Like many of you on here, I have been an Amazon.com seller for several years. Several weeks ago I found a good deal on a hot item that Amazon.com did not have in stock.
I placed my items for sale and they sold quickly. I clicked on transfer payment to my checking account. I soon received an email stating that my funds would be electronically transferred. I had no reason to doubt that my funds were being transferred and so I took my items to FedEx and had them shipped.
I decided to buy more of these items and also place them up for sale. They also sold very quickly. I had about $1900 at this point that was being transferred to my account.
Two days later I received an email stating that they were placing a hold on my funds and they would be available in 45 days. I spent the next two days emailing and faxing to find out why they were holding my funds. I shipped them tracking numbers and receipts but no response.
In my attempts at communicating with them I stated that if they did not release my funds then I was not going to ship the other items. I communicated with the buyers and offered them alternate ways to purchase with me and explained my situation. When the buyers did not want to work with me I refunded their money and sold my items elsewhere and kept one item for myself.
Even the other items that I sold and shipped two weeks later still made it to the buyers by Christmas.
I still continued to attempt to communicate with Amazon but they still did not respond. On 12/22/05 I received a email from alliance@amazon.com and payments-funds@amazon.com stating that since I refunded the money for the other items I was in violation of their policies. They stated that I posted items that I did not have available and did not ship. They also stated that because I did that they had blocked my seller's account and that I was never allowed to sell on Amazon.com again and they now were going to hold my funds for 90 days.
I explained to Amazon.com that I was a single mother and the $1070 that they were holding was all the money that I had to spend on my children for Christmas. I asked them to please look at my tracking information and see that all of the items were delivered. They refuse and state that they are still holding my money for 90 days. Who knows if I will ever see that money again!
Also, the item that I was selling was not being sold by Amazon.com personally until they saw what the profit was that I was making. As soon as they got me to stop selling that item, they mysteriously had that item available.
This is one of the most horrible things that anyone has ever done to me! I was just trying to make a little extra money for Christmas and they have ruined it! Not only was that my Christmas money but I had used my bill money to buy the items (as I was planning on having it available on time) and now I do not have enough to pay my bills and I have incurred late fees and other charges.
Amazon.com policies are misleading, deceptive and fraudulent! How are they allowed by law to continue to enforce policies that steal someone's money. If I ordered something off of their website would I have the option to pay them in 45-90 days until I made sure the order was shipped and delivered properly? I THINK NOT!
If anyone has a class action law suit or any other ideas on how I can get my money back . . .PLEASE HELP ME! I know this isn't a lot of money to most people but it was everything to me. I cannot wait three months for this!!
Pam
Maineville, Ohio
U.S.A.