This is a classic case of âpigs get slaughtered.â If he just stuck to LOOKING at insider information (which Iâm sure many other consultants do) to find out the reason why appeals were rejected, and then formed a plan of action tailored to address the hidden reasons why the original one was rejected and submitted it through the official channel, the probability of some problem surfacing from that is slim to none. Thereâs also plenty of people who would pay good money for that information (myself included). But having employees start flipping switches that theyâre not justified to flip leaves a massive electronic paper trail. Even here, thereâs a chance they get away with it because someone whoâs unsuspended wrongfully wonât be complaining. But then add in abusing the power to ATTACK other sellers who will most certainly complain and that level of greed is unfathomable. I wouldnât be surprised if the whole scheme was uncovered because one of the sellers they attacked took Amazon to arbitration and what really happened was uncovered during discovery, at which point Amazon would launch a bigger and wider investigation into it.
@GGX I get what youâre sayingâthat if Ed had just stuck to nicking the occasional candy bar from the vending machine instead of trying to make off with all the quartersâor the machine itselfâhe probably wouldâve stayed off the radar, or at least had a more defensible position.
And I agree with your differentiation between illegal access to documents versus buying reinstatements, direct bribes, buying forged invoices, attacking competitors, attacking clients who wouldnât pay, etc.
I would have greater grace for someone saying, âyeah, I paid a bloke $5 for account notes, and I didnât ask how he got 'emâ and that was as far as it went.
Ed is not that, though. He wishes he was and is trying to convince others that he isâbut heâs not.
But to even LOOK AT this info, Ed (and any other unscrupulous consultants) had to first bribe an Amazon employee, or pay someone else to bribe an Amazon employee.
I have helped so many Sellers with POAs (free of charge only). And a huge intention of the process is that the Seller themself can investigate and identify their violationâŠbecause otherwise many Sellers would never read the rules for themselves.
Are a few Sellers deactivated in error? Sureâalthough now I would personally be more likely to suspect that the âerrorâ was behind-the-scenes manipulation, paid for by a competitorâbut that still doesnât make it right or legal or âadvocacyâ to bribe Amazon employees for extra info, much less any of Edâs other proven criminal activities.
Is Amazon always right? Absolutely notâbut that being true still doesnât make it ok to cheat, lie, or steal.
But when Amazon itself âlies, cheats and stealsâ, I can understand how easy it is to rationalize sinking to their level. Iâm not saying Ed was righteous or justified, what Iâm saying is that anyone would be tempted, and Ed gave into that temptation. Where I come from, the proper summary is âThere but for the grace of God go Iâ.
Me (or anyone here) can say they wouldnât pay someone to illegally unsuspend their account by bribing an employee to improperly flip a switch because thatâs too risky / going too far, but itâs a different story if youâre looking at Amazon withholding a million bucks of yours + all your inventory. I guess if youâre facing that reality paying 200K to get your funds and your inventory back is a good deal and worth the risk (I have no idea how much was being held up in the account that paid 200K to get a suspension lifted, but Iâm going to go ahead and assume it was a LOT).
At the end of the day here, the sellers technically paid for a seemingly legitimate service, Iâm sure if anyone asked Eddie if itâs legal he would lie and reassure them yes itâs perfectly above board to get their money, so itâs unlikely that theyâd go after all the individual sellers who hired him. Iâm sure thereâs sellers who knew what was up, but their legal position is a lot better than Edâs as they werenât the ones paying the bribes.
But see, I fundamentally (respectfully) disagree with your premise that âanyone would be temptedâ. 
Nothing that Ed has done would be anything that naturally occured to me personally --not because Iâm naive, which is the suggestion that several have made, but exactly because I am not.
I personally have too much to lose, to make even minor or short-term criminality an option on the table, over an Amazon account. Yes, even if it was the sole income for my family.
Again, I fundamentally (respectfully) disagree with this premise.
Personally, I would instead pay an actual legitimate law firm the $200k to get my money and goods back, firmly, without any shenanigansâand then get them to recoup their own fees. And I would simultaneously reset my business so that Amazon doesnât have that kind of power over me ever again. LikeâŠthere are plenty of non-shady options, for non-shady businesses.
Meanwhile, this NSFE post about Ed still being allowed to sell on Amazon and post 
Any bets on if Amazonians respond, respond and lock, or just lock???
Yes, that is the rational option and I would say the same. But when under a lot of pressure people donât always do the rational thing.
Could be a situation where they need that money NOW and canât afford to wait a year+ while the case winds through arbitration. A lot of businesses run in a way where any disruption to their cash flow = failure.
Thats where time and repetition come into play. There is a difference between a mistake / error in judgement and a way of being.
The volume of time and repetition, clearly make it a way of being more than a
basic whoopsie.
Hopefully nobodyâs in that situation often enough where theyâre pros at handling it.
âLinchpinâ in Amazon marketplace bribery scheme sentenced in Seattle
Sep. 13, 2023 at 6:00 am Updated Sep. 13, 2023 at 6:00 am
By
Seattle Times Amazon reporter
A federal judge in Seattle sentenced the final two U.S.-based defendants in a bribery scheme on Amazonâs digital marketplace, including the central player who prosecutors described as the âlinchpinâ in the three-year operation that may have resulted in $100,000 in bribes.
Joseph Nilsen, who prosecutors say was the most culpable of all six defendants involved in the scheme, was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Kristen Leccese, who helped Nilsen and is engaged to be married to him, was sentenced to two years of probation.
