Threaten me? Over simply confirming that profile info remains unchanged?
Go take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut, Amazon!
I DO NOT need this level of harassment over NOTHING!
This is the stupid INFORM ACT - they wanted me to click a button to confirm that nothing has changed in my profile.
You realize that Amazon’s doing this because they are legally obligated to deactivate you if you do not click confirm right?
It’s being treated as a critical event because it is if you fail to comply.
It takes about 2 minutes to look at your stuff and click confirm that nothing has changed.
We had to do our the last week in March and was equally surprised with the widget warning. Just know that the official email telling you to do it will come about a day after the widget shows up and another one the following day. They will show up in Performance Notications too.
We had our confirmation email confirming we had done it and all was good before we got either of the two email notices telling us to do it.
Do the couple of clicks and move on … and don’t stress on this one … it’s an easy one …
Look at it this way –
Among other things, the Inform Act ( Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces for Consumers Act) has these little bits of information buried in there –
If Amazon fails to identify who the actual sellers are (emphasis added) "a violation of the law is treated as a violation of an FTC rule. So online marketplaces that don’t comply may face FTC law enforcement that could result in civil penalties of $50,120 per violation. The statute also gives enforcement authority to State Attorneys General and other officials authorized by the State. They may file an action in federal court to enjoin further law violation, seek civil penalties and other remedies permitted under state law, and obtain damages, restitution, or other compensation for residents of that state."
If YOU were Amazon would you ask sellers to confirm everything is still the same OR would you choose to pony up $50,000+ to the Feds and who knows how much to the 50 states and DC?
Asking for a friend…
Took me all but a minute - two days ago.
I think a month ago, it got off to a very rocky start. The cart leading the horse.
But now they seemed (for me) to have it well oiled.
Got the email
Click to start
Looked at my data 15 secs
Clicked to confirm
Got an email 5 minutes later confirming I had passed the test.
You ought know by now, TPTB only know one way:
Treat sellers as naughty children. Stick us in time out-or at least threaten to do so!
Took us such a short time to reverify/click that TPTB send the two warning e-mails to us AFTER we reverified(BOTS haven’t been programmed to prevent sending if required action is already complete).
About the only action that doesn’t threaten/ attempt to intimidate is a PRICE ALERT. Heck, we got flagged for one duplicate listing violation last month( we had approx.700 of these couple summers back. After we’d been working on them feverishly for 3 weeks, all disappeared…).
In order to remove said violation, had to click several checkmarks, one which said that if we had another similar violation, TPTB could remove our seller privileges! I hesitated to click-but in for a penny, in for a pound!!
Nail, meet hammer.
No, I’m sorry fellows - “Your account is at risk of deactivation” is simply beyond the pale over something so trivial. No attempt at a polite message was made.
It is not trivial though. It’s like saying renewing your driver’s license is trivial. It is not, if you fail to do so then you can be arrested for driving.
Would you rather they not give you warnings so you think it’s a joke and blow it off, then suddenly get hit with a suspension once they are legally required to do so?
IDK, I think it’s messaged poorly. “A Critical Event Has Occurred”?
Nothing actually occurred, it’s a compliance thing. There are ways that this can be done that would be much better, less confusing / panic causing, and still get the point across.
An email a week in advance of this BS should go out from Amazon Services (any email from this email address is taken seriously. Communication (not Amazon’s strong suit) that simply states what’s about to occur:
"In the coming days or weeks, you will receive a dashboard warning surrounding the Inform Act and your immediate action requirement to confirm your account information is accurate and has not changed.
Regardless of what’s on this screen or that one, the selling “PARTNER” is prepared for what’s coming and doesn’t feel like @packetfire and lots of other sellers do when they check their app for sales or anything else and see a big flag saying your account is at risk out of the blue.
A lot of us (including me) expects this sort of BS and because this topic has been discussed here a lot I think most of us knew exactly what it was. What about the seller that isn’t active on forums?
I agree, this is unnecessary anxiety created by their constant state of ineptitude leaving sellers with a ominous feeling checking email every morning. Sellers are always expecting the inevitable F up by Amazon, or misinterpretation of vague rules leading to the near complete loss of their livelihood.
Yes the messaging is poor, but they’re just using their existing one size fits all “your account is at risk” banner, which may be startling but isn’t wrong and does call attention to the issue.
As long as there’s no glitches/problems that cause sellers to get suspended without having a chance to certify first, or sellers getting suspended even though they certified, I would say job well done. If the only issue here is poor communication I’ll take it.
The worst part of the communication is actually the “formal notice” email that comes after you certify, but as long as that’s simply a miscommunication I’ll take it. It could’ve been handled so much worse.
You’re missing my point. This is fine as long as we knew what to expect as a seller.
Can’t disagree. Truly stupid. I documented this here
Well, with Amazon I know to expect things like this in general, that are poorly communicated and that cause unnecessary panic. And once you click the message it becomes readily apparent what you need to do to resolve it and remove the banner.
Yes it makes people freak out for a few minutes, but overall dealing with this was much easier than dealing with any other run of the mill problems that occur with Amazon or FBA. So as far as chitty things Amazon does, this is pretty low on the list.
I am not convinced that ineptitude is involved. I believe malice plays a part. Just like the semi-recent change in payout email “Disbursement Attempted”
If they can do something so simple to create fear and trembling – heck yes!
They really really don’t like us. Sadly, this is an understandable attitude.
No kidding.
I’ll take it a step further with how that message has always started “Congratulations”
Excuse me, did I just win a prize? NO, you’re paying me for what I’ve sold.
Makes you feel like actually getting paid is some sort of odds-defying event on Amazon. Maybe it is.
I don’t believe that this is due to malice. I believe its a butt covering mechanism. They would rather scare the pants off a few people for no reason than deal with someone having a tantrum because they ignored the polite, casual notice to update the information.
Eh, I don’t see it that way. We congratulate people for graduating high school or buying a car, where they received what was promised in exchange for meeting the terms of the agreement. Does getting paid for work we have already done warrant congratulations? No. But I don’t get the condescending feeling from it that you seem to.
I actually look at this entire issue from the other side. So many things put my account at risk, and many of them are (like this) relatively minor and easy to handle that when I see the warning I barely even register concern anymore. Rather than having a panic attack over something that is routine and harmless, it makes me inured when a serious issue pops up.
It’s pretty much this. Amazon doesn’t want to suspend people because of some law saying they need to, they only want to suspend people if their algorithms tell them to. An otherwise good seller generates revenue for them and they want to keep them active, plus if people ignore the message and do get suspended, there’s a high likelihood Amazon will have to deal with a seller support call/case about it.
The heavy handed approach ultimately will save both sellers and Amazon money. The sellers who would’ve otherwise ignored the notice won’t have to lose revenue while being suspended for no good reason, and Amazon won’t lose their side of the revenue or have to deal with seller support cases from it.
Unfortunately, even that CAN be problematic, as our friend @Tormentor elucidates in this thread:
Sums up Amazon.
I will say though, I am happy they fell in line with the other marketplaces and just want us to confirm nothing has changed rather than submit everything again.
