This is a recount of our first days on FBA:
- Wednesday 31st - We signed up, were told that our inventory would be "converted" to FBA and Seller Central within 24-48 hours. We shipped a box of inventory on Wednesday afternoon - cost to us was $19.50.
- Thursday 1st - Seller Central was up, but inventory disappeared. So was our balance (about $1,000). Were promised it would be up and running soon.
- Friday 2nd - Inventory still down, 24 hours and counting. No income during this period, and our $1,000 was still inaccessible.
- Saturday & Sunday - ditto. No income for 4 days and counting.
- Monday 5th - We were contacted by Amazon Alliance. Our conversion to FBA was perceived as an attempt to open a second seller account, which was against Amazon policy. Were told our seller account was permanently canceled, we're NEVER allowed to sell on Amazon again. We were told not to bother calling or emailing - this decision was final.
- Tuesday 6th - We decided to email & call anyway. FBA knew nothing about this. No phone number for Alliance. We emailed Alliance, and received an automated response, saying not to send any more emails, and don't expect a response.
- Friday 9th - No response, FBA doesn't know what's going on. No income for 11 consecutive days, $1,000 still missing. Meanwhile we are paying storage fees. Decided to give up on Amazon. Instructed FBA to throw out/discard less valuable inventory (at $1.50 per item) and ship the rest back to us, at our expense. Total cost to us $127 + $19.50 initial cost to ship to FBA + $5 in FBA storage fees + cost of items thrown away (approximately $300 retail value).
- Friday 23rd - Received email from Alliance. Without admitting their mistake, they reinstated our account, apologized for any "confusion". $1,000 was finally released.
3 comments:
just the cost of doing business.
you should assume there will be some glitches whenever you switch to a new system. theres lots of similar stories. this shouldnt surprise you.
if you can't go a month without income, you shouldn't be running your own business.
freezing that much money seems a bit excessive, but reread your FBA agreement. they have the right to freeze whatever they believe is appropriate. i hope you eventually got your thousand dollars back.
Randy, above, is a card carrying member of the idiots union.
He clearly has the "slave" mentality and sympathizes with the "slave-master" (Amazon)...from a psychological perspective, it really is just like that, Randy.
Seek therapy, Randy.
Anonymous - LOL!
We see this all the time. No matter *what* the corporations do to us (raise our rates, freeze our accounts, over-bill, etc), someone out there will make excuses for them.
In Europe, if the gas company secretly & overnight added a $25 per month junk fee (as they did in my area), people would riot!
Here, people just make excuses! But the exact same people will relentlessly pick on the government. Slave mentality, to be sure! Too much Glenn Beck, I suppose.
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