From looking at all the comments if you go at Amazon and say Seller Performance is wrong or there tools are flawed they will kick you off right away. If you treat them like some sort of god you will be fine and they will keep you on. If Amazon executives are smart there reading these boards to see how they can improve Amazon and I hope there looking at this team hard.
From seeing the complaints over the past few months I would not be shocked if a class action lawsuit is started soon due to Amazon employees now following the Amazon terms of service with merchants. The more people who speak up and go at these issues the quicker changes will happen.

It happened to me. There is no recourse after they ban you for no reason. You can call technical support but they can not do anything, they will tell you to email Seller Performance. Seller Performance sends generic emails and that is if they even give enough courtesy to reply to your email. You can email the tracking #s and have perfect feedback but they aren't letting go of the funds until 90 days passes. I think they generate interest and/or pay other sellers with your money while holding your money for 90 days. In many cases they seem to put your account in review and wait a week or two so that they can accumulate funds. Shortly therafter you will get an email that your account is blocked and funds are held for 90 days. They can destroy your business by holding funds, cash flow is like the air a person breathes to a business. I never will buy from Amazon again and will always tell others not to if the subject of Amazon comes up.

OK AMAZON PERFORMANCE TEAM

Are you human? If you are, then I suggest you have some responsibility
and ability to think correctly. If not, then sorry I was talking to
either myself or a bunch of ANIMALS at AMAZON river.

I have a couple of questions about my accounts that I don't think if
ANIMALS can answer, can't they?

1. Some STUPID AMAZON "human" email me saying my account is blocked
because "previously associate with CLOSED accounts, " and these "HUMAN"
don't tell me which accounts were "Previously Closed"

2. They said they 'll call me within 2 days, and this has been 10
days. I guess only AMAZON ANIMALS have that kind of lies.

3. How STUPID they are when they all reply the same thing over and
over again. Only ANIMALS do it, HUMAN don't.

Well! What can I say to a bunch of ANIMALS?

Amazon Seller Central is a rip-off and Amazon in general uses many discrimantory tactics. For example: art.com and others are operating with a .com in their business name and logo... Clearly a no-no in Amazon's terms of use, but they let it go for some reason! My company's legal name also is a .com and is trademarked - They blocked my account for using a .com in my logo! I guess they can only flex their muscles on small business owners like us. Bye Bye Amazon, without sellers like us, you are nothing but a company with limited inventory and you will shrink! The eBay model kicks you in the ###!

Greetings everyone,

As a company operating out to the state of Florida we have had the opportunity to deal with many eCommerce sites such as Amazon, eBay, OverStock, etc. In fact, we have sold with Amazon for about six months now. Over that time, Amazon has suspended our account twice. They reactivated our account after an initial 30 review while holding over $1000 of our funds. After the release naturally we became excited and relisted a lot of our products. Much to our dismay, after just 5 days of selling we received the dreaded suspension letter AGAIN and our account was put on hold, only this time with roughly $5000. As we did nothing wrong other than offer consumers products at GREAT prices, which usually ship the same day, Amazon said our volume of sales was not justified. What really gets us... is we had to go through all the same processes as previously (send us your suppliers, company information, websites, so forth and so on...), which wewe might add was sent when we went through this the first time in July that our account was suspended. We called several times and got the same BS story seller performance does not have anyone to talk to. Okay then, Amazon with their extensive operations worldwide does not have anyone in seller performance to talk to? Are you kidding me, well then put me on the phone with your automated server that sends out these emails and supposedly reviews our accounts. As Amazon has now held our funds twice “released once after 30 days” now it has been 30 days again and we just received this letter, “Hello from Amazon.com.

Thank you for writing. After a review of your account by an account specialist, we have decided your account will remain blocked.

We regret we are unable to provide further information on this situation. Further correspondence regarding the closure of your selling account will not be answered.

The closure of this account is a permanent action. Any subsequent accounts that are opened will be closed as well.

