Nine Days till my post-Amazon life begins -- any advice?

Selling on Amazon
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So, as I posted in detail on the NSFE yesterday, the tiny remnants of my 20-year-old Amz Individual seller account have been deactivated. This time, unlike previous times of reverification, my driver’s license was deemed inadequate as an Identity Document, and they want a different ID. And somehow, FINALLY, I’m balking at supplying even more personal data to Amazon by submitting my passport. Which wouldn’t help anyway, because my account has a middle initial, and both ID documents have a full middle name.

Yes, I think I could still change my Amz Legal Entity name, as a kindly seller suggested, to include that middle name and then submit my passport which would now match the account, but something in me rebels. I really should have left when they started displaying my full name and address for all the public to see, but I judged that maybe I could trust the buyers of the types of things I sell.

Anyway, for better or worse, I’ve decided to just let my access to the account lapse. SInce it’s deactivated, I’m not able to close it, and I already followed bookwormapril’s advice (thank you! it was nice seeing your familiar name over there!) to delete my minuscule remaining inventory.

My question to all of you is, is there anything else I can or should do, for privacy or other reasons, before I completely lose access to the account 9 days from now? I did remove one of the two credit cards on the account.

And this morning I went to the related Buyer’s account and tried to close that. Interestingly, they didn’t say “Impossible!” but warned me that this rash, imprudent action would close my seller account as well. If only!!! I’m praying that’s true because they say all my data will disappear! But it flies in the face of everything I’ve read about the impossibility of closing deactivated seller accounts, so I’m skeptical. I’ll have to wait out the required 10-day Rethinking Period to see if that could actually happen.

Meanwhile I plan to stick around on this forum, if that’s allowed as an ex-Amazonite, to look into selling on Ebay, and to stay in touch. Because I can’t seem to let go of 20 years of the greatness of seller forums all at once, even if I hardly post a word here.

I await any advice on Best Practices for leaving Amazon when you aren’t able to close out.

Sorry it’s so long,

Marth

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I am sorry to hear that Amazon shut you down (again).
Of course you are welcome to continue participating here, even if you only log in to check the Wordle thread.

The only advice I have for abandoning a deactivated account is what you have already heard: Deactivate, delete, remove everything you can.

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Were you also able to remove the credit cards on the buyer side? I ask because I have heard of Amazon charging those to settle a balance owed on the seller side.

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I only removed one of the two on there so far; I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by trying to remove the one that’s on the seller account. I did discover that I had a recent, bizarre balance of 45 cents owed, but I paid that up a couple days before Amz deactivated the account due to low activity (I had gone “on vacation” due to being caught in a terrible flash flood from Debby the Hurricane). I’m now past the 90-day A-to-Z period for my most recent order, so I don’t think they can find anything else to charge me for, but nothing would surprise me.

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I’m going to tag @ASV_Vites who I believe recently closed one of their selling accounts and @oneida_books who just generally knows things like this.

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Not closed yet sadly. It’s taking forever for the inventory removal / disposal orders to wrap up although we are getting closer.

Also, our listings magically reactivated themselves twice which puts our goal of a 12/31/24 shutdown in question. Wondering if I just refund those 3 or 4 orders will allow us to close it. Time will tell.

When it comes to Amazon, data never disappears unfortunately, even if you think it’s gone.

I wouldn’t be overly concerned about PI data security when it comes to Amazon. They already have it all and always will.

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Things I might do … which are just some random thoughts really … but as mentioned by @ASV_Vites, Amazon will always have that data.

(Untested on most and don’t want to mess up my account JIC)

Just because, I’d delete all inventory.

I’d likely go through my whole account info section. Since you’re suspended anyway you could go with some interesting changes to certain data … :laughing:

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Thank you!! I especially love the dummy address idea; I never thought of that!

I’m going to try everything you suggest :star_struck:, I already deleted inventory and removed extra email address I had in there for backup. I don’t care about the main email address because it’s one I used for Amz selling only.

Side note, I thought on the NSFE, the mods were supposed to step in to help sellers posting in the Account Health part of the forum? Well @bookwormapril kindly tagged several of them for me, but not a peep.

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Okay, I took those of your steps that I could, including a dummy address that I already had in there as an option, ha! And then, as I was looking through every aspect of my account to try to mess with it, a miracle happened: the Close Account button, which was missing till now, appeared! So of course I immediately clicked on that, went through the usual Are you sure biz. Then I got this email:

Greetings from Amazon Seller Support,
As requested, I’ve started the process to close your Amazon seller account. Once your account is closed, your marketplace transaction records will no longer be available.
Note: This won’t affect your Amazon buying account.
If you decide to sell on Amazon in the future, you’ll need to create a new seller account. (!!)
Thank you for selling with Amazon,
Amazon Seller Support

So maybe an account that’s been deactivated solely for reverification due to low activity MIGHT be allowed to be closed? But why was this option not available till today? In any case, I’m not complaining, if it turns out this is real. What a relief it would be!

