[brianstorms]

I signed up as a Seller on Amazon a while back, with one primary goal: sell extra copies of my book, published by Pantheon Books in 2017. The publisher offered me boxes of them at dirt-cheap prices and I took them up on their offer. So I started selling on Amazon, and I set my price as the lowest possible for "New" condition hardcover.

For a while my price got listed on the main book product page. Only briefly though. Then it disappeared, and another seller got the glory of the link for a "New" 3rd party seller, and their price was HIGHER than mine.

Amazon does not want to advertise your price if you are too low for their liking...

Suddenly, in July, my mom dies. I have to travel to the east coast for the funeral, etc., so I put a hold on the one and only item in my inventory -- my book. Effectively this takes me offline temporarily as an Amazon Seller which was fine.

BUT . . . when i get back home, I try to re-activate the account and find I cannot. INSTEAD, I get this notice from Amazon that my account is suspended, and that it's mandatory I go watch all these training videos about COUNTERFEIT products, how to spot them, why not to sell them, why it's illegal, etc, and that I do not have permission to sell counterfeit "Pantheon products." And I'm like, WTF? I'm selling the real deal, from Pantheon, and I AM THE EFFING AUTHOR AND THESE ARE MY OWN BOOKS.

I try to communicate with Amazon Seller Program and get nowhere (I think they deliberately hire only people who don't understand English). They refuse to explain anything about this absurd counterfeit stuff.

So I contact Pantheon. They just laugh. They had nothing to do with it, but weren't surprised -- they kind of hate Amazon.

THEN I get a new notice from Amazon that my account is disabled permanently due to lack of use.

WTF!?

So: here is my theory. They were pissed I had a super-low price, and when they saw me temporarily disable my inventory as I'd be away for a week for a funeral, they swept in and shut me down, with some kind of made-up lie about COUNTERFEIT (I mean, can you believe these guys!?). And nothing is resolved, and we're on the verge of October.

Amazon sucks.

[bombcar]

You haven't even begun to enter the world of unscrupulous activity, and Amazon is mostly 'hands off' because they don't care - but other 3rd party sellers DO and they know all the tricks about how to pump alternative sellers off the page, etc.

The whole thing is a worthless Alibaba ripoff now.

[brianstorms]

Do you think some other seller falsely "reported" me, claiming my copies my be counterfeit, for surely there was no way I could offer them so cheaply to beat out the next cheapest seller by, what, 50 cents?

[teruakohatu]

> Do you think some other seller falsely "reported" me, claiming my copies my be counterfeit

That seems the most likely reason. I am sure there are services to automate these kind of blackhat actions.

[costco]

Your case is interesting because your publisher was fine with it. So yeah, it probably was done by a third party seller. Or you triggered some automated system and will never find out why. There are cases where third party sellers bribed Amazon employees to penalize their competitors:

> "(b) using their inside access to Amazon’s network to suspend competitors’ 3P accounts; and (c) providing consultants with information about Amazon’s internal algorithms, which allowed the consultants to flood competitors’ product listings with fictitious negative product reviews."

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/six-indicted-connection...

There's another thing where well known brands will hire a company like https://amazzia.com/brand-protection-2022/ for "brand integrity." In reality, what this means is that they monitor Amazon for listings of the brand's products that violate the brand's Minimum Advertised Price policy and then report them a bunch of times as counterfeits or contact some Amazon employee they have a (potentially corrupt) relationship with.

[actionfromafar]

Or maybe some machine learning deduced you were "counterfeit". Who knows. The common denominator is - Amazon doesn't care, it's just a machine, even more so than corporations by nature are.

[eitally]

My nextdoor neighbor is a shoe salesman (in the US). He traditionally dealt with a region of retailers on behalf of his employer, a multi-brand company like VF, Clarks, Born, etc. In his previous role, he was asked to try to figure out how to add Amazon as a B2C channel. He did, and it essentially became his full time job. A couple of years ago he was laid off, and when his new employer (differently shoe company) learned he knew how to "use Amazon" he was immediately reassigned from field sales to full time online. According to him, there are so many quirky and esoteric things about selling through Amazon it's nearly impossible to figure out how to get started, much less understand nuances of pricing, taxes, shipping and returns, and -- as you said -- Amazon support is conflicting and inconsistent at best.

Nowadays, I'm fine buying consumables from Amazon if I need them asap, but for any name brand stuff I specifically want, I prefer purchasing elsewhere. If reviews were trustworthy, it'd be one thing, but with Amazon having turned into AliExpress, it's impossible to know whether any of the Chinese brands are actually trustworthy and of high quality.

