Invoice requirements for appeals (specifically customer inauthentic complaints)

Account Health
, ,
1

I’m wondering if anyone has a solid idea of what they’re looking for in invoices nowadays?

So, up until about 2 years ago, almost 100% of my invoices were accepted for pretty much anything that asked for an invoice (IP violation appeals, ungating, etc). Recently I’ve been having issues appealing things. So for infringement claims, it seems like an invoice alone is no longer accepted. Every IP infringement claim I’ve appealed recently was only successful when a letter of authorization was submitted. I have successfully appealed every one that I’ve received of this type though (with the LOA). The biggest issue I’m currently having is when I receive an inauthentic customer complaint. In one case recently, I got a complaint, which was successfully appealed, then I got another complaint on the same ASIN, submitted the same document repeatedly and it was rejected every time. My theory here is that on the subsequent complaint, they already made the decision to block me from that ASIN and weren’t going to accept the appeal no matter what.

The other thing is, letters of authorization don’t seem to have any impact with customer inauthentic complaints, they want an invoice and invoice only for that. All of my invoices meet every checklist item that Amazon requires, and they are all from the manufacturer (who is the brand owner). The brand on the listing is correct as well and matches the actual brand on the product so that’s not an issue. If I receive an invoice from a supplier that is missing things Amazon requires, I ask for an invoice that has those missing fields added to it so it will meet requirements.

It almost seems like Amazon has switched to requiring LOAs for proving authenticity, and updated their IP infringement system to check for LOAs, whereas customer complaints don’t yet ask for (or accept) LOAs as proof but they don’t want to accept just an invoice as proof anymore either.

1 Like
2

Welcome to SAS !

We are sure that those who have experience with this will come along soon with their thoughts.
As for us, we have no experience dealing in this area.

2 Likes
3

Hi GGX, welcome to SAS. :smile:

letters of authorization don’t seem to have any impact with customer inauthentic complaints, they want an invoice and invoice only for that.

That actually makes sense. Because a LOA is simply the brand owner saying they don’t object to you listing their products on Amazon. It has nothing to do with proving you had the actual, authentic product in your possession to sell. But an invoice proves that at least you did have the authentic product at some point. That’s not indisputable proof, of course, but if you had the real thing in your possession, why would you send the buyer a fake?

for infringement claims, it seems like an invoice alone is no longer accepted.

I rarely get infringement claims, and it seems a little odd that you speak of it like it’s a normal thing. Maybe it is, and I’m just lucky not to sell products that attract them. But it’s worth asking if you use any questionable sources to obtain your inventory? Because this is a red flag :arrow_down:

If I receive an invoice from a supplier that is missing things Amazon requires, I ask for an invoice that has those missing fields added to it so it will meet requirements.

Invoices from legitimate distributors won’t have missing fields, nor will those companies tweak their invoice format on request.

Generally, it’s the brand owners who file infringement claims when they see you listing their products without their authorization. So it’s logical that Amazon is asking for a LOA to prove that you do have their authorization to sell them.

If this is a change on Amazon’s part, it’s probably due to the large number of sellers who mistakenly believe that any random website on the internet calling itself a ‘distributor’ is an authorized source of products to sell on Amazon. Since many sellers couldn’t seem to grasp that you need the brand owner’s permission to sell their products on Amazon, or didn’t know what ‘brand owner’ meant, asking for a LOA will force them to figure it out.

If you’re truly authorized for the product you’re selling, then if Amazon asks for paperwork, you should have whatever you need. Do you not have these? Or are you just posing your question as a hypothetical?

5 Likes
4

The infringement claims are rare, and the baseless “counterfeit without test buy” claims are fairly easy to appeal with the proper documentation. Sometimes you get straight up false/abusive complaints, and we’ve had one case where a manufacturer decided they didn’t want us selling anymore and filed a complaint against us (but we had a letter of authorization that specifically stated that we were authorized for a period of 1 year). That was just a 1 off case as most manufacturers are reasonable and will end the relationship gracefully.

The issue, as I stated, are CUSTOMER inauthentic complaints. Any customer can claim your products are inauthentic and those complaints seem very difficult to appeal. I tried sending LOAs in addition to the invoices but those do not help. I have invoices from the manufacturer/brand owner, and in the cases that something’s missing (eg. website) they will add it upon request for me, especially if it’s a brand that’s new (which is typically the only type of brand who will authorize a new amazon seller these days).

Yes, we regularly have these issues, but that’s because we sell a lot of different products. The more listings you have the more likely you are to receive some type of complaint on one of them. Sometimes the customer complaints also stem from something that’s not in our control like the manufacturer updating their label slightly, or even something silly like the label being printed slightly off center or the color of it varying slightly from lot to lot.

