
Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do? - nikkwong
I&#x27;m at my wits end with big tech platforms. I run a popular photography product company (which was a Kickstarter project in 2014) [0] which gets a lot of love for its ability to help photographers take interesting images.<p>But I&#x27;m continually running into walls with BigTechCos. I&#x27;m just coming off the end of having had my Instagram account deleted by Facebook because a graffiti artist and his trolls were able to flag my IG account and left me unable to appeal[1]. 20k followers, 4 years of work gone. My entire customer base is primarily on IG and they are shocked to find that I&#x27;m not; so I feel the pain every day and the fact that I&#x27;m no longer advertising on FB because of it is a loss-loss in my opinion. Can not explain how upsetting it is for me.<p>To add insult to injury Amazon randomly delisted my product. I randomly received an email that they removed me [2]. I checked the listing and saw that a customer had left a bad review. I went to contact that customer [3] and saw that the seller in that instance wasn&#x27;t me, it was Adorama, a retailer who sells the product I created. I figured this was the sale that got my account flagged, so I responded trying to explain that I sell an OEM product so I wouldn&#x27;t sell anything used&#x2F;broken[4]. They then respond that my response is not sufficient[5]. I then decide to give them what they want, contact my manufacturer, come up with a plan [6]. Pretty long, with evidence, a spreadsheet, and even more detailed notes at the end of the email.<p>Today they&#x27;ve just gotten back to me saying they refuse to reinstate it and that I&#x27;m shit out of luck [7]. I am livid at this point. What else did they want? And if they weren&#x27;t going to reinstate me in the first place, why not just say that? According to my account dashboard my account is in perfect &#x27;health&#x27;[8] and there is absolutely no indication that there is anything wrong. I feel like I am being trolled.<p>It feels so perverse because I live in Seattle so I am always rooting for Amazon. Now, after having finally taken the leap and quit my job and started a company that&#x27;s beginning to do well, the companies that I&#x27;ve always applauded are totally screwing up my business and leaving me stranded with no options. Not even a customer support number. I don&#x27;t typically get stressed but the helplessness in the hands of these companies has been keeping me up at night. I <i>feel</i> the stress.<p>Does anyone have any ideas of what I could do? I live in Seattle so are there any offices or people I could try reasoning with in person? And also if anyone can tell me what I did wrong. If anyone has any information that could be useful I would seriously appreciate it because this is quite literally my livelihood and my entire life.<p>Thank you for reading. Also sorry for the rant; I am not usually so forthcoming; the entire situation though, is just so dis-empowering.<p>Edit: here is also the product listing in question [9]<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.getfractals.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.getfractals.com</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19166053" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19166053</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;aQLThvj" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;aQLThvj</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;xm8dAoI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;xm8dAoI</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;8biKZlT" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;8biKZlT</a><p>[5] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;ZSVz7vn" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;ZSVz7vn</a><p>[6] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;IZgOfuA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;IZgOfuA</a><p>[7] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;j81rJyk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;j81rJyk</a><p>[8] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;dP11fCc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;dP11fCc</a><p>[9] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B00OHD49R6?ref=myi_title_dp" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B00OHD49R6?ref=myi_title_dp</a>
======
ikeboy
You need professional help. It's unfortunate, but there's a very specific
format you need to be responding in that's not intuitive unless you've written
a bunch of these.

Check out any of the following (I've met both of them and can recommend them):

Ed Rosenberg, ASGTG

Chris McCabe, ecommerceChris

You'll pay somewhere in the $1-2k range for a listing reinstatement, they'll
write a professional letter to Amazon in the format they want and hitting all
the right points, and you'll be back in business.