Best regards,

Amazon Seller Performance Team”

Let us remind you now that they claim that they are now going to hold our money for an additional 90 days! Well, as a doctoral student and a driven business professional, I will not let this case go, even if they release our funds. Why? Well, simply someone has to do something to start the revolution =) Join our fight Seven Times Seven on Twitter

We sold on Amazon for about two month and they shut us down. They said our account was linked to a different account that had been closed. We had no idea what they were talking about. We appealed the decision and they would not do anything different other than refusing to discuss the situation further. We do not know where this action came from and we were given no answers. They've also held onto our money for 90 days. We are waiting for a better company to sell for with the same exposure. Abebooks and Alibris have been wonderful sites with equal treatment to seller and buyer. We recommend trying them.

i think amazon is great and i think yous are just plain stupid:-)

They will burn you, they did me in one e-mail stated will not decusis it at all. please tell me how you get your out of them. I listed with them and they don't care how bad you burn your byer a kind of inside joke, The dot heads in India could care less. They bully who they like when they like and steal your money. America is hurting and Amazon gives our jobs to India who only care about cows and the next dot to be blobbed on there head. We must stand up and take our jobs back from India

cg lawwwwdy, you're a ###. I will guarantee that cg lawwwwdy has never sold a single item on Amazon so they have no clue as to what they are talking about, or is an amazon employee, or is one of "those" buyers who files a complaint when they purchase a $5 item and it shows up a day later than expected because the post office was slow in delivering it and then demands a full refund and keeps the product. If amazon is so great, why are there tens of thousands of similar complaints from solid, veteran sellers? It's because amazon is a steaming pile of garbage who steals copyrighted images, holds funds for their use to keep the balance sheet and stock price high and has a seller performance team with a 3rd grade education. Probably why cg lawwwdy thinks amazon is so great is that they have something in common, both made it no further than the 3rd grade (judging by their post, I think 3rd grade may be generous).

Amazon just refunded a Scam Artist Buyer and Now I am out my product I sold to him and the money he should have paid me. Amazon will not side with me the, Seller, and claims that it is my fault, that I did not pay and put a signature required slip from the USPS on my package to the buyer. I already paid extra for a delivery confirmation number from the USPS but Amazon said that is not good enough.

None of the packages you get from Amazon directly has Signature Confirmation. So I do not know where this Signature required policy comes from.

So, in short, everyone can buy an item from an Amazon Seller. Put in a false complaint to Amazon about the seller and that the product didn’t arrive; get their money back and keep the product. I think everyone needs to try it once and see how many people get the product they ordered for Free.

Amazon really needs to clean up this procedure about Scam Artists Buyers buying from us Honest Sellers, and Require Buyers to Put All the Correct Ship To Info and Contact Name when purchasing an Item from Amazon.

Can somebody initiate a class law suit again this [censor]?

Amazon is purely ripping people off and they do not care at all about doing the right thing. Quite simply, this company has EXTREMELY poor business ethics. Period.

After receiving notification online that Amazon had "charged" my credit card I took a step back and was trying to figure out for what? After all I was under the impression that I was an individual seller NOT a professional lister. Therefore I should have only been charged $1.49 per transaction, instead they charged me $29.99 a month for two months. This was totally ridiculous because I was trying to sell a $10 textbook (as I am a student).

So. I decided to call up customer service to inquire about this obvious error and get it sorted out. Well, it got sorted out alright ... like a slap in my face. Not only did the telephone clerk respond with brain washed, insulting customer service psycho-babble, I too, was blocked from being able to re-phone customer service.

The result is this: I took a loss on the text-book because I am reselling it, plus I take another loss because the "alloted" postage that Amazon charges the buyer because in reality it does not even come close to the real cost of postage. -- I don't get a dime from the sale of the book because Amazon sucks that up on listing service fees that I NEVER signed up for and then charges me another $45 for being listed on their website. Can this really be true? Well the truth is: YES ... Amazon ripped me off, and I can almost guarantee that I am only one of many that they are doing this to.

So, my advice to you is this: STAY AWAY from Amazon, they will steal money from your credit card when you are not looking and then cut you off from cutomer service when you inquire about getting your money back.

Amazon you should be ASHAMED! I have never in my life been so blatantly mugged and then told well "I am sorry that you feel that way" ... Please do us all a favour and take an ethics course.