1 Like
5

I also want to add, that the way they handle these complaints is nonsense. A customer inauthentic complaint makes your AHR drop by 8 points, which is basically nothing if you have a score in the 500s like we do. But we’ve had an ASIN where we sold 1000+ units of and then they suddenly decided to shut it down due to an inauthentic customer complaint, and refused to reactivate it despite providing documentation that meets all requirements from the brand owner. Now, if a seller really sold 1000+ units of something that was counterfeit, they should be shut down on the spot for that. But it’s basically like Amazon knows the complaint is bogus and that their invoice review process is also bogus so they’ll block the ASIN (and steal your inventory) but won’t actually suspend your account for it.

6

Is it POSSIBLE that the brand has sent Amazon a “whitelist” of approved sellers and did not have you on it?

More and more brands are providing such a “whitelist” of their approved sellers and if YOU are NOT on the list you will be stopped in your tracks and probably hit with an IP violation.

I had one of my brands stop me because they CHANGED the company they hired to screen sellers. The NEW screener did not recognize my Amazon store name because I do all my purchases under a different LLC. It took a couple weeks to get straightened out and no problems since then.

6 Likes
7

That would make sense if it was an IP Violation.

These are customer inauthentic complaints though that are the hardest to appeal.

8

Except if Amazon is looking at the ‘inauthentic’ claim and NOT seeing you on the list of approved sellers they will create higher hurdles to overcome.

The internet sales landscape has shifted. Congress has passed laws stripping websites of what they had perceived as protection from lawsuits for selling stolen merchandise and that includes gray market stuff as well since there is no ‘chain of custody’.

My tea leave reading the past MANY months is that they are cleaning house and removing sellers by the hundreds that have been doing RA and other things such as gray market sales that have been ignored on there for years.

I’m NOT saying that you are doing gray market but Amazon appears to be waking up to a new reality and it’s going to make life ‘interesting’ for a lot of sellers I think.

3 Likes
9

I don’t think this is the case. Because I contacted account health support and they said the reason the invoice was rejected is because there were “red flags” on it. And because of the red flags they tried to contact the supplier but couldn’t get through to them (my supplier said there were no missed calls or emails from Amazon).
The last invoice that got rejected was actually a very nicely designed invoice including the brand’s logo.
I’ve had other invoices get accepted that were very basic quickbooks invoice templates.
I’d just like some clarity on what exactly they want to see and what they would consider a “red flag” since my experience with appealing these complaints has basically been complete luck of the draw.

2 Likes
10

The process or processes which make Amazon remove your listing may be of a variety of types, from complaints to bots.

The appeals process to reinstate may differ based on how it came to be removed, and the reinstatement process may take into account whether the manufacturer has an authorized reseller program for its retail sellers.

Amazon may have more information about how the manufacturer distributes for some manufacturers than others.

It may know of restrictions on your distributor that you are unaware of. Not all distributors are forthcoming with this info if they are hungry for business.

This is a horrible situation, and only getting worse as retail shrink is on the rise, and scams and fakes are on the increase.

Sometimes, what appears to be luck of the draw is not random, but the non-transparent way Amazon deals with these issues. How those red flags were generated is a secret probably not shared with Account Health.

Welcome to SAS

3 Likes
11

The issue, as I stated, are CUSTOMER inauthentic complaints. Any customer can claim your products are inauthentic and those complaints seem very difficult to appeal.

I guess I won’t be much help to you then, since I’ve only had one of these (customer was mistaken) in 15+ years of selling and it was very easy to appeal. Like reinstated within a few minutes level of easy.

The issue, as I stated, are CUSTOMER inauthentic complaints. Any customer can claim your products are inauthentic and those complaints seem very difficult to appeal. I tried sending LOAs in addition to the invoices but those do not help.

True, they probably wouldn’t. As mentioned earlier, a LOA has nothing to do with a question of authenticity so it isn’t likely to help you.

Now, if a seller really sold 1000+ units of something that was counterfeit, they should be shut down on the spot for that.

Amazon isn’t necessarily saying the item itself is counterfeit, they are looking to see if you can prove that yours are not counterfeit. In other words, Amazon isn’t checking if the item is counterfeit, per se, they are checking to see if you have your paper trail in order.

The volume you’ve sold doesn’t matter when the question is - are you obtaining your inventory the right way, and maintaining records that can prove it?