Alternatively, you can sell wholesale to other sellers who will sell on
Amazon, and not have to deal with this crap yourself.

~~~
mtnGoat
Or just figure it out on your own and then turn around and charge a few grand
to all the folks amazon will do it to next week.

apparently helping sellers get reinstated might be more profitable than
actually being a seller.

------
setquk
There's going to be a massive rise in this sort of stuff over the next few
years. Firstly consolidation, then organisations too large to care about their
clients, then semi-automated punishment. Always remember that Amazon is in the
same business as everyone and they can burn you down in a second if they
decide they don't care. It's a pond full of bureaucratic crocodiles and the
biggest one is boss. On numerous occasions companies have shipped me "fuck
you" instead of what I paid for and Amazon won't deal with that. It's no
better than a traditional market now. The good traders lose to the bad ones,
the customers lose to everyone and the only winner is the landlord.

The only thing you can do is refuse to play.

I'd get a (off shelf) storefront up on a domain you control and can remain in
control of and start looking for alternative sources of customers. If you have
a customer database of any kind, send out marketing emails with product /
brand relaunch. Start posting on twitter, insta, google adwords, popular
related forums, everything you can. If you have a loyal customer base they
will find you again. I know I would.

~~~
ajross
> On numerous occasions companies have shipped me "fuck you" instead of what I
> paid for and Amazon won't deal with that.

What? I've never once had a problem with an Amazon return. You click "return
this item", choose the return method (their newer "Locker" thing around the
corner is pretty convenient) and that's all that needs to happen.

I mean... there's lots to complain about with Amazon, as there is for any big
company. But customer service just isn't one of them as I see it.

What has your experience been that you think Amazon "doesn't deal with"
returns?

~~~
nikofeyn
their automated systems are fine, but their actual service is terrible.
anytime you need to do something outside of their "system", it is a complete
mess and most of the time a complete dead end.

as an example, in the past year, i have had to return/replace greater than 50%
of the books i received from them since the books have ranged from being
damaged, torn, or just plain dirty. it may be less than 50%, but there have
definitely been windows of time where it's greater than that. this is a
MASSIVE inconvenience because although all i have to do to initiate the return
is click a button, i also have to handle repacking the books and then physical
driving or walking them to a dropoff point, all of which takes an hour round
trip. i have contacted amazon multiple times, and i am not even able to get
the point across. they see that i returned or exchanged the book, so the
problem is solved from their end. when i explain that this wastes so much of
my time and effectively negates the amazon prime benefit of one or two day
shipping (since once the book ships, arrives, i see it's damaged, initiate
return process, wait on new shipping which defaults to two days even for books
that shipped in one day in the first place takes about a week), they offer a
$5 amazon gift card. there was no escalation process whatsoever or even
concern.

just this week, i have had to return two books back to them because both books
basically arrived used, with dirty and damaged covers and stained pages. the
box is in my car ready to be dropped of at ups. it's to the point that i am
beginning to have no reason to shop on amazon for books anymore, and i am even
considering canceling prime. i have noticed a marked dropped in quality of the
books and packing, and i am also just tired of their terrible website. they
were the originator of the online book sales, yet their website remains
absolutely horrid for books, especially when it comes to multiple editions,
releases, paperback vs hardback, etc.

earlier this week, i came across a product listing that had reviews that were
clearly for another product. there is no button to report such instances of
reviews. try contacting amazon and see if anything even remotely helpful is
done. and that's a case of _you_ trying to help _them_.

amazon, apple, and google are perfect examples of what you get at "scale":
companies that treat customers as replaceable resources that should have
interactions minimized. the less these companies have to deal with customers
and users, the better, from their perspective.

~~~
mtnGoat
calling them in always a fiasco, both times i've had to call, the operator
agreed with me that it was completely stupid how they run things and how
complex certain things were. When your own employees agree, there might be a
problem.

------
jjeaff
It looks like your listing is removed but your account is still active. Is
that right?

You need to do a little bit of research on the type of response they are
looking for as far as your "plan". You are talking to them and sending them
screenshots as if you are talking to a human that cares. They do not. Your
messages are going into a queue of thousands where low paid, unskilled workers
are skimming through then as fast as possible and clicking approve or deny.

You need to work the system, adjust your responses according to what their
blanket response says and just keep at it. Modify your plan and resend it. But
wait for them to respond each time before you message again.

