Amazon has constantly removed the selling of items to individual states, citing a mismatch between the states EPA records and their EPA records. In the notice of “geographical restriction” they cite going to the Account Health dashboard to submit an appeal.
While at the Account Health dashboard there is no place that a) these individual state violations appear b) nor is there anyway to appeal them.
When I have opened numerous cases, I get stuck in the now common Amazon AI vortex. They state ASIN B0000XYZ is restricted from sales in West Virginia )for an example) with the same cut and paste as the original message that was sent.
When we replied with what I stated above, that these violations don’t appear nor is there a viable path forward to appeal them, they reply with “the same cut and paste message.”
We have called and of course frontline support has no knowledge of this, they have to contact the “internal team” who replies again with the same cut and paste above.
Anyone deal with this??? What a total waste of time and energy but we have so many of these our sales are really being hurt.
They appear no where and as mentioned when you simply ask them what is the proper way to appeal they reply in cut and paste stating “they can not accept our appeal…”
and when we reply " we are not appealing, we are trying to find the correct process to appeal" they reply “we can not accept your appeal”
So then we replied “it is unbelievable that after paying millions of dollars in sales commission, that we can not even get the courtesy of human reading our correspondence” and guess how they reply???
“We can not accept your appeal”.
Below is the orginal message, one of many we have gotten.
Why is this happening?
This product has been identified as a pesticide product that is not registered in the state of Alabama. In addition to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements on the sale of pesticides in the United States, additional requirements apply for sales on certain pesticides products at the state level. All 50 states and the District of Columbia require registration of certain pesticides prior to sale. Amazon checks state registration information for pesticide products to confirm whether they are registered in all states and the District of Columbia. Pesticide products that require registration and are not active in the state’s registration database cannot be sold in the applicable state. If you believe this decision was made in error please review the below checklist before submitting an appeal: • Verify the EPA ID Registration Number listed in the Pesticide Marking Attribute is entered correctly on the Product Detail Page; • Verify the product is registered in the state; • Provide proof of registration via an appeal opened in the Seller Dashboard. Proof of registration accepted includes a screenshot of the database showing the registration information/number and status, a letter from the state outlining the registration information and status or the registration number or an email from the state pesticide registration department entered into the appeal ticket. Links to a database are not acceptable. For more information, review our Seller Help Page: أمازون
If you are willing to provide the actual ASIN upon which your Offer-Listing(s) Amazon is balking for a lack what ITapparently perceives as a liability perhaps likely to impact its bottom line negatively (you can send it me privately if desired), I’d be willing to see if I can offer further guidance.
Our resident expert in FIFRA-compliance, @SawleMill, taught me well.
I dont have a problem sharing this specific ASIN, it is ASIN:B00CPG6TV6.
It is randomly restricted in several states as are lots of other ASIN’s we sell. In regards to specific ASIN:B00CPG6TV6 I am not even 100% sure of the EPA classification for the item in each cited state but we wanted to know the path forward for appealing these geographic restrictions before we went ahead and wasted our time researching them.
As anyone knows Amazon erroneously cites things as a pesticide when they are not.
I’d be willing to wager a pretty penny that the poorly-parameterized FIFRA-policing Amabot(s) have targeted this ASIN simply because it is formulated with Bromine, which has been a matter of concern on the Toxicity Category front (re: methyl bromide compounds, most-specifically, in that regard, but other molecular combinations are also in play) to the EPA for more 30 years now-passed:
Respectfully, I dont agree or diasagree with their assurances or classifications yet. But for argument sake if they are saying the product is not registered in South Carolina, then beforr we start digging through each state EPA database we simply want to know:
a) where can we see exactly each state restriction listed by ASIN
b) how do we appeal if we find it to be an error bc where they say you can appeal it does not exist
Still to this day I can understand why Amazon presents a problem to be solved, with no path forward to solving the issue. So frustrating…
It is hard to keep track of state-level approvals for Pesticides.
I keep bees, and we beekeepers are subject to a lot of this nonsense, so much so that “emergency exemptions” have been used far more often than regular registration. The problem is that most beekeeping operations are literally “fly by night” operations, taking 450 colonies of bees per truck on overnight rides to new locations to pollinate crops. So, we cross state lines the way other folks walk to the kitchen. And we cross state lines when we are HALFWAY THROUGH treating bees for this or that pathogen, pest, or scourge, and one state allows the use of the product, while the other one does not… its complicated.
Purdue runs https://www.npirs.org which I have never found to be out of date or wrong. One can look up a registered pesticide, a product name, or a chemical name, and see which states have filed the correct paperwork to allow its use.
Have you checked Performance Notifications or AH Compliance?