Help with Amazon sellers de-activated Account

Account Health Suspended upon Arrival
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Hi Everyone.
(Sorry this is a long post: I wanted to pass the info on!)

Newbie here. Please can you help? I am close to my wit’s (rapidly shrinking) end!

I live in the UK. I am creating and will be selling journals in the US.

I have set up a UK Ltd Co. Initially with an address in London.

I am setting up an Amazon US seller account.

I clearly made a mistake.( I take full responsibility here)

I must have put a wrong address in the wrong place.

I spoke/emailed Amazon support many times

I corrected the addresses.

I moved my Ltd Co here to my home address.

I received their postcard to verify.

My account remains deactivated under some aspect of Section 3.
It has never been active. There have been no listings etc.

Part of their messages…

Your Amazon seller account has been deactivated and your listings have been removed in accordance with section 3 of the Amazon Services Business Solutions Agreement.

…

Why did this happen?

We have taken this measure because we need additional documentation to verify your identity. For more information on our requirements, go to “Amazon Services Business Solutions Agreement”:

…. How do I reactivate my account?

To reactivate your account, please confirm that there is a valid credit card on file and submit one of the following documents:

– A business license if applicable

– A utility bill dated for piped gas, natural gas, electricity, piped water, mobile phone, fixed-line phone, or internet service

And so it has gone on.

Since October.
I have checked all the addresses listed, and they are all good now. I have changed the info on my wBEN form etc.

Then I had this…
Our team has received your submission but they were unable to reactivate your account. Upon review of your account, our team confirms that your Amazon seller account has been used to engage in deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity that harms our customers, other selling partners, and our store.

Unfortunately, our team has decided, they may not respond to further emails about this issue.

In this case to activate the account you need to submit your information showing that the decision was made in error and your account follows amazon policies with evidences of your identity which can be a utility bill with the name and address matching your seller central details.

We’re here to help”

I am going round and round in circles.
I am so confused as to what the issue is?

Thanks so much

In the most enormous gratitude for any help

Marianne

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Welcome to SAS!

This trips up a lot of non-americans. There is an actual difference between a debit and credit card, and Amazon US does care. Sometimes a debit card will work, but most times Amazon wants to see a true credit card with a credit limit attached to it. Not pre-paid either.

Address must match exactly (St is not the same as Street) in provided

This also trips up a lot of people. Again, address must match exactly.

This is the kiss of death sometimes.

So lets pause here, exactly what documents are you submitting?

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Welcome to SAS!

We might add on the credit card issue that the credit card must accept charges in the country where the charge is occurring.

Did you have a UK account established before trying to set up the US account?

Has the company paperwork been updated to reflect the new address?

The business license can be the a taxing authority’s sales tax permit (if needed). It needs to have the business name on it.

The utility bill will need to be 1) current (within 45 days or less) … 2) in the business name and 3) to the address of the business.

Addresses must be exact as @Pepper_Thine_Angus has noted.

We suggest reviewing the seller help pages or the seller tutorials on creating an account in the US. There may be some additional requirements for a person/business out of the US when setting up a US account that is not listed in the Amazon response (like the credit card has to be accepted in the US and accept transactions in US currency).

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Hi and welcome to SellersAskSellers @mariannejm !

I know it might seem like a lot, but letting us know the information @Pepper_Thine_Angus and @Lost_My_Marbles have asked will help us to help you better. :grin:

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Hi and thanks for helping.
I have - since changing all addresses to my home address-submitted

  1. Electricity BIll in the name of my company- It is addresses to Thriveologly paper Company. (there is no Ltd. at the end) Could this be the problem? Surely not?
  2. Companies House certificate of Incorporation- these by their nature do not have an address on them.

They have responded via email since that initial threat!

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They have validated my credit card and not asked for astatement or credit Limit.

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It must match EXACTLY. Amazon is stupidly, stupid here. Example, If the bill is to “Thriveologly paper Company Ltd” and Amazon has “Thriveologly Paper Company Ltd.” Well there are two characters different (P in paper and the period at the end of Ltd).

If you have provided a utility bill then this is optional, and I wouldn’t supply.

@oneida_books might be able to extrapolate more here.

How have “they” validated your credit card?

We ask these questions exactly the way we are asking because thousands of sellers have gotten tripped up on exactly the points we have asked here. Reminder, if your physical credit card has the word DEBIT on the front, then Amazon may not like it.