Don't over do the detail. But create a numbered list with what you are going
to do to correct the problem. I had the same issue with one of my accounts. It
took maybe 9 letters until they finally reinstated me. There was nothing
special in that 9th letter. It probably just got read by someone in a good
mood that day.

If this is your first issue and you don't have any other serious issues with
your account, you should be able to get it back.

~~~
robryan
Yeah it is insane. Trying to approach these appeals like you are talking to a
regular person just results in failure. A whole industry has popped up around
writing Amazon appeals.

It is silly, the whole process encourages you to wildly over promise in your
plan, a reasonable set of steps to solve the problem likely won't get you
anywhere. Even have to admit to and propose a fix to problems that were never
there to fix their check boxes.

There is also a wall between account managers and the seller performance
teams, we have had account mangers pushing to get our account back on and not
being able to help.

OP- There is a lot of information online so just continue to research and work
out exactly what they are looking for, what their check boxes look like, and
then write something that hits them all. On the positive side it is rare a
final determination from them is actually final and they will generally still
look at things after the deadlines they have set.

------
kharak
A family member had the same problem recently. Amazon "deleted" all seller
accounts in Europe, because they allegedly didn't sell anything. There was
only an US seller account left to contact support. We send support requests
over the request platform (forgot the name), to one of the email addresses we
got from another support request and to a local post address of Amazon. We got
answers from all sources, from different persons with quit different results.
Some told us to use the EU support request platform (which was no longer
available). Some answers told us the same thing the automatic email said.
There is no quality control here, no due process. Luckily (literally luck),
all stores got reinstated after a week. At some point, we provided evidence
that those seller accounts did in fact sell products and our requests were
forwarded to an internal business department. There, finally, someone realized
that Amazon made a mistake.

Our case isn't yours, but that's the only thing I can tell you. Shotgun
initial requests to 3-5 addresses. Make it quit clear that you a) are
generating value for Amazon b) want to continue doing so and c) fixed the
issue (or better that there actually wasn't an issue and you got flagged for
the wrong reason).

Ultimately, this is a question about policy. Big platforms need to be
regulated. They are no longer a single business you can avoid. They are a
platform, a monopoly holding influence over our daily lives, with the power to
destroy financial existences due to algorithmic decisions. You never know
beforehand what could go wrong, there is no proper way to contact Amazon in
emergencies (like a hotline). You have no way to reinstate your seller account
if Amazon simply says "no". (Maybe you could sue them, but you're going to be
bankrupt long before that process is finished). Power imbalance is at the root
of all injustice and exactly the reason we need rights to protect those with
less.

I sincerely hope you can save your business.

~~~
enobrev
> Amazon "deleted" all seller accounts in Europe, because they allegedly
> didn't sell anything.

In the US, I used to use Amazon to re-sell things I no longer wanted / needed.
Old books, especially technical ones, usually got a great price. Electronics
I'd replaced would also do really well, especially since I kept the original
packaging. And before I'd move to a new city, I'd sell as much as I could.
Back then it was essentially encouraged, with a button showing "You purchased
this item on <date>, click here to sell it!". I'd had excellent reviews from
all buyers and as far as I was concerned it was the best way to get rid of
quality goods because the sale was already made - I just needed to package and
ship.

About a year later, I tried to go on to sell some things I'd replaced and it
turned out they killed my seller account. Worse, I couldn't contact customer
service because authentication on their Seller site was required, and my
account was closed.

I called a few numbers and finally got hold of someone and was told my account
was closed because I hadn't sold anything in a while. Seemed odd. I asked if
they could re-open my account, which had been left in excellent standing, and
that was denied. The support person suggested I just start a new account with
a new email address. That seemed ridiculous to me. I don't want a new email
address.

All that good will I'd built with the hundred or so things I'd sold: Gone,
with no chance of return. Since I'm not trying to make a living on the
platform, I was tossed. I'm surely not a blip on their radar, but I easily
would have sold at least another $10k worth of stuff through them over the
next few years.

