I can't tell you how many times we've heard of a seller hiring a freelancer who
By Chris McCabe · October 13, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
I can't tell you how many times we've heard of a seller hiring a freelancer who created non-compliant listings, signed into a mixture of active and inactive seller accounts from the same IP address or device, or more.
It often leads to mysterious related account blocks where Amazon tells you to dispute the relationship, and lately, showing them that you identified (and removed) the source of the account relations wont cut it.
They want full dispute language proving that Amazon clearly misidentified the linkage. Are you prepared to prove them wrong, across the board?
I understand why the original hire happens. They advertise highly desirable time-saver skills, and there's little talk of negative consequences.
It is a money-saver, sure, but is it going to cost you your business if they're touching and breaking things that lead to bigger problems?
Nobody wants to talk about what happens when that cheaper, less seasoned virtual assistant help tries to remedy a bad situation, either.
You can say this is your mess, you clean it up! But will that actually work, if they didn't know enough to avoid the slip-ups in the first place?
Remember, any one mistake can lead to a captured IP address log in, which connects accounts that appear to be linked in Amazons tools.
Even if they have no other relationship to each other, even if the relations are weak, it'll (bare minimum) generate an investigation, with possible action that won't make you happy during a peak sales period.
And given today's current enforcement trends on related account deactivations, those actions appear increasingly hard to fathom. For whatever reason, weak relations between accounts are treated as strong.
As many sellers have experienced, if a VAs other clients get suspended for listing policy violations, mismatched inventory, reviews left for their own brands (or negatives, on the competition) your account gets swept right into the blast radius because of a shared IP and device fingerprint.
Sometimes, the VA or other freelancer simply has their own seller account that goes down. Do you know how quickly they'll be back up?
Will they ever get reactivated? Before you hand over user permissions, or commit to any support or assistant work that could lead to end of all things Amazon:
Don't be shy when you vet, and get it in writing.
Ask directly: Are you running your own Amazon account on the side?
How many other clients are you actively logged into right now? Are they all active? Are any of them at risk of an account suspension? Have any accounts you worked on been suspended in the past?
If they dodge the questions or you fail to ask, you've lost the battle before you've even started. Saving a few bucks on hourly help is completely pointless if your account ends up deactivated for weak relations in Q4.