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@Pepper_Thine_Angus and @Lost_My_Marbles
Thank you so much.
Let me try and answer all the questions:

No I didn’t have a UK account established before I set up in the US..
My credit card has been verified- on my seller page..but then so has my address! It is an UK mastercard- in my name not my businesses- but they haven’t aked me for a statement- i put in the details and they verified it.
The companies House address is correct..
UK Companies House, Certificate of Incorporation does not have a address on it.
Utility Bill is matched except- no ‘Ltd’ on the end of the name

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They won’t ask for a statement, do not send a statement.

As long as you are not glossing over that it is actually a debit card, then there is no issue there.

This is the red flag that I see at the moment

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@Pepper_Thine_Angus Dear Lord.Thank you!
Let me phone up the Electricity Co and ask them to add a Ltd with no full stop!
Then do I resubmit these and add a load/ short message about finding a further mistake re the address…
Also please may I ask.
The “Display name” for the store, does htis need to be the full name with the Ltd at the end please?

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I’ve been busy and saw this thread. I’ve just not had time to read over it in depth yet.

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Display name is just display name, it doesn’t have anything to do with your paperwork, and honestly could be XYZ Company in your case and would not matter one bit.

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Which is what they asked for as quoted below.

@Pepper_Thine_Angus has pretty much gone over everything so I’ll skip ahead except to note

  • Utility Bill is within 90 days to my knowledge, not 45 as @Lost_My_Marbles stated.
  • You must include all pages, front and back

I would ignore the business license part.

Amazon’s basic requirements for doc.'s

  • Be high resolution and unobstructed (clear, readable, visible and in focus).
  • Be complete and not cut off from any sides (not angled or cropped).
  • Be a scanned image or photo of the original document taken from your mobile device’s camera.
  • Display the full document (front and back, if applicable).
  • Be less than 50MB in size.
  • Be in one of these formats: TIF, TIFF, PNG, JPG, PDF, and JPEG. Do not include special characters in the file name (examples: $, &, or #).
  • Be authentic and unaltered.
  • Must not be password-protected.
  • Be in one of these supported languages: Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese. If your documents are not in a supported language, you must submit a notarized translation in a supported language along with the original document.

I typically recommend taking a cell pic, plenty of light, and save as a jpg. Then create 1 single file with all images either with an image editor or combine as a PDF.

I agree. Do not included! Only submit exactly what Amazon asks for.

Something also important is the “business location you selected” during account creation.

Here’s an important help page if you live in the UK

Also, since you are in the UK and opening a US (Americas Unified Account) then you are most likely coming in and need to meet slightly different criteria (note here it says 180 days on the doc.'s - Global seller identity verification

If you want to PM what you are sending before you send them I’d be happy to look for any issues when I get a chance. I’ve done a lot of these over the years.

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@oneida_books

Thank you so much. From the Amazon advice page…

1.If your identity document does not match the country of residence, make sure your proof of address matches the country of residence.

My identity doc does match my country of residence. I sent my driving licence. I am sure I sent both sides of my driving licence, but i can make one PDF file of them and resend.

  1. Must show first and last name. The name must match the name entered under the primary contact person information. So my driving license shows my middle name. Do I need to add this to my primary contact name? I only have my first and last name.

  2. Proof of address documents. Pretty sure these are fine.

I have been sending downloaded PDF documents from the company’s websites. Is this an the issue? Do I need to be sending actual photographs?

Thank you so much. You have no idea how amazing you’re all being.

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Yes, that very well could pose a problem, for reasons that our friend Oneida alluded in this 011424 SAS post:

https://test.sellersasksellers.com/t/invoices-amazon-requirements-and-my-experience-with-it-all/2617/37

There’s a good deal of useful information to be found in that thread, re: taming the poorly-parameterized Forged Document-policing Amabot.

Welcome to the SAS - and good luck in resolving this, post-haste - you’re in good hands with the seasoned and savvy vets who’ve responded upthread.

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I 100% agree with this. Print them out. If you want your printer/scanner to make a PDF that seems to be way more acceptable to Amazon.

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Yes. This could be an issue. Also it should be the same on all doc.'s.

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Another optional way …

We have always downloaded the utility bill, opened it up in Adobe and then “save as” the bill to a file with a new name … like … 2025_0129_ATMOS_Gas. They have been accepted by Amazon doing it that way also (rather than print and scan).

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An input on scanning drivers licenses.

Some sellers have reported problems with drivers licenses with security features.

If I scan my driver’s license in one direction, the security features are not visible. If I rotate the license 90 degrees they are visible and Amazon will accept the license.

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@Dogtamer Thanks so much for your input. I can’t get that link to work- either directly or copy and paste. Does it say to photograph and print, or scan and print a utility bill please? Sorry for the daft questions!!