I recently spent about 45 minutes speaking with a member of Amazon's management,
By Chris McCabe · October 29, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
I recently spent about 45 minutes speaking with a member of Amazon's management, pressing to find out more on a single question that every honest brand owner asks me:
"Why are some known, repeat policy violating offenders allowed to stay on the platform to sell after multiple confirmed abuse reports?"
It's an interesting conversation to have, especially when the seller's abuse we are reporting is fairly obvious, even to an unseasoned observer.
One answer we got back hinted at an internal bottleneck I didn't think of:
Some investigators fear of punishing the wrong party. In other words, being duped, and taking action on the wrong seller account.
I understand why that could be a problem, and why sophisticated black-hat actors constitute such a threat.
Be that as it may, we can't stop highlighting abuse to prevention teams.
Illicit sellers routinely submit fabricated accusations and bogus claims to get legitimate competitors taken down, as numerous brands experience.
If you are dealing with a repeat offender hijacking your listing, crazy fake product reviews, or buyer experience- corrupting catalog or ASIN attributes this Q4, don't submit isolated, one-off abuse complaints via Seller Support or call into Account Health to ask "what do I do?"
You must build a documented pattern of harm:
Chronological timelines of repeat offenses across multiple ASINs.
Verifiable merchant tokens and back-end attribute changes.
Direct proof of bad faith has to rule out normal seller error or false accusation. Anything you can do to limit a non-response, use it!
If they're stuck in "analysis paralysis" or hesitate to act on accounts because they’re terrified of falling for a competitor setup, push it up the chain. The worst thing you can do is give up, encouraging the abuser.
When you hand Amazon an open-and-shut dossier that shows sustained, deliberate harm, they don't have to guess whether it's a competitor setup.
That's how you get repeat abusers removed before Black Friday.