Nilsen and Leccese, who both live in New York, ran a consulting business to help merchants who sold their goods on Amazonâs digital marketplace. They and four others were accused of participating in a three-year scheme to manipulate Amazonâs digital store by bribing Amazon employees to access confidential information they then used to help clients gain an unfair advantage over other sellers, according to court records. Nilsen, Leccese and three other co-defendants pleaded guilty last year, while a sixth co-defendant remains a fugitive.
Among a âwide array of illegal services,â the U.S. Attorneyâs Office said defendants forged invoices, altered Amazonâs shipping and tracking records, wrote false reviews and manipulated competing sellersâ product detail pages to keep customers away.
Nilsen acted as a conduit between seller clients and âAmazon insiders,â prosecutors wrote. He considered himself the CEO of the consulting business while Leccese used the titles of vice president or content strategist, according to court records.
âFor over three years these defendants grew their business by cheating: bribing Amazon employees, forging documents, attacking competitors with fake reviews and even posting cartoonish obscene gestures on competitorsâ order pages. Now they face the consequences,â acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman said in a statement Friday.
Nilsen, Leccese and others ran the bribery scheme from July 2017 to September 2020, when federal prosecutors first filed an indictment against the group, according to court records. The defendants were charged with seven counts of wire fraud and two conspiracy counts. Prosecutors estimate the consultants paid nearly $100,000 in bribes to Amazon employees.
Both Nilsen and Leccese pleaded guilty in May 2022.
The U.S. attorney accused the ring of using illegal tactics to steal internal and confidential data from Amazon in order to manipulate the marketplace, as well as using bribes, forgery and fake claims to advantage their clients over merchants selling competing products on the platform.
In one instance, Nilsen and other consultants created a fake domain name to impersonate a law firm and filed a fake intellectual property complaint against a seller who was competing with their client, according to court records. In other cases, the defendants wrote fake reviews to promote their clientsâ products and to harm competitors. Prosecutors say Nilsen altered a competing clientâs product listing by replacing the image of a fleece blanket with a photo of a smiley face with a middle finger up.
The defendants also worked to help sellers reinstate suspended accounts. In some instances, prosecutors say they used illegally obtained information to determine why an account had been suspended and tailor the appeal accordingly. In one case, Nilsen and another defendant discussed a $6,000 bribe to an Amazon insider to reinstate a suspended account.
Prosecutors said Nilsen played a âcentral roleâ in the scheme, according to a sentencing memo. âAmong all of the co-defendants, Nilsen engaged in the broadest range of illegal activities on the Amazon Marketplace,â they said in court papers.
Lecceseâs main role in the bribery scheme was to prepare fake invoices to help sellers get banned products reinstated on the marketplace, according to court documents. Sellers would use the forged invoices to show Amazon their products had come from authentic suppliers, making it seem as if they were adhering to Amazonâs guidelines for certain products, like dietary supplements.
Nilsen worked with another consultant to alter shipping and tracking information in Amazonâs records, prosecutors say, making it appear Amazon had lost inventory that belonged to third-party sellers.
âNilsen and his co-conspirators used their insider knowledge of Amazon to break its rules and abuse Amazonâs platform,â prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo earlier this month. âThey stole Amazonâs confidential information to line their own pockets.â
Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon vice president of worldwide selling partner services, wrote on LinkedIn that the company was âgratefulâ that government officials and law enforcement brought âthese bad actors to justice.â
âThere is no place for fraud at Amazon, and we will continue to invest in ensuring that we create a trustworthy experience by protecting customers, selling partners and our store from fraud and abuse,â he continued.
Nilsen and Leccese were the last two U.S.-based defendants to be sentenced. A sixth defendant, Nishad Kunju, who is from India, has not been arraigned.
Rohit Kadimisetty was sentenced in February 2022 to 10 months in prison and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine. Hadis Nuhanovic was sentenced a year later to 20 months in prison. Ephraim Rosenberg, another seller consultant, was sentenced in July to two years of probation, with one year home confinement, and a $100,000 fine.
On Friday, Judge Richard Jones sentenced Nilsen to 18 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay a $20,000 fine for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and other violations.
Jones sentenced Leccese to two years of probation, with six months of home confinement, and a $4,000 fine for conspiracy to commit violations of the Travel Act.
Nilsen was responsible for $150,000 in losses connected to the bribery and fraud scheme, according to court records. Leccese was responsible for the loss of $100,000.
Nilsen also filed a false tax return in 2017, underreporting more than $44,000 in receipts for his consulting business. He didnât file tax returns in 2018 or 2019, according to the sentencing memo.
Attorneys for both Nilsen and Leccese could not be reached for comment.
Nilsen and Leccese, who ran the consulting business from 2016 to 2020, told the court that the majority of services they provided were legitimate and based on âdeep knowledge of Amazonâs rules.â
After discussing it with the government, Leccese is again doing some consulting work for Amazon businesses, according to court records. The couple also started a new software business that is meant to assist online sellers in identifying fraudulent and malicious negative product reviews. The software venture employs 26 people.
Yeah, Iâm rushing to sign up.
A fool and his moneyâŠ
Câmon, most of the time Iâm not a criminalâcut me some slack, bro
But officer, this is the first time Iâve ever driven under the influence
Sorry mom, Iâm mostly am not high, frfr
UPDATE from ASGTG Ed Rosenberg on Reddit
Hmm, sounds like someone told him to 
Iâd probably be willing to wager a pretty penny on this indeed being the case.
The DoJ has a long memoryâŠ
He spammed us?
UmâŠnot exactlyâŠwill edit 
ETA: Yâknow what? Imma let it stand. It is public knowledge that he and his friend bashed SAS repeatedly on NSFE. So more like spammed about us. @maintak
His lawyer, the prosecutor or the court saw what he posted and warned him.
EDIT.
I see others smelled the same thing!