So, the most common thing I hear of people doing to avoid any unwanted links is to limit who’s allowed to use their internet connection and be very cautious about making sure you don’t log into any other Amazon accounts on that connection. While this may work for some people, if you’re a business with many employees, or you let your friends use your home wifi, it’s pretty hard to make sure everyone’s following the rules.
There is another way to secure the way you access your seller account. You rent a server (either a VPS or a dedicated server), and use that server ONLY for accessing the seller account, and ONLY access the seller account from that server. If someone needs to access the seller account, they do so by remote desktopping into the server. It’s far easier to police where the seller account is logged into vs trying to police all the traffic going through your internet connection. This is basically the equivalent of having a dedicated computer and internet line for your seller account that’s used for nothing else, except it’s easier and doesn’t require you to set up a 2nd computer + 2nd internet line.
There are countless stories on the seller forums about people getting hit with a related account suspension for an account they never heard of, and some of those happened after someone else used their internet.
When I had a b&m location we had two static ip’s. One for the pos system & server and one for everything else. The pos ip was the ONLY way we accessed Amazon. We even had a VPN so we only ever touched Amazon from that ip.
That being said, with an established account with a great reputation you should not have to worry too much about a friend’s phone touching your network. There is almost always more to the story when someone posts “my friend came and visited then I was suspended.”
I have used public wifi hotspots intermittently since 2008 without triggering enforcement, Either I am very lucky or the test is more subtle than IP addresses.
I have had dynamically assigned IP addresses for many years without problem.
My personal guess is Amazon is accessing the MAC address on your computers and using them to link. It would have to be done with Javascript or some other programming, but the MAC address can be accessed.
I think all Sellers should be very cautious, but I have accessed my own in-good-standing Amazon Seller account at the homes of fellow in-good-standing Amazon Sellers, their businesses, their vehicles, in airports, in hotels, at sports complexes, in various coffee shops and restaurants nationwide, in my relatives’ homes, etc…and have never been “linked” or “related to” another Amazon selling account.
Because my account is not linked or related to another Amazon selling account.
So I suspect that there are multiple data points needed for Amazon to suspect a connection and/or some data points (e.g., shared credit card, shared address, shared email) are weighted differently than shared IP.
BUT I also strongly advise any Seller with any hint of account issues to avoid it completely, not only for their sake but their friends’, family’s, and acquaintances’ sakes.
If multiple accounts are routinely accessed from a set of locations and they’re all in good standing it’s not an issue. But as soon as one of them gets suspended, Amazon’s “search and destroy” algorithm kicks into high gear and who knows what will happen then.
You’re allowed to have multiple seller accounts if you have a “legitimate business need” so Amazon’s not going to send you any notice based on that alone. But if any linked account is suspended now they consider all those other accounts a risk.
I agree with Lake on this, a lot of cases on the OSFE were people buying a used PC for their Amazon account or so they say. Like all things Amazon we will probably never know the actual information used to link account.
It is likely a combination of things analyzed by some kind of AI program that assigns some kind of link risk score to your account, then that score is used along with a bunch of other AI driven risk metrics, and if the total is over some threshold based on whatever formula they use, they suspend you. Having someone who used your internet get their own account suspended probably adds some amount to your risk score, and the amount likely depends on how often the 2 accounts shared the same connection. Nobody knows for sure how their account is scored in this manner, but the less potential negative marks you have on your account the better.
There’s been a lot of suspension waves in the past where it’s likely due to Amazon lowering their suspension threshold, or tweaking their formulas.
I have sometimes had the sense on these opening queries that the seller is merely laying the ground work for a future defense. They suspect trouble will be coming, can they find a good excuse.