It was a pretty great thing. Unfortunate how they've ruined it so.

~~~
kharak
> The support person suggested I just start a new account with a new email
> address. That seemed ridiculous to me. I don't want a new email address.

One of the replies told us exactly the same. Just reopen with a new email
address. Ridiculous on it's own, but we had inventory in Amazons warehouses
left, worth thousands of euros. What would have happened with that? Destroyed
without compensation is my best guess.

~~~
ekovarski
I am surprised the support person suggested to just start a new account as I
doubt this is sanctioned advice by Amazon and could lead you to be banned
again in the future.

Best to try to email jeff@amazon.com and be polite and succinct with your
issue and desired outcome. Even perhaps mention that you were told to simply
create a new account but that you doubt that this is the right approach.
Hopefully someone from his team will respond.

I believe Dave Clark (SVP of Ops) is also on Twitter so you could try to reach
out to him and see if he can direct you to the right person. Best of luck,
hope you resolve the issue.

------
fdsa_fdsa_98767
Though it may not help your position, I wouldn't dismiss the idea that petty /
bureaucratic staff are giving you the runaround.

I had exactly that happen with the Apple App Review squad. I managed to
somehow offend a mid-level manager type and she purposefully kept moving the
bar to get our app through review.

"Did I say you need one of those? I meant one or two. You need two."

I had an old contact there that was way up the food chain and he contacted her
boss on my behalf -- who called and apologized and took the idiot woman off
the case.

If I didn't have that contact, we would have been at the mercy of some
worthless drone who wanted to flex her muscles.

Big tech absolutely should be broken up. There is no such thing as Amazon --
well, there's Amazon the monopoly, but the Amazon you deal with is one of a
100 rent-seeking fiefdoms staffed with people who got picked last in school.

Collectively they do much more harm than good. (And that's ignoring the more
pressing problem of political bias and censorship.)

~~~
lm28469
Creating a tmp account to roast minimum wage workers, classy.

Feel free to go work as a reviewer at amazon/apple if you feel like you can
improve the process. I'm sure you'll enjoy getting 20% of your current salary
+ being treated like an animal by basically everyone.

~~~
baud147258
I don't think a "mid-level manager" makes minimum wage.

~~~
softawre
I'd assume the average wage here is more than 5x minimum.

------
dingaling
The only way to protect against commercial deplatforming is to promote and
sell through your own website, with a choice of payment processors.

It's hard work but there's really nothing else to say.

Every other presence should be considered as a disposable inbound funnel.
Instagram or Twitter deleted you? Start a new account and link back to your
website again.

~~~
ahmedalsudani
Whenever I read this advice, I can't help but feel it's futile.

Do you realize how hard it is to gain people's attention without being on one
of the major platforms? How do you get people to come to your website, to
trust your service and give you their credit card details? How do you accept
payments? You have to use something like PayPal or Stripe, also platforms
which can ban you for any (or no) reason. The economics are unworkable, and
platforms are unavoidable.

This is our new reality.

~~~
dangravell
Depends what you mean by "platform", and it might depend on what you are
selling, but other channels you might want to look at are SEO, discussion
forums, integration marketing etc. Take a look at the book "Traction".

~~~
kaffee
Which "Traction" book is this? There seem to be a few with this title.

~~~
uxcolumbo
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22091581-traction](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22091581-traction)

------
CodeWriter23
Are you communicating with Seller Central, A-to-z, or Seller Performance?

You need to be talking to Seller Performance. That’s the legal team. My mom
had some return fraud, same person, second time at a new address. I proved
beyond a doubt the damage photos were photoshopped and we refused to refund
and refused to replace. We pre-emptively contacted Seller Performance before
denying to take care of the customer as it was in a grey area of the seller
contract. Seller Performance said it was our customer and we could do as we
saw fit. A-to-z got all unreasonable with us and threatened to terminate our
account until we referred them to the Seller Performance email stream. Yes,
all this over a shitty pair of $5 sunglasses...but it’s the principle of the
matter.

Talk to the lawyers. Be brief, clear and truthful. That’s your best bet.

