Amazon Violation Email Scare: Don't Worry, It Was a Mistake

If you received a scary email over the weekend from Amazon saying you violated specific terms of service, you can now likely breathe a sigh of relief.

If you are one of the unfortunate recipients of the scary Amazon violation email that went out this past weekend, it has been confirmed by Amazon that this was indeed a mistake on their part.

On February 23, 2018, an Amazon violation email went out to many sellers detailing a list of transgressions that were allegedly committed by said users and breached Amazon’s Terms of Service. This particular email was sent out en masse and frightened many sellers, including many of you, no doubt.

Here is an example of the email many of you may have received:

The email states:

Hello,

We are contacting you because you appear to have violated the policies of “Misuse of ratings, feedback, or reviews”, “Misuse of sales rank”, “Misuse of Search and Browse” on our site. Prohibited behaviors on Amazon.com include, but are not limited to:

• Hiring 3rd parties to try to improve ASIN rank and/or reviews
• Sending packages to addresses where the recipient does not order or expect them
• Soliciting or accepting false or fraudulent orders
• Placing orders for your own products
• Compensating buyers for purchasing your products (including claim codes)

If this conduct continues, you will not be eligible to sell on Amazon.com.

To learn more about this policy, we encourage you to review the “Misuse of Sales Rank”, “Misuse of Search and Browse” and “Misuse of sales rank” sections of the “Prohibited Seller Activities and Actions” page in Seller Central Help (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/G200386250).

Sincerely,

Seller Performance Team
Amazon.com

https://www.amazon.com

***

There have been many speculations as to why this email was sent out to so many sellers, ranging from new policies being implemented to sellers submitting followup emails with the wrong wording.

If you are one of those that received the scathing Amazon violation email, you can likely relax in knowing that this was a mistake with Amazon’s mailing system. Evidently, Amazon suffered a glitch on its end, and the email in question was a “mass email sent to all sellers on Amazon incorrectly.”

The confirmation of this ill-sent Amazon violation email comes from Mike McClary, a high profile seller and mentor to thousands of Amazon sellers, who was gracious enough to share his conversation with Amazon Seller Central on the matter:

In response to this email scare, many sellers have now been receiving responses like this:

While it certainly seems that just about all the emails sent out to sellers were a mistake, you are encouraged to contact Amazon to ensure that the email you personally received was indeed part of this batch of incorrectly sent emails.

This incident does, however, throw into perspective just how important it is to remain compliant with Amazon’s Terms of Service. No one wants to receive one of these Amazon violation emails for real, effectively shutting down your business. Staying vigilant and keeping an eye on updates from Seller Central will surely keep you from getting into trouble with Amazon.

This problem seems to be localized for sellers in North America, but if you operate in a marketplace outside of the US or have any developments on the issue, please let us know down in the comments below!

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