I have been selling on Amazon on and off for a few years recently I decided to focus more on selling on the site. After getting income of about $1500 for about two months I decided that I could use a pro account. After making several inquires to amazons customer service, (and it took a few inquires) I was told that the only way to do this would be to close down my current account and start again. I was unhappy about doing this by I reluctantly agreed. So I closed my current account and opened up a pro account. The site said that funds would be held on new account for two weeks as a security measure. I was not happy with this but it seemed reasonable. Right before the two weeks were up I had accumulated about $1400 in my account. The day before the funds were two be released, I received the following message
As part of our ongoing commitment to improving the customer experience on Amazon.com, we are conducting a review of your seller account. During this review period your funds will be reserved in your Amazon Payments account for up to 30 days
I immediately stopped selling on Amazon despite them telling me that it was ok. I called customer service and they told me that I had been selected and that this was routine. At that point I started doing research on Amazon and I was surprised to learn how often they do this and get away with this. I provided them with all the tracking information like they requested (everything was delivered and there were no complaints). I also receive a total of 17 positive feedbacks with no negative feedback. They requested information about where I source my merchandise from and I other business information.information which I feel is an invasion of my privacy. Why should I have to reveal to Amazon detailed information about how I sourced my merchandise. No other online company has requested this. Not eBay; not overstock and not others. My merchant account company has also not requested such information. It is clear to me that they are requesting it to gain useful selling information for their own use.
I did not try to contact them again about the fairness of holding my funds because I read that a number of people that have tried to do that have had their accounts permanently terminated, rudely told that any further emails would not be returned and fund that were already held for a long time would remain in custody for several more months.
After I received the notice mentioned above I sent them in all the information that they requested in spite of my objections. Immediately afterwards, I emailed them asking if the information that I sent was sufficient. I only received a form letter that did not answer my question. I repeated this and I got the same response.
About a week ago (3 weeks after they sent the initial email), I received another email that the information that I provided them was insufficient and that my funds would be help for an additional 15 days. They did not explain what was insufficient, but I knew from experience that it would not help to ask. I again sent them more detailed information and I am now waiting. It has been more than thirty days since I shipped my last orders and I have no complaints against me. If they do not want me to sell on Amazon because they think that I am not trustworthy (actually I think that the opposite is true), so they should not let me sell, but why should they hold my money?
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