~~~
ikeboy
Seller performance is not the legal team.

------
folbec
As a customer, not a seller, I'm now activelly avoiding Amazon as much as I
can. Even if it is inconvenient.

Especially since I read this article about commingling (you need to register
(free) to read):
[https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/20/1553085361000/Amazon-...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/20/1553085361000/Amazon
--sub-Prime-/)

They are now dangerously close to be a monopoly AND a monopsony in way too
many markets.

They just don't need to care anymore and it shows.

~~~
ikeboy
He clearly doesn't understand what he's writing about - his example is Apple
Earpods, where Amazon is the only seller due to an exclusive contract between
Amazon and Apple, and there's no commingling at all going on.

------
oliverx0
I have personally purchased your product as a gift for my sister and she loved
it. I really hope that Amazon realizes their mistake.

~~~
nikkwong
Thank you so much!! That means so much.

------
ajonit
Once (and if) you exhaust all options mentioned by HNers, trying emailing Jeff
Bezos and write a proper explanation with kind of tldr; in the first para.

I know it sounds stupid but it worked for me. I had a $$$ of affiliate payment
pending with them and the CS staff dilly-dallied the payment - to my Indian
account - for more than 10 months. I emailed, Jeff intervened, deputed his
secretary on my case. He, in turn, got me in touch with India manager. The
Indian manager bent over backwards and was extremely apologetic for the
trouble I had to face and sent the amount quickly. He ended the last call
saying for any kind of trouble with Amazon I can contact him.

~~~
nikkwong
It is reassuring to hear that Jeff at least operates like a decent human. It
is so nihilistic to imagine a future where leaders of these insanely powerful
tech companies act moreso like, say, characters on wall street.

------
rygxqpbsngav
Don't know what to say. You should move away from amazon. It is already a
monopoly. Recently I flagged a product which has all 5 _(10s of them, not a
singe 4_ or -ve reviews!). Looked at the reviews on page 1, all single lines,
great product, received promptly etc. None properly describing the product. I
was almost convinced to buy, then dig through the reviews and found that the
reviews are not related to the product at all. The product is a vitamin
supplement, the reviews related to some skin cream not available on street.
And it's directly an amazon prime product (not from market place).I was raged
and immediately contacted amazon cs and had a lengthy chat and they said some
one will get back to me and do something about it. Never heard anything back
and the product stays and people still get fooled.

------
ocdtrekkie
Unfortunately, your best bet is to hope this gets enough attention here that
an Amazon employee on some higher level happens to see it. This is more or
less the case with a lot of these tech companies right now. You have my
upvotes, hope it helps.

~~~
nikkwong
Also to further your point into existential territory. I remember hearing
Elizabeth Warren saying her plan was to break up BigTechCo's and thinking to
myself about how ridiculous it is and how she's totally pointing her guns in
the wrong direction. But after these events and some reflection; it's true.
These companies are clearly only accountable to themselves leaving everyone
else to go f* themselves. Consumers may win in the short term with the low
prices that commerce conglomerate Amazon can offer, but I think the long run;
retail death will only further widen income gaps and continue to tear our
country's social fibers further apart.

I feel like I did everything I could to be on the correct side of this
economic gamble; having worked for a few BigTechCo's; studying, training hard,
teaching myself to code. But still, they don't even treat me right. It's like
they're accountable to no one. They are more and moreso becoming public enemy
#1 and I feel like that's a position for which they are totally deserving.

~~~
rjmunro
I can't see how breaking up Amazon helps this kind of thing. Sure you could
break of AWS, you could separate fulfilment stuff from the main marketplace
and have Amazon itself just another marketplace seller, you could insist they
use 3rd party courier companies, not start their own etc.

But fundamentally there is still a website that has listings and someone has
to patrol it for quality / spam. Those people will have to use algorithms, and
they will make mistakes.

Don't get me wrong. Breaking up Amazon is a good idea, and should happen, but
it's unlikely to help here.