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Wow. I’m out! My 20-year-old seller account is gone. :open_mouth: A few years ago this would have been really distressing for me, because as small as my account was, I put a lot into it, and took pride in being a good seller. Until the advent of the NSFE I also enjoyed contributing what I could to the forums in their various iterations. But now, with what Amazon has become, all I feel is relief.

Just wanted to post here a suggestion, if anyone comes along that is stuck in Amazon limbo, unable or unwilling to go forward with a required re-verification that is NOT the result of any misdeeds, and who has decided to give up the battle and close their account, but there is no way in sight to do so: try what I did. It’s worth a shot, anyway.

  1. Pay off any mysterious charge that Amazon has decided out of the blue that you owe.

  2. Wait until at least 90 days after your most recent order was delivered so that Amz grudgingly accepts that no A-to-Z is forthcoming.

  3. Close the related account on the buyer’s side, after first slimming it down to the bare bones, personal-data wise.

  4. Follow Oneida’s steps above for your seller account, emptying out whatever data you can. A lot of the changes you already made in the on-its way-to-being-closed buyer account (they tell you it will take 10 days but mine took 1 day) will transfer over.

  5. Look again for a “Close Account” button on the seller account. I’m wondering if the button appeared after I had initiated the closure of the related buyer account? Who the heck knows!

Well who knows if any of this will work for anyone else; all I can say is my once-beloved (by me, ha!) little account is dead. Big thanks to everyone who pitched in on both forums to help me! Lucy_in_the_Sky on NSFE is no more, but for now, Marth lives on here at SAS. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Congratulations on this life evolution, @Marth ! Nothing stays the same, nor should it, and this was simply the right time for you to move on from Amazon. The work you put in was meaningful and valuable, and walking away on your own terms does not change that. The help and encouragement you offered on the OSFE was much appreciated, and we’re so glad you’ll still hang around with us here!

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Awww, papy, thanks so much. :blush:

I’ll still probably cry a little when I go look at my packaging supplies & equipment, so tidily arrayed for the next order that will never come, but I hope I won’t succumb to self-pity! Not quite ready to try Ebay but maybe in time.

At least now we’ve learned that SOME Amz seller accounts that have been deactivated for SOME reasons, CAN be closed. And that was a rule that I thought was carved in stone. So it’s cool that, in my account death throes, I could contribute this nugget; too bad I can’t offer it up on the NSFE now that I’m locked out :grin:

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Just curious - was your inactivity attributed to low sales or to your not listing new items?

Marilyn

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Hi Marilyn,
Pretty sure it wasn’t for either of those reasons, but instead because of my months-long account vacation. I’ve seen on the forums many other sellers dealing with the same deactivation when their “vacations” went on too long for Amazon’s liking.

For many years now I’ve shut down my account all summer and then some, and in the past few years, when I go to re-open, the account is deactivated and I’ve had to re-verify. This year is the first time the re-verification didn’t sail right through in a couple of hours, though, even though I submitted the most recent versions of the very same ID and credit card bills.

I think it’s unknown how long is too long for an account vacation in Amazon’s eyes, but from what I’ve seen, two weeks seems to be fine, and months on end definitely requires re-verification to re-open. So somewhere in between that is the dividing line.

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I think that you’re most-likely correct in that assessment of the ‘triggering factor’ for SIV re-verification, Diamonds (see what I did there? :smiley:); certainly there would appear to be an abundance of accumulated evidence over the last 10 years that supports your conjecture.

While I’m pleased that you were able - mainly, it appears to me, by your long-demonstrated perseverance in tackling problems, come what may - to reach your desired goal of shuttering Amazon out of your business life, I’m not pleased that above-board 3P Sellers like you find themselves driven to such extremes by Amazon itself.

Stay with us, Marth - May You and Yours Stay Safe, and Prosper!

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This is another reason sellers don’t trust Amazon due to a complete lack of transparency. If people know the rules, they can follow them, but Amazon plays cat and mouse with sellers.

Marilyn

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Hey Oneida or anyone else…

You don’t need a pro account to get your 1099 do you?

I want to downgrade the account I’m closing. I already grabbed all the sales data needed for our last tax filing. Accountant doesn’t necessarily need the 1099 but I would like to be able to grab it in Jan.

There’s just 35 units left to destroy at this point which is a big drop off from the 400+ that there was just 10 days ago.

Created those removal orders on 9-15 and they are just getting to them 65 days later…

Plan is to downgrade and sit until the 1099 is avail and then close it down.

Thankfully Amazon has made it possible to clear any tiny negative balances that there might be at the end. That used to be a sticking point for those of us looking to get out.

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No … if your account meets the criteria for a 1099, then Amazon is required to create it.

Having access to the account to download a copy is what you need.

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Also a “no” from me.

At this point I’d wait until Jan though to downgrade, just so I could get any end of year reports I might not think about.

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Depends, in part, on whether you continued to pay the monthly fee during the hiatus or not. Within 3 months of downgrading I was asked for reverification.

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