@ShinghiD@amznsellerhelp Best sellers have been down for 4 weeks now for us. As soon as we get a counterfeit removed from Temu, another pops up. Amazon does absolutely nothing about it
@Drive_Protected Definitely shouldn't be doing that with the tow hook. You're lucky it didn't snap and come flying through your windshield. Has happened to people before
@elonmusk This is a HUGE problem for the U.S. Only ~35% of sellers on Amazon in the US are from the the US!!!!
Most sellers are completely undocumented (no LLC, no taxes, no US insurance, no liability) and are murdering their competition with fake reviews, fake takedowns and more.
We need @realDonaldTrump to see this and help!
https://t.co/5Iyo6UiGGC was made to advocate for us. Please help!
@CameronWalkerSZ Yeah it's a dumpster fire. At least they're responding to your cases. I have lost inventory cases open since November they don't even reply to. So much inventory lost going between AWD and FBA
The craziest real life story you will ever read as an Amazon seller happening to us right now. Amazon Seller Central Hacked and no clear resolution after 7 days! @dharmeshmehta@amznsellerhelp@AmazonHelp
https://t.co/Rkgpd9G3s2
I just published this important article:
E-commerce Wars — and how the US is losing. https://t.co/Jqpex8D90k
This details how US businesses are losing the war to foreign sellers on online marketplaces and it provides actions the US can take to level the playing field.
The following is a condensed version of our latest Amazon UK saga. I don't mean to be complain, but if you have the time and courage to read this to the end, you will see that @AmazonUK really put us into a corner. @amazon@AmazonHelp - I actually do feel extreme gratitude towards @JeffBezos for creating this opportunity for many Amazon sellers, but seriously... Ok, read on... (keep in mind that this is our THIRD experience of this kind with Amazon UK.
I will condense it to the least amount of words. We have been selling in the UK since 2018, I believe. Have a UK business, UK bank account, UK warehouse, UK accountant, UK director. We were invited to sell in the UK based on Amazon's request. We have collected and remitted UK VAT since then. We are the poster child of a proper Amazon UK seller.
Back on September 12th 2024 we received a verification email from the Amazon UK team telling us that they determined we were not a UK established company and our global disbursements got frozen.
Since then we provided every document that was requested:
UK Council Tax Bill
UK Utility Bill
UK Director Passport
UK Bank Account Statements
Employee Pay Slips
Corporate documentation
Invoices issued to UK entity
Confirmation from HMRC that we are business in good standing with no taxes owed
Confirmation from HMRC that we are a UK established company for UK Tax purposes
Some other docs like proof that the address matches corporate records
The issue is that someone either is not doing their job or does not want to take on a responsibility to make a decision. We were not asked to provide a list of documents all at once. We are asked for document A. We supply it. Pause 1-2 weeks. Request for document B. Pause. Request for document C. Pause. Request for document D. And so on.
Then after 3 months of not getting our disbursements (globally) they said the documents you supplied 3 months ago are no longer valid since they were now 3 months old. Ironic, right? We need documents a, b, c, d etc again, but dated with current dates. Naturally, it takes time to re-obtain the documents. Pause. Request for another document.
Fast forward to November. At this point the UK government says to Amazon via a letter that we are an established UK entity which one would think is sufficient for Amazon UK to determine the same. It was not.
On October 30th, we were told to get a letter from our UK bank (Santander) that we are an established UK entity. We obtained this letter and submitted it on November 4th.
On November 5th we were asked for the same letter, but "signed OR wet stamped". Our bank account manager had informed us that they have not used a traditional wet stamp for years. He signed the letter and we submitted the same on November 6th.
On November 7th our submission was not approved and we were asked for the same letter, but now "SIGNED AND STAMPED". Despite our banker being super helpful with this up to this point, he simply said that nobody uses wet stamps in their corporate office and it was impossible for us to get this. Whoever is asking for this on Amazon end is either unaware of this or was deliberately trying to put us into a corner.
Our UK director and accountant were unable to help with this. Amazon has not paid us for over 3 months. Our expenses are piling up. We need to pay for staff, warehousing, suppliers, customers, freight, advertising etc. Our unpaid Amazon USA seller account balance is over $380k. Not every business can survive operating and not getting paid for over 3 months.
Having no other choice, my business partner Yuriy Rubin got on the plane and flew from Vancouver to London. Being a true hero and a champ, he located a branch of Santander Bank in the UK that still used a wet stamp. He connected our bank account manager with the branch manager and they arranged for the letter to be wet stamped AND signed there and then. Again, let's take this moment to appreciate this: A person flying 12 hours across the Atlantic to walk into a bank to smudge ink on a piece of paper to get paid money owed to his business.
Bonus points: Yuriy made a video of himself at the branch during this process.
Yuriy submitted this letter earlier today. It was denied.
Yuriy went to a local law office and certified the same letter as a true copy of the orginal with another stamp and submitted it today again. Knowing what I know, I suspect it will be denied. We will be asked to provide another document - it could be a birth certificate of my grandfather or a DNA test for my cat. I am genuinely curious to find out.
At this point this looks like a script for a movie akin to Dante's Inferno, but with a 2024 twist.
Jokes aside, I am certain that Amazon is full of great, professional, reasonable people who do not want these stories to represent what Amazon stands for. We just want this nightmare to end to allocate our time and money towards something more productive, like developing new products, serving Amazon's customers etc. This has been a real drag.
If you know someone at Amazon who can put an end to this saga, I would be eternally grateful.
@flaspi1@ByoungSFL My latest AGL to awd container arrived at the US port on May 8. Delivery appt has been pushed back 4 times and its still not even delivered. Running oos now on a number of items
US based Amazon sellers,
Let’s rally behind this and get it applied to foreign sellers on US marketplaces.
How is it fair that foreign can sell in United States without filing a tax return or paying estimated taxes (withholding for entrepreneurs) but we must?
How is fair that they can sell in the United States without a U.S. company, but if we want to sell in China, we must form a company in China?
How is it fair that it’s easier to sell in the United States from overseas than it is as a U.S. citizen because all the rules and regulations that are applied more heavily to US citizens than catch-me-if-you-can overseas sellers?
Why are we effectively encouraging foreign sellers to wipe out the US base of innovative product development and distribution companies like we already did with our factories and industrial base?
It makes no sense.
Having the US government apply withholding to foreign sellers is not a tax or tariff.
It is just a slight leveling the playing field (overseas sellers still have tons more advantages), requiring them to pay the estimated taxes we pay and file the tax return we file.
I think we could get this fixed if enough of us call our congresspeople, just need a bit of coordination now that we know that this law is already being applied on YouTube.
If you want to make this a reality, reply to this post, share this post, like this post.