~~~
logifail
> I can't see how breaking up Amazon helps this kind of thing

Read up on the break-up of Standard Oil.[0]

If we took that approach with a tech giant, we'd end up with lots of smaller
independent companies _which compete with each other_ in their markets, not
companies which each (still!) completely dominate one particular market
segment.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#Breakup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#Breakup)

~~~
Nasrudith
That doesn't seem like it would work in this context. Whichever retains the
Amazon domain name (or if somehow forfeited the most memorable/closest) would
retain the lion's share for the one stop shop. Barnes and Noble is still
around but that market seems fairly winner takes all.

MmThe break en up mantra seems demagogic pandering as opposed to a real
solution- especially when actual abusive and far more dominant, abusive, and
all consuming monopolies walk by in the background whistling.

------
patrickxie
First: DO NOT email jeff@amazon.com, DO NOT Do media or any of crazy stuff
like that.

I have to be honest with you OP. This is a case of you not understanding how
the platform works, while Amazon is unclear in their policies. If you give
them what they need, they will collaborate with you most of the time.

Here's what I believe happened based on what you provided.

Your product listing, you must have created using manufacturer's barcode. You
can check your seller central Settings -> Fulfillment By Amazon
[http://prntscr.com/n6j53l](http://prntscr.com/n6j53l)

If you had this at manufacturer barcode, or created the listing with
manufacturer barcode. Then your products are commingled with the other
sellers.

From what I saw in the image, it looks like the other seller Adorama sent in a
product that looked used to the buyer. Then buyer complained. Now you are on
the hook since the products are commingled.

If this is indeed the case you will need to write a Plan of action that
addresses what Amazon is asking.

Point them to your manufacturer's website
([https://www.getfractals.com](https://www.getfractals.com))

Root cause \- inventory commmingling

Action Taken \- removed all inventory to verify no issues

Prevention \- no more commingling

Sourcing: I source directly from manufacturer, I am the brand owner and
manufacturer. point to the your website, and LINK the verifiable information
back to you (same address, same storefront name, same personal nam etc), this
is to prove you are sourcing from legitimate source.

Listing: You have double checked listing to make sure product matches

Packaging & Shipping: address this if necessary

Buyer communication: I've reached out to buyer, and found out this product is
from a commingled seller.

Also you will need to draft a invoice to yourself (your manufacturer identity
to your own seller identity) in order to give the document amazon needs to
pass this.

If you draft the correct POA plan, Amazon will accept it. Also make sure you
never use commingling if you create your own products!

~~~
ikeboy
Strongly disagree.

First of all, Adorama is selling merchant fulfilled, not FBA. So commingling
is irrelevant here.

Second, it's unlikely the Adorama order is what caused the issue, being as it
wasn't even FBA. My guess is it's a different order that caused the issue,
they haven't identified it properly, and that's why they're getting rejected.

~~~
HelenOster
If there is anything I may be able to assist you with, you are most welcome to
email me: helen@adorama.com

Helen Oster Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador

------
thirdsun
My advice: Think long and hard about which third platforms your products rely
on. I understand that it's not practical or even advisable to completely avoid
third party providers, but at least your store should be independent and
reachable under yourdomain.com. It should be the primary destination for your
customers.

I'm not affiliated with them, just a happy customer, but a service like
Shopify will enable you to run your own store without a technological
background or server administration and it doesn't prevent you from also
selling via external channels like Amazon, eBay or others. The difference is
that your primary store, or in the worst case your domain, will be there even
if Amazon & Co. decide to stop selling your products over night.

------
johnnycab
I recommend that you read the article below. At the very least, you might find
some solace in knowing that you are not alone. Alternatively, you could reach
out to some of the consultants mentioned in the article, who specialise in
unravelling the Amazon ToS and act as arbitrers.

Good luck.

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-
marketpl...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketplace-
scams-seller-court-appeal-reinstatement)

------
toby-
Don't try to make a new account as others have suggested. You're essentially
guaranteed to be permanently delisted by Amazon if you do this and they react.
Instead, send a polite but compelling email to jeff@amazon.com explaining the
situation in full.

I once had an issue that Amazon's customer service wouldn't address. I emailed
jeff@amazon.com and had a response within a week, with a full resolution to
the matter.

Worth a shot?

------
kwiromeo
I'm going to echo a lot of people's response here, and say that your best bet
is to reduce and/or eliminate your dependence on Amazon. As far as IG, I think
that it's a channel worth pursuing because your product fits the platform so
well.

Just an idea: you mentioned that you had a successful Kickstarter in 2014. If
you still have the list of backers, and their emails, this is a good
opportunity to start an email list, and tell your story to them. The primary
goal will be to tell them why you're not on Amazon, and on IG, and how it
happened.

It is an opportunity to also direct them to your new selling channel (or tell
them that you are working on one). You can also appeal to your customer to
lend your their support (I don't know how, but it is a good opportunity to
figure out how that support could look like).

------
flippyhead
> because a graffiti artist and his trolls were able to flag my IG account

Super curious about the story behind this..

