Amazon Amazon.com Holding Funds; I Want To Hear From You! Seattle, Washington

Here is a copy of the report I filed with the BBB; If you are a victim of Amazon holding your funds, I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!! This is an illegal business practice in all but 2 states, and you have options available to you through your state government. I want to get as many people together (that have been victims) so that we may possibly launch a class-action against them, or at the very least, report them to the state regulatory agencies that govern them. You can also check out more information about my side of it at my blog;

 http://squirrelandmoose.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/amazon-holding-funds-i-want-to-hear-from-you/

Consumer's Original Complaint :

I opened my "seller" account with Amazon on October 18th of this year, in order to sell overstock items from my office. After my first sale, I was advised via my account control panel, that the funds profited from my sales would not be available for 14 days from the day that my account was opened. No big deal. 1.5 weeks later, after making another sale, the notice had changed to 21 days. (None of this was made aware to me at the time I created the account)


As of November 6th, I had sold 85% percent of my inventory, for a total amount of $1,512.88 (AFTER paying Amazon's fees to sell). On this day, which was 2 day before I was scheduled to receive only a partial amount of what I was owed
($252.16) I received several notifications that my account was "under review" and that my funds were NOT going to be given to me before a "up to" 90 day period.

I appealed the review, provided all the information and proof that I could and placed numerous calls. All of the calls placed resulted in the Amazon representative telling me that they could not assist me, and instructed me to email "seller-performance@amazon.com". I did as instructed, and as of yet have not received ANY information as to why my account was under review. I was advised in these generic, non-specific emails to "ask" my buyers to provide feedback to speed the process up, and I did so. On the same day that my buyer left feedback, Amazon sends me a message stating that I have
"manipulated" their feedback system, and that I was in violation, and then removed the feedback. I am in a close relationship with my buyer, (I have worked with them for 2 years) and I explained this in several emails, and my buyer even stated that they would call Amazon to verify that they are happy with my service. My buyer was outraged to find out that this was happening to me, and that I would not be able to sell them until this is cleared and I actually get paid.

I have kept my primary buyer aware of all of this by adding them as a CC to all emails that I have sent to Amazon regarding this.  

I have been polite and patient in this matter, to no avail. There have been 29 emails between Amazon and I in the past 3 days, all to no avail. 6 phone calls placed, no to avail. This has cost my office over $100 dollars in shipping, and over $1,800 in products, NONE of which we have been compensated for. We have given Amazon our trust and our money, and they have in turn refused to pay us what we earned as a result of selling OUR OWN products. This has started to hurt us financially, as well as the relationship I have with our primary buyer. 
----end of clip from BBB complaint---

Amazon as of today, STILL refuses to acknowledge that they are illegally holding funds, and even sent a generic email to the BBB in response to this complaint: Here's Amazon's response to the BBB regarding my complaint:

11/12/2012                WEB      BBB        RECEIVED BUSINESS RESPONSE :
Greetings
from Amazon,

We are writing to let you know that we are conducting a review of the seller's account. During this review, the funds will be temporarily reserved in the seller account.

We conduct account reviews in support of our commitment to improving the customer experience. These reviews are intended to ensure the timely shipment of orders and compliance with our selling policies.

Information about such reviews are included in our Participation Agreement, which the seller accepted when signing up to sell on our site.

Best
Regards,

Seller
Performance Team
Amazon.com