That question is always out there, and Amazon can ask it of any of us, at any time. They usually don’t, assuming innocent until proven guilty, but if a customer raises an authenticity question, then Amazon will come asking. If you have everything in order, you should be ok though.

so they’ll block the ASIN (and steal your inventory)

This is especially a risk if you’re selling through FBA, where failure to give Amazon what it wants can result in forefeiture of your inventory (not stealing, exactly, but it can feel that way).

suddenly decided to shut it down due to an inauthentic customer complaint, and refused to reactivate it despite providing documentation that meets all requirements from the brand owner.

If the ASIN itself is left active, but your offer was removed, then that’s a paperwork issue and you didn’t provide Amazon what they wanted.

If the entire ASIN is removed and becomes a dog page, then that’s an issue that the brand owner will probably need to correct, assuming they are in Brand Registry and control their Amazon listings.

The best thing you can do is make sure any listings you are selling against have all their i’s dotted and t’s crossed before you send inventory to FBA. If there’s anything iffy about the listing, there’s a chance it may get pulled if Amazon looks at it, and you don’t want to have inventory at FBA if that happens. Be sure to double-check the UPC owner against the GS1 database too, as that’s a frequent reason why listings disappear.

I’ve lost a couple because one company (call them “Dog”) bought another company (call them “Cat”) so now “Dog” properly owns both the brand name of “Cat” and the UPC’s of their listings, but if you check GS1, the UPC’s are now registered to “Dog” but the brand is still listed as “Cat” on Amazon and I can’t get Amazon to do anything about it or convince them that “Dog” owns the “Cat” brand and it is not a trademark violation. :angry:

Amazon won’t listen to me since I’m not the brand owner, and the brand owner is too busy running their business to be bothered with Amazon’s stupidity.

Amazon just looks at the listing, says the brand is “Cat” but the UPC is owned by “Dog” and we can’t have that, so the detail page must stay removed. :roll_eyes:

3 Likes
12

So up until about last year, customer inauthentic complaints weren’t actually an issue. You’d get a notice saying the complaint was received and to review your listings, and if they were deactivated you could auto-reactivate them by going to edit and save the listing page. It was last year they instituted some change where they decided to take customer complaints more seriously and require them to be appealed.

If an invoice direct from the manufacturer isn’t the “right way” to get it and doesn’t prove authenticity then I don’t know what they want. I would understand if I have an invoice from a 3rd party distributor, and it’s basically impossible to know if that distributor is authorized or not (or if they’re selling real products), but these are direct from the brand.

2 Likes
13

What @lake alluded to is the outmoded and destructive ‘silo management’ system that Amazon continues to use.

Not only does one hand not know what the other hand is doing, they probably don’t even know the other hand exists.

That is one of the many reasons why sellers have been suspended, reinstated, and then suspended AGAIN but by a different department that was looking at other issues.

There is no cohesiveness on the site.

Amazon makes the proverbial ‘fog of war’ appear to be crystal clear. You either get used to it or you decide to sell elsewhere.

I forgot to add their ‘back office’ location –

MANURE SLURRY
MANURE SLURRY1200×835 198 KB

3 Likes
14

Well, that’s a good way to look at it.

I was kind of in the mindset that appealing an IP claim and an inauthentic customer complaint would be handled in a similar way, but what you say makes more sense. Each of those is probably a completely different department with completely different rules on how to handle things.

As usual, I fell into the fallacy of applying logic to Amazon decisions.

It sounds like not many people here have received inauthentic customer complaints recently though. If anyone has any analysis of what rejected/accepted it’d be helpful. Especially if you had an invoice rejected, then submitted another invoice (say, after having a website added to it) and it was accepted, you can draw a useful conclusion from that.

15

Sometimes the “red flag” is the supplier itself (if it’s not directly the brand/manufacturer), possibly because of reasons that have nothing to do with your specific product, complaint, or account–which sucks.

But you then said…

In this case, Amazon might be interested in how the product gets from the brand to you, your QA/inspection process, and how you then get the authentic undamaged/untampered product to the Buyer.

1 Like
16

They don’t ask any such questions like that, they just insist that the invoice isn’t valid repeatedly. That’s the issue.

17

I understand that they don’t ask that specifically.

That does not mean that this is not the information that they want.

Or that it is not the information that is the difference between a successful authenticity appeal and a failed authenticity appeal.

1 Like
18

They ask for an invoice, there’s not even a box for you to type in any additional information. All you can do is upload an invoice. There’s no plan of action involved with this type of appeal.

19

Have you tried a photo of the invoice or are you sending a digital copy received via email? I’ve not had the complaints you are experiencing but I have had invoices rejected that were required for other reasons. An obvious photo seems to have a better acceptance rate in my experience.

2 Likes
20

I’ve tried both an original PDF and a print and scan.

I have not tried a photo of a printout. Will try a photo next time as well.

3 Likes