~~~
nikkwong
Look no further.

[https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/37238/does-this-
imag...](https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/37238/does-this-image-with-a-
subject-containing-graffiti-in-the-background-infringe-on)

~~~
chrischen
Seems like people are saying art is art, and copyrighted, even if it was
illegal graffiti.

That begs the question:

1) what if I start tagging everything possible in public space, and if anyone
takes photos of it then I can claim copyright violation or royalties? Evidence
in the comments seems to show that this _actually works_ to get settlements.

And this was brought up by a commenter:

2) what if a my car window is smashed (as a work of art), and I take a photo
of it for evidence?

Seems like copyrighting artwork done on public property (or other people's
property) is an unfair and unjust invasion of one's personal vision space
(it's forcing me to look at it). It reduces my personal rights to take photos
of a public area and retain what would be my rights to the contents of a photo
by having someone's copyrighted artwork imposed there (often illegitimately).
In my opinion, if I am forced—that is to say I have no choice—to see something
then it should lose copyright (or be applicable as fair use).

------
_Codemonkeyism
I always found dealing with Amazon Kafkaesque outside of "my parcel didn't
arrive - ok we send a new one" or "I don't want this - ok send it back". Some
of my interactions ended with involving the police who solved them in my
favor.

------
binarysolo
Ask this in the Amazon sellercentral forums, not here. Yes there are pro
Amazon sellers here but most people here don't really know anything about how
the Amazon reinstatement system works at all - as others pointed out it's
unfortunately somewhat byzantine in nature.

BTW - same deal with IG, there's a process to reinstatement. Now to think
about it - there's actually a skill involved with talking to BigCos,
understanding how support teams are structured (and who has power/discretion),
and getting resolutions in your favor. A lot of these issues come from
overarching policies followed up by corner cases, so you need to present yours
well basically.

------
jondubois
When you try to make a living outside of the big corporations, you can feel
the invisible wall that they've built to protect their business interests from
small players. It's ridiculous that if I work for a corporation, I can get
paid a huge salary with huge options package for doing very little actual work
but if I try to do my own business, I can produce much more of the same work
but can't make 10% of the salary.

------
inuhj
It is entirely possible to get your Instagram reinstated. What you need to do
is know someone who has a close relationship with FB. In the past I used a
friend who owns an influencer agency. After months of submitting my own
appeals his single appeal did the trick.

------
fillskills
Tweet at the company and the CEO of such company with details. That is what
the media is watching. This will get their attention. Worked for a couple of
people I know personally.

~~~
Phlarp
This can be a powerful tool, but in this specific instance it's probably more
likely to get his account locked down for good.

------
who-knows95
Hello, i completely understand your frustration, reading the messages it's
clearly some drone on the other side replying.