ALL STUDENTS STAY AWAY FROM AMAZON if you are trying to re-sell your textbooks! They will rip you off!

After the last post ... I believe that is only fair that I give you an update on the last posted situation.

This morning I tracked down a 1 800 number for Amazon and placed another call to continue my fight for reimbursement. After being put through to customer service again, I spoke to an agent and reiterated my position. However, this time the fellow asked to put me on hold while he checked into it.

After a few minutes he returned to the phone and almost assured me that the problem would be dealt with. He could not personally guarantee the outcome as it would be decided by the "leadership" team, however he was fairly confident that it would be worked out.

The question I have is: why did the first customer agent not also realize the simplicity of this matter? I mean, really ... how ridiculous, and what a waste of not only my resources, but also theirs.

I report to you now that they sent me an email a few hours later confirming that they would refund the wrong charges. I was actually quite shocked by this response after my first encounter on the phone with agent #1.
Also, I was personally called this evening by a supervisor to follow up on the situation. Wow, what a turn around.

So in fairness, although I had to do multiple follow ups to finally get something done, Amazon did finally sort it out. It is just sad that I had to go through such lengths to get results. How many people just give up and let it go. For me, it was about ethics not money. So, my advice is: don't give up when you are wronged, pursue, pursue, pursue ... because you just may get results.

ENOUGH OF THE BICKERING PEOPLE . LETS BAND TOGETHER FOR THIS CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT. HOW MUCH COMPLAINING CAN WE DO. LETS DO THIS.

I wholeheartedly AGREE! If someone finds a Class Action lawyer to take the case, please let me know and I'll be there. My email is goldtown@abe.midco.net
Amazon.com sucks the big one, the "customer service" is BS and they're a bunch of Nazis
Tom Bennett, former Amazon seller

Amazon shut down my account 2 weeks once i started making almost $8000/ week .

Seller protection is a joke .. good thing i switched back to ebay and dont have to deal with amazon B[censored]

Amazon u [censor] me I'll [censor] u back twice .. and u ll never knw HOW hahahahahahhahaha [censor]es ..

Seller performance is total crap! We turn over £2 million a year on amazon but they still treat us like [censor]. They will review your account any time they like and hold your money. I have to borrow £80k from family and friends just to keep afloat for christmas because they are holding our money without explanation. And no one will even listen. Totally dictatorial.

i baught some boxing boots from amazo, i even paid for express wich they stated i would recieve my item from 1 to 2 days because i paid extra. it has been the moeny was taken out of my account within 3 days and now it has been over 2 weeks and i still have not recieved my item. i contacted amazon 3 times to discuss the matter and they tride to say that they have sent it and must not of been in so it must be in my local sorting office. i canted my local sorting office to find out that they have not recieved anything from amazon to my address. i further contacted amazon explaining that i have contacted the sorting office and amazon still has not got back to me and that was 4 days ago. can someone please give me advice on how to take the matter further as this is the 1st time i have ever shopped online from amazon

I ordered an item, and my debit card was charged ONE MINUTE after I ordered the item, I know because I use a netspend card, and I am immediately notified via cellphone text when a withdrawal is taken from my netspend card. Two days after I canceled my order, they tell me my card was never charged, yet it was, I have the text message in my phone and I'm certain I can get the charge information from netspend . They refuse to correspond with me, and they will not refund my money, and I will not be receiving any merchandise from them. Basically, they stole my money and won't return it. I thought amazon.com was a reputable business, but as it turns out, they are just another internet scam site. I will discourage anyone and everyone from ever using amazon, and I post on MANY forums . I only lost around $12. I'm just glad it wasn't a large amount of money, but still - the principle of the thing disgusts me.
Screw amazon.com.

We have been selling quite successfully on Amazon for years, but have just had our Seller Account shut down. And they declined our request for review. They have the worst business policies I've ever seen; that is, worst for the Vendors who have no rights whatsoever and no representation within Amazon's supposed metrics or feedback and review system. They allow customers to hold vendors hostage, as it were, and those same customers can still leave negative feedback which may be entirely or partly false and destroy the Vendor Metrics. Terrible company to work with, nowadays -- it has gone down the tubes just the way eBay did.

