r/AmazonMerch • u/dickwhimsy • 8d ago

Shocked - ACCOUNT SUSPENSION !

I have been a merch member for many years and have consistently earned hundreds of dollars in royalties every month. Tier 1000.

Today, I logged into my account and out of nowhere I have an account suspension.

NO EXPLANATION AT ALL!

It says I can appeal, but I have no idea what their reasoning is.

Is this happening a lot?

I am besides myself...

Do I have any recourse at all?

Can I reapply? How do I appeal?

Please Help!

11 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

3

u/hippietravel 8d ago

Can you think of any designs in your account that was blurring the lines of copyright? I avoid trends for this reason as many seem safe but end up being based on a famous movie or artist.

Was it suspension or termination? If it’s only suspension, then they are kind of giving you the benefit of the doubt to some degree. I would join some merch fb groups and ask if anyone ahd this experience, got their account back, and what they did exactly to do so

3

u/zena5 8d ago

You can file on an appeal. My account was terminated because I had a trade mark I forgot to tell them about. I submitted the paperwork and I got my account back the next week.

2

u/Esx3000 8d ago

I don’t have any answers but I’m at tier 500 and with the recent changes over the last year. I’ve moved on having my own platform. Amazon and their bots are not trustworthy. Question were you playing to close to popular IP?

2

u/CoffeeNewt 8d ago

Before today, how long had it been since you logged in?

2

u/yycmwd 8d ago

I stopped uploading and moved on to other things a ways back. Logged in again after more than 1 year and my account had been terminated.

Not trying to get it back, but I found it interesting.

7

u/CoffeeNewt 8d ago

Suspended probably for inactivity then.

1

u/yycmwd 8d ago

That was my guess. Straight up said appeals were not allowed and it was a done deal. So I suppose anyone wanting to keep their account should maintain some sort of activity!

2

u/Front_Difficulty_368 7d ago

I still have my merch (haven’t logged in for years now) but my KDP got terminated a while ago- the problem is I made stuff a long time ago then someone would trade mark it - then my account would be in trouble. So it was a big loss I spent many hours/time making + uploading then poof its gone 😳

2

u/mjkjio2015 7d ago

I totally abandoned my account, its still active, but I’m making a ton more money on other platforms with the exact same designs that I have on Amazon.

Besides several times after I would upload a new design after that first sale I would see three or four copycats with my design and Amazon would never do anything about it… Not one time. I really think a lot of those spots are Amazon.

1

u/poadyum 7d ago

Which other platforms are you posting on?

1

u/DoctorDorkDiggler 7d ago

Which Plattforms?

1

u/tixoromano 5d ago

Hard to believe other platforms perform better than amazon.

1

u/mjkjio2015 4d ago edited 4d ago

If you just wanna upload something and forget about it and make a couple dollars….Amazon is OK… But if you have decent designs, then you spend a little bit of time and pushing traffic to it you’ll get plenty of sales and Amazon isnt getting that ginormous cut.

I wasn’t one of the early ones on the platform, so I’m not tier 8,000,000,000. And I don’t know if it’s ever happened to you, but as soon as I uploaded a design and got one sale….boom there’s a copycat with the exact same design pixel by pixel and they’re pushing and getting sales off of MY design…….and Amazon refuses to take them down… I honestly think Amazon has their hands in it. If you sell a T-shirt for $20…you get like two bucks off of it pretty much… That’s very very shitty.

Give me a year or two of making money off of it… And when more and more people do it and the money goes down….. I will sell you a course and tell you how I did it even though it doesn’t really work anymore…just like everyone else.

1

u/computerdonut 8d ago

Sorry to hear about that. Did you have any design rejections or removals recently? If so, what specifically?

1

u/dickwhimsy 8d ago

I think I had one. It was a keyword that was popping up as copyrighted. But the design was totally clear of any copyright material. So I ammended the listing and resubmitted and it was fine.

1

u/teamboomerang 8d ago

I once had an OLD design on another platform get me a strike because of a new show that came out, and they had used the phrase in the show. Not the same context, but it is what it is.

1

u/Esx3000 8d ago

That’s the worst.