I would echo the statement to put up your own store, hosted on your own
domain, and to stop relying on third party suppliers that are not interested
in your well being. (but i have no personal experience)

i have seen YouTubers echo this statement in regards to ads disappearing, and
i have seen amazon wipe companies out with these idiotic issues.

i wish you the best, and i love your product design/idea!

~~~
kaffee
I think this is right. It is possible to sell on your own site. Luxury goods
do it right now. For example, if you want to buy perfume directly from Chanel,
you cannot do it through Amazon. My sense is that Chanel wouldn't give Amazon
product even if they asked for it.

That said, I think this approach is best combined with voting for and
supporting candidates and social movements which will break up big tech and/or
socialize their assets.

------
HNthrow22
Wow, thanks for sharing, unbelievable story, hope you can find a quick
resolution. Hopefully the buzz from this post ends up being a net positive for
your business.

To anyone questioning why breaking up big tech is important, just imagine
doing nothing wrong an receiving a form email like this in regards to your
livelihood: [https://i.imgur.com/gWewbd1.png](https://i.imgur.com/gWewbd1.png)

------
jongold
I have no idea how to help but your product looks wonderful and I think I'm
going to buy it - I'm sorry you're going through this

~~~
rajacombinator
+1 looks like a really cool product and I’m probably gonna buy one as a gift.
Insane that a clearly legit product like this can be banned with no recourse
at these sites. They should invest some of their smart people into improving
the UX for these situations.

------
Insanity
At least this is on the homepage of HN now. That might get it some attention
from someone who works for Amazon.

But that really sucks, hope you can resolve this!

------
zaptheimpaler
If you live in Seattle, perhaps you have friends who work at Amazon who can
intro you to someone in the right team? You're trying to deal with a giant
bureaucracy, so access to someone on the inside is going to be really
effective.

------
nik736
Push your own ecommerce channels, there is no need to rely solely on Amazon.

------
pravda
What does "US Patent #14/205-314" mean?

Is that a new patent-number style? Because it does not look like a normal
patent number.

~~~
bdowling
That is a patent application number. USPTO Public PAIR [0] shows that the
application went abandoned 12-12-2016.

[0]
[https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair](https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair)

------
elliekelly
I think I might be able to help - I've just sent an email to the address
listed under "contact" on your site.

------
legohead
Surprised no one has mentioned a lawyer. Even if Amazon/FB is in full rights
to do what they've done, having a lawyer send a letter usually gets a more
indepth and careful examination of your issue(s).

------
baybal2
Make a new account - the only thing that works.

Amazon has no qualms delisting businesses making tenth of megabucks on Amazon,
and it is very unlikely that they will make an exception for a small business.

~~~
robryan
Very hard to successfully do this, basically have to commit to going full
stealth with a different company, owners, emails, bank accounts, IPs ect.

~~~
baybal2
9 times out of 10, they seem to don't mind.

I know no Amazon vendor in China that doesn't deal with random closures by
just reopening the account, and often with the same credentials.

~~~
bitL
That's a really bad advice for US residents. Maybe their flagging ML system
doesn't work well on random Chinese addresses, but with US history they pretty
much either prevent a creation of a new account in any way associated with an
old banned account, immediately flag it for a review requiring extensive
internal company documentation/proofs or remove it in regular (quarterly?)
sweeps when they kick bunches of sellers from their platform.

"Funny" thing is their anomaly detection algorithms are really bad and they
tend to keep counterfeit sellers while kicking out genuine ones more often
with no way to appeal in a reasonable fashion, i.e. paying some external
company with individual ties to Amazon managers to reinstate sellers...
Complete mafia around selling on that badly designed platform.

~~~
baybal2
My hypothesis is that they intentionally disabled or relaxed fuzzy string
match based ban lists in China.

It is common knowledge that you have much better chance to re-register without
any trickery in a big city, than in a small one.

Imagine, you have few hundreds Liu Chens running some undescript Zhongguo
Electronics in every megacity, and very likely all having addresses like
"Northern/Western/Eastern Industrial Park Zone 123" – add some fuzzy logic
here and you have a recipe for disaster.

------
SQL2219
I remember the internet before Amazon, people controlled their own stuff. Do
likewise, respond like it's 2002.

