3 Steps to Get Your Amazon Suspended Account Reinstated

Last updated on June 5th, 2023

Written by Mohamed Aden

If there's anything that any seller doesn't want to go through, it's needing to get their Amazon suspended account reinstated. If you're already in this position, it only means that you cannot access your account due to the suspension. As a seller, you must be alarmed by this. Since your account is rendered inactive, it means that you won't be able to be on top of sales on Amazon.

Amazon Suspension Help: How You Can Get Your Account Reinstated

One of the most commonly asked questions by sellers who have encountered the same situation is how to get their Amazon suspended account reinstated. There are a lot of things that you first have to prepare before you write your Amazon seller suspension appeal letter. With that, here are the things that you need to do to get your account reinstated.

1. Understand why your account was suspended

The first thing that you should do is to understand why your seller account got suspended. There are a lot of reasons why an account gets suspended. These reasons are why you should thoroughly understand what you have possibly done wrong.

Most sellers don't mind conducting a thorough investigation. These sellers proceed to work on their Amazon seller suspension appeal letters as soon as they learn that their accounts are suspended. What they don't know is that knowing the underlying reasons for suspension will help them in crafting their letters.

So if you have encountered an Amazon seller account suspension, you must first try to understand what happened. You won't really have a hard time, and it shouldn't take you a full day to learn about what has happened. 

When Amazon sends you a suspension letter, you will see the reasons why they have suspended your account. However, you do have to investigate these claims and see if they got it right. Here are the possible reasons why an account may get suspended.

• You're selling items that are prohibited from being sold on the platform.

The moment you start selling on Amazon, you agree to the company's terms and conditions. This includes agreeing to what kind of products you can sell on the platform. There are a lot of items on the list of restricted products, but here are the most common ones:

• Alcohol
• Animals and animal-related products
• Dietary supplements
• Drugs and drug paraphernalia
• Explosives, weapons, and other related items
• Lock picks and devices that can be used for theft
• Pesticides and pesticide-related devices
• Plant and seed products

You might also want to check the full list of restricted products. This is so you will know if what you are selling can be sold on the platform. However, if you're already selling these products, then this might be one of the reasons why your account got suspended.

• You're selling counterfeit items.

Aside from prohibited items, Amazon is serious in dealing with counterfeit items, as well. This means that even if you're not selling restricted items, as long as your products were tagged and reported as counterfeit, it can be a reason why you got the suspension.

Usually, the item categories that have the most counterfeit sellers would be movies, DVDs, beauty products, and electronics, among many others. Counterfeit items are fake or imitation pieces of any product. This is also one of the reasons why most sellers get account suspensions, but they fully insist that they haven't done anything wrong.

Just make sure that you check with your manufacturers or wherever you're sourcing your inventory. Since Amazon is pretty strict on this rule, you have to make sure that you have a trusted source for your products, as it might be a reason for your possible account suspension.

• You've received a lot of negative feedback.

Customer obsession is one of the pillars of Amazon's values. This means that the company is pro-customers over anything else. They would often go through lengths like extending their returns policy to please their customers.

It's no surprise that Amazon would take negative feedback from their customers very seriously. Although sellers would get negative feedback on their products, too many negative reviews will grab Amazon's attention and flag your account for suspension.

• You have duplicate accounts.

Since Amazon is already a big marketplace with hundreds of thousands of sellers already on it, the last thing that the company would want to deal with are sellers with duplicate accounts. Basically, this means that you cannot create duplicate accounts. 

If you have two accounts for two separate businesses, you will be served a suspension notice. Amazon takes serious measures to make sure that there is just one account for every seller. This includes making sure that the accounts weren't made or accessed from the same IP address, or the billing details such as the physical address and bank accounts aren't the same for one account and another.

Since Amazon is also pretty strict about seller accounts being accessed through one IP address, it also means that any member of your household, as long as you're accessing the internet through the same wireless connection, can be flagged as a second account.

So even if you did not necessarily make two Amazon seller accounts, there might be some factors that can affect your suspension.

• Opening a new account after yours gets suspended.

There are some sellers who wouldn't want to go through the trouble of making an Amazon seller suspension appeal letter. However, opening a new account after getting your seller account suspended will also be a reason for your suspension once again.

There might be some doubt on your part on how Amazon is going to know that you're the same seller. You might have already tried it, but it's a guarantee that you will not succeed in selling from your new account. Amazon will always find a way to suspend your account. 

2. Don't let emotions get in the way.

When your account gets suspended, it's understandable to feel a lot of emotions. You might feel angry, frustrated, and sad, among other negative feelings. It's completely normal to have these feelings,.especially if Amazon is your primary source of income.

However, when writing your Amazon seller suspension appeal letter, it's not recommended that you involve much of your feelings. While it is understandable to some extent, you also have to take a professional approach in dealing with these situations.

Emotions won't help in getting your Amazon suspended account reinstated. So before writing your letter, make sure that you've fully set aside these initial reactions. It's also best that you work with an agency or someone who's had experience in writing suspension account appeal letters. This way, you're sure that you've fully detached yourself from what you're going to write.

3. Write your appeal letter.

It's not possible to get your Amazon suspended account reinstated without your appeal letter. So if there's a backbone to your appeal, this will be your letter. That's why you definitely have to focus on making sure that you've written your appeal properly.

When writing your letter, it's important that you include all the data that you've gathered from your own investigation. There might be some instances wherein you can point out that they have accused you of something that you didn't do. However, you should approach this in a way that sounds like you're laying down facts instead of accusing Amazon that they've done you wrong. 

Present everything that you've gathered that will help in getting your account reinstated. Here are the other things that you should remember when writing your letter.

• Don't be too defensive. Back your claims up with facts instead.
• Don't criticize Amazon and their process. They're also just doing their job in making sure that everyone is following their rules.
• Do take responsibility for what has happened. You can also go and try to explain your side.
• Do indicate the things you're planning to do to resolve the problem and how you plan to avoid it from happening moving forwards. It's your way of showing that you're keen on making things right and are committed to adhering to Amazon's rules.

How to Open an Amazon Account After Suspension

You can only open it again after having your Amazon suspended account reinstated. Basically, the way for you to do it is to submit your appeal letter. When you're in the process of trying to get your account reinstated, you have to wait for a certain amount of time before you get your results. Here's a quick rundown of what you will have to go through.

17-day deadline

You have 17 days after receiving the notice of suspension to submit your appeal letter. This means that you have to investigate the situation and write your plan of action. 

You have more than two weeks to work on these, so make sure that you're doing everything you can. Remember that your letter is the backbone of your appeal. This will be Amazon's sole basis on whether or not you're going to have your account reinstated.

48 hours after submission of appeal

This is Amazon’s official estimate of how long they will be able to respond to your appeal. However, this is a very rare scenario. This could also be affected by the numerous appeals that they have to attend to every day. 

60 days or more

According to some sellers on Amazon's forums, there are some who have experienced about 60 days or more before they have received Amazon's decision regarding their suspension appeals. Although there is a 48-hour target response time for your appeals, this usually doesn't happen. So if you're looking for a response, make sure that you're patient with how the whole process works. 

Key Takeaway

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a seller is to have your account suspended. For this, you may want to get Amazon suspension help from those who have dealt with this in the past. A properly written appeal letter will help you get your Amazon suspended account reinstated.

If you're looking for someone who can help write your suspension appeal letter, we, at Seller Interactive, are the people you should call. With our extensive experience in handling sellers who have been suspended, we definitely know how to create the letter that will help in increasing your chances of getting your account reinstated.

Want to know more about this? Send us a message at [email protected] to book a consultation!