Back in 2025, if an agency made a mess of your ASINs and violated listing polici
By Chris McCabe · October 20, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Back in 2025, if an agency made a mess of your ASINs and violated listing policies, you could fire them, show Amazon the contract, terminate and convince Amazon teams that you'd not make that mistake again.
You could in effect blame the third party, and usually get your account back on track, or even reinstated if the agency got you suspended.
Well, were heading into 2027 now. Try that today, and watch how fast your appeal gets rejected.
As I learned speaking to Amazonians at two different events this past month, they scrutinize you much more closely for poor hiring and/or a lack of vetting practices.
If you hired one bad agency, service provider or consultant, how does swapping one for another change anything? Maybe in the past, they reinstated you based on everyone needs a second chance.
Not now. Amazon’s policy and enforcement teams have completely shifted their stance on third-party management over the past couple of quarters.
When you escalate an account suspension or an evasive behavior flag today, Amazon higher-ups aren't interested in hearing who you fired.
They're more into knowing more about why you hired them to begin with.
In effect, this is telling brand owners point-blank:
"You need to demonstrate that you didn't hand over all operational control to another party, without understanding their knowledge of Amazon (or lack thereof). Prove to us this act wasn't deliberate."
Who is in charge of the oversight of your Amazon business? And is the owner aware of what's going on behind the scenes?
In short, the blame the agency appeals fall flat because Amazon views your seller account as your sole responsibility.
You can hand the football off to an agency or consultant, but you cannot stand on the sidelines, and pretend you had no idea how they work.
Performance teams churn through Q4 appeals like professional athletes eat 6 egg omelettes. Indicating that listing creation rules or listing policies were violated because the your agency did it without your knowledge tells Amazon that you lack internal compliance controls. Ouch.
Documenting a data-driven cause (like a verified bulk upload error or a specific technical glitch) means a lot more than pointing fingers, and lacking that means you cant satisfy the requirements for reinstatement.
If an agency mess-up has landed your account or top-selling ASIN in hot water, don't use blame game appeals.
If nothing else, structure an evidence-backed appeal that details exactly what happened internally to cite already corrected listing process problems...and make sure it outlines the precise operational protocols you’ve established so it never happens again.