One nice thing about Amazon is that they want to be a reputable source for shoppers but everything people are saying above is true and it is not right what Amazon does, (allowing buyers to make a claim and keet the item AND get a refund). One sucky thing is that when the customer makes a claim, Amazon HOLDs the money, AND expects you to make a manual refund on top of that so the seller is out the item, plus the cost of the item, plus the cost of the item again for 30 days. I have noticed one thing. When ever I have to cancel an order, my sales mysteriously drop to one token sale. I could be having 30 sales a day, every day. I make one cancellation and my sales plummet instantly to one or two only for exactly 2 days. I am convinced that AMazon has the power to turn off your sales without you knowing about it, (this the one token sale to make you think your account is live). Anyone other sellers have this experience?

It is interesting that in this discussion of the great Amazon pox on the world, there is scant mention of the daylight robbery they call seller fees - in recent times I have limited my exposure to the disease by making just the occasional purchase when no alternative vendor could be found, but my daughter has recently started selling DVDs and CDs - I am taking care of posting items while she has her tonsils removed, and I took a close look at the fees applied by Amazon, of which this, for a DVD, is typical -
Quantity: 1
Order date: 24/02/2011
Buyer's price: £0.99
Amazon fees: -£1.19
Shipping: £1.26
Your earnings: £1.06
The cost of postage for a single DVD is about 86 pence plus packing.
I know that my daughter is not an idiot - this is beyond dispute - and I assume she thinks that if enough sales are generated the effort and time involved will be worthwhile, but the truth is probably this: many, many people are devoting themselves selflessly, and idiotically, to making Amazon richer, more bloated, and, if possible, more arrogant.
Eeeech!

Yes, all the above is true, they are arrogant and unethical. They claimed I put my products in the wrong catagory, and the one I qualify for is closed, so I was out of business when they terminated my account. Funny thing is, the exact same products are allowed in the one I was kicked out of, by many others. Ya think Amazon would answer me as to why this is? No way, and who ever said in other posts that Seller Perfomance Team will single you out for punishment is right, but they won't ever explain why. They violate the law in terms of unfair business practices and anti-competitive policies. I am going to read there annual report on line and get as many names on there I can and send snail mails to each director, VP, etc. Suggest you do the same.

Amazon has grown soooo big that they don't care about ethics and etiquette. I use their website to look for products and then I go directly to the seller's website so Amazon can't get a cut. Imagine being an honest person joining the rank and file of the company and you have to put up with their money-grubbing corporate ideal because you need the job during these tough times.

They even created Amazon Studios for screening screenplays. Get a load of how sleazy and greedy their convoluted rules are at www.moviebytes.com. I can't believe how quite a few aspiring desperate screenwriters fell for their contest.

I've recently been set up by a main competitor, the guy registered a trademark about 18 months ago but used a copied image from my supplier and recently he filed a few claims to amazon which obviously led to suspension of my account. I have 98% rating and trying to explain to amazon the trademark he registered is invalid and has infringed the copyring law in the first place but everytime I got a boiler plate response. They never check my explaination despite a few of them took me long time to write. Although I've now have trademark solicitor working in this case I don't know whether amazon will listen to the final resule (let's say if i won the case). I managed to find a contact in Amazon who's a friend of my friend and the guy forwared my case to Amazon legal department for investigation, hopefully it will make some difference. But for the seller performance team it's just a joke. The competitor who's set me up is still selling counterfeit and fake products on Amazon happily and he's a big seller making good money for Amazon.

I have been doing business with Amazon over a year now and I have 100% positive feedback and a total of 27 people who left me a feedback. No Complaint or AtoZ against me. I was selling alot of items and my reputation grew. Then on June 8, 2011, Amazon decided to hold my money for 30 days. Then after 30 days, I called to find out why they were still holding my money and decided to hold it up to 45 days. Then after that, I was stunned that they suspended my account and decided to hold my money for another 90 days! I have $8, 733.00 held by Amazon and I tried to appealed to them the reason for my suspension. Well, Amazon claimed that I was reselling used product or software, and I knew I didn't sell used software or products. I was selling new products. Also, in their policies, they said that OEM and Academic versions is not allowed on Amazon.com. Really? Well, why are they still available on Amazon where people can buy and sell them like Windows 7 OEM edition and etc.? Something is wrong here. It's Amazon's problem, not my problem and they wouldn't have given sellers the privilege in the first place until they either removed all of those versions, or drop it out of their policies. For holding all my money and for this unfair, unethical practice for no reason, I will never do business with Amazon again as a seller, or a buyer. I do not trust Amazon and their AtoZ claims. I couldn't get in contact with seller teams over the phone, and all I could do is send email.

