China's big seller accounts have been blocked one after another. It turns out that the Federal Committee is putting pressure on Amazon!

From Amazon's sudden address verification in early May, to the leakage of fake review data, to the successive blocking of top seller accounts, the major shocks in the cross-border circle can be said to be fierce, leaving many sellers with lingering fears when they wake up every day to face different surprises.

What sellers are most concerned about is the recent account suspension incident. Even though Amazon has officially responded to the cause of this incident, it still cannot change the fact that there are many different opinions. Recently, an Amazon employee revealed the inside story of the account suspension, which also refreshed everyone's cognition.

Amazon review fraud incident alarms federal committee

In fact, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission ( FTC) has been putting pressure on Amazon to regulate the frequency of paid reviews for sellers. Although Amazon has always expressed its active attitude towards regulating false reviews, it still received an email from the Federal Trade Commission asking Amazon to take severe action against brands and sellers related to false reviews.

Many sellers are unaware that their indifferent reviews have just hit the gun of the Federal Commission. From the leakage of fake reviews in March that attracted attention from many parties in the United States, to April 1, when an employee of the Federal Commission placed an order for a Vogek desk lamp on Amazon, he was told by the seller that he could exchange a five-star review for an Amazon gift worth $15, the fake review incident has been fermenting.

The employee then discovered that the color of the light she received did not match the light in the store's pictures, but still received the "Amazon Direct" seal of approval. In addition, among the store's reviews, there were some customer reviews that mentioned the paid review program.

Everything seemed to happen so naturally and quietly that Amazon also received an email from the Federal Committee shortly afterwards.

Amazon began investigating the products involved, including whether the products were stored in Amazon warehouses, whether the sellers had tampered with the storage and transportation of the products, and why internal employees did not promptly discover and handle the gift card reviews. As a result of Amazon's actions, six associated sellers with a total annual sales of more than $15 million were directly blocked.

Amazon's penalty mechanism is under question

Behind this review-brushing incident, many existing problems of Amazon have surfaced, especially the inconsistent punishment mechanism.

An Amazon spokesperson once said that under the same blue sky, its policies are the same for every seller, regardless of the size or location of the seller. If Amazon is wrong, the seller can appeal and fight back.

However, this is not the case. Although some sellers have violated policies many times and have been warned by Amazon, their online products are still available for sale. In particular, the six sellers involved in this incident have all received warnings about review abuse from Amazon, but their situations are different. Some were unblocked after being blocked for a period of time, while others applied for restoration many times but were rejected.

The recent incident of fake reviews has also revealed an important signal: Amazon has a zero-tolerance attitude towards violations on the platform. Sellers need to pay attention and comply with platform policies to avoid being warned by a red flag or even having their accounts frozen.

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Federal Committee for Selling Banned Accounts