[dirtyid]

>it's impossible to know whether any of the Chinese brands are actually trustworthy and of high quality.

IMO people buy cheap generic Chinese brands for the same reason they buy cheap dollar store products. They're gambling they can pay 30% the price for 90% of the function. Amazon reseller premium = they're paying slightly more for returns in case things break. They can save more buying from Ali resellers. Even more while temu subsidizing orders. The only people looking for quality are people who order from resalers of established PRC brands, i.e. Xiaomi. In the days before Amazon cracked down, you had brands like MPOW decide better marketting strategy was to give people gift cards for reviews and give no question asked replacements well outside of warranty period. Pretty win-win for consumers.

[jrockway]

I guess we figured out their algorithm. `if random() < 0.01: make_user_watch_training_video_about_counterfeits`. Even if they actually fixed the problem by having an alarmingly high false positive rate, I don't see how I would ever trust them. For example, some places don't do business with them, so if you see like an Apple cable on there, it wasn't shipped from Apple to their warehouse. Maybe it's real or maybe it's counterfeit, but why gamble?

What's great about Amazon is that they kicked their competitors into gear and there are a lot of reputable vendors that offer cheap overnight shipping now. (B&H is my go to for electronics.)

[ClumsyPilot]

> They were pissed I had a super-low price... they swept in and shut me down, with some kind of made-up lie about COUNTERFEIT

If true, we have a name for this, its called fraud. Little people like you and me go to prison for it.

[no_wizard]

It is funny, that small and even sometimes medium business owners go to jail over things like fraud, failure to pay taxes, even labor violations. I remember local instances being reported on in the our (thankfully still around) local paper.

Yet, if you are big enough, the government can barely muster the strength to issue a fine. Rarely to executives at big firms go to jail unless there was something Enron sized egregious happening

[anigbrowl]

Sue them in small claims court. It's perfect for this, you just bring in your documentation and write up a timeline for the judge.

[hippich]

Afaik, small claims courts are for specific monetary damages only. I feel like it would be hard to prove specific cash amount lost due to Amazon actions. It is also very likely one or more of documents one have to accept in order to open seller Central account requires signing away the right of settling dispute in courts, and instead use arbitration process.

[musicale]

Interesting idea - has anyone tried this?

Does Amazon retaliate and ban you permanently if you win?

[no_wizard]

If you're already banned, you might as well try to get what you can out of the situation.

[EGreg]

Can’t the court file an injunction against banning?

I always wondered what would courts do about extrajudicial retaliation

[redbell]

Your story is a true tragedy and hearing such stories makes me feel sad.

I believe it’s, mostly, these unfair, monopolistic practices that made those companies giants because they can, technically, crush anyone willing to swim in their red ocean.

Normally, you could easily file a lawsuit against them and got them pay you 10x the damage they caused.

[jm4]

Amazon became a giant because they were genuinely good before they became what they are now. For a long time, they offered a superior online shopping experience. The prices were good, the processing time was faster than anyone else, the shipping was fast and reliable, the site was easy to use, etc. Then all the third party sellers, whack-a-mole Chinese brands, and counterfeits took over the site. I thought Amazon was great when they were the retailer instead of a marketplace.

[drewbeck]

tragedy … giants … red ocean …

Manchurian commenter activated … proceeding to step 2 …

[naikrovek]

never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, EXCEPT when money is involved. if money is involved, and it can be explained by malice, then it is malice, every time.

the other seller likely reported you as counterfeit, and Amazon believed them.

[jstarfish]

> never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, EXCEPT when money is involved

The FAANG corollary:

When you make it a point of pride to only hire the smartest, most elite engineers on the planet, presumption of stupidity no longer applies.

[moregrist]

Grueling rounds of leetcode interviews and system architecture questions doesn’t exactly select for either common sense or detailed knowledge of either human nature or even retail.

[lief79]

No one knows how to hang onto a dumb idea like a smart person.

Just because the average person can't prove them wrong by argument doesn't mean their right.

[xattt]

> Amazon sucks

I’m not sure but I feel the need for some legislation to force large companies to provide human-to-human contact in the event of a dispute.

Even in the world of Brazil, the 1988 movie, there were humans somewhere in the mix.

[22289d]

> They were pissed

Huge corporations do not get pissed. It's not personal. They were not angry or acting spiteful.

Note: I'm only addressing those three words, not any other points you made.