Attention to all sellers and buyers and to those who considers, please don't let this happen to you. Stay away from Amazon and close your account, until Amazon fix this problems. I can almost guarantee you will share the same fate as me as a seller.

Amazon seller performance team is the biggest rip-off ever! They will take your hard earned money with false excuses and they don't answer your questions why they do so. Therefore, don't store your money in Amazon seller account, and take them out asap when you get the chance, otherwise you can kiss good bye to your money.

Dmana,
Did you write that correctly? You have $8, 733 in your account? If you wrote that correctly, shouldn't you be putting that in your bank.

I sell at Amazon. As soon as I confirm shipment with tracking number, I request disbursement. I also do this with my Ebay/Paypal account. I never let my money sit there for these vultures.

If Amazon allows massive sales of bootleg movies/CDs, they wouldn't think twice about finding out ways to freeze your account. If that $8, 733 is frozen in their account for months because of your "violation, " then they're earning interest on that.

I 've been buying from amazon for years with no problems. On my last order, I used $350 in amazon gift certificates. I bought $250 worth of stuff and a $100 credit remained on the account. They froze the account for no reason and I haven't received any stuff and my money is stuck as it is amazon gift certificate credit. I can't even log in to the account as they blocked the account. Seems to me they are targeting sitting funds whether from seller accounts or gift certificates. Time for a class action lawsuit. Amazon must be making $100's of millions through fraud nowadays.

Friends, I just created a petition entitled The United States Congress and Attorney General: Congressional investigation & class-action lawsuit against Amazon.com. I've wanted someone to help us with our mutual problem. I'm trying to collect signatures, and I could really use your help. To read more about what I'm trying to do and to sign my petition, copy & paste this link:

http://www.change.org/petitions/amazon-crushes-small-business-marketplace-sellers

I am a good seller to Amazon. I sold my ipad2 2 months ago and after 20 days the buyer who claims to complain about the ipad2 was not working.. He told amazon that he is living in south Africa. Amazon sent me an email regarding the matter. I filed a claim and told the buyer to have it checked thru Apple service since the item is under warranty.
Unfortunately, he did not reply..

Amazon then emailed me that the buyer had won the a to z performance and they will deduct the money from my account which they already did. And at the same time they were charging my credit card . There will be no refund issue. The buyer will get away with $ 600 plus my ipad2. It is so unfair on my part and i believe i got scammed over this case..

amazon is really really bad customer service to the buyer and seller..

their a big Rip off selling items cheap but getting away with it adding £5.00 extra for delivery... My friend wanted to buy a gola bag from amazon and the bag was £25 ( same price in the Gola shop plus delivery from the website is free) add £5 for delivery and another £5 even though she clicked on 3-5 days of delivery which should only be £5 but altogether the delivery was £10.00.

I know what your thinking why didn't she get the bag from the Gola shop...she would have but yeah...

This shows the people themselves are up to some type of scheme or something...otherwise she would have only paid £5 instead of £10... Your meant to pay £10 for delivery if you wanted it the next day but she asked for 3-5 days which should only be £5...
This is why Amazon is such a Rip off web store!

Patrick11,

Resale of Laptops and IPADs are always risky at Amazon and Ebay especially outside the US. It's very easy to say the used item is not working. If the seller didn't used a form of delivery confirmation, it's a no-brainer to claim the item is not received.

I'm very sorry for your expensive mistake.

this compay amazon been ripping hard working people off stealing money from them making them suffer amazon need to be out of business cause this scam bag seller performance are thieves robbing people lot of money please we have to stop from doing that there are making lot of people suffer stealing their money please we need help to stop them please