Riverbend Consulting

Happy Hour, April 23, 2025: TikTok Ban, Amazon Automation Scam, Fraud Flags & more

• Riverbend Consulting • Season 2 • Episode 77

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Lesley and Kelly are springing into action with another lively Happy Hour/Ask Us Anything! ✨🎉

Tune in as they answer your toughest Amazon questions and share expert tips to help your business bloom this spring! 🌸🍃

They covered topics like the TikTok Ban, Amazon Automation Scam, Fraud Flags, and more! 

#HappyHour #AskUsAnything #RiverbendConsulting #LiveEvent #AmazonSellers #FBACommunity #SellerSupport #SpringSuccess #EcommerceTips #LesleysNewBook #AmazonExperts #AprilEvents #BusinessGrowth

Lesley Hensell [00:00:21] Hello everybody and welcome to the Amazon seller happy hour Here with me Lesley Hensell. I'm co-founder at Riverbend Consulting and my Bestest buddy on the team Kelly Johnston who just knows everything. Hey, Kelly  

Kelly Johnston [00:00:40] Hello, hello, welcome back to us and to everybody else. It's been a minute. 

Lesley Hensell [00:00:46] Yeah and so much has been happening in the Amazon world and you know we're not going to bore you and talk about tariffs because I think we're all tired a we're, all tired of tariffs. I mean it's the only thing anyone wants to talk about for good reason um but also b I have no answers I know nothing I don't live or work in the White House um I am not a policy wonk and I I don't know. So we're going to talk about other things besides tariffs and things that you actually have a little control over. One of the things I have found in my own life is that if I focus on the things that I can actually do something about, I'm a happier human being. So we are here to talk to about your Amazon seller or vendor account and how you can it a happier, better, safer place to be. 

Kelly Johnston [00:01:39] I think that's a lovely strategy and one that all of us should be employing at will. 

Lesley Hensell [00:01:47] Absolutely. Think about the things you can control. And so we're going to start with a fun story. I didn't tell you this, Kelly, but I thought we would start with a fun, fun story about TikTok. 

Kelly Johnston [00:01:58] I like fun stories. 

Lesley Hensell [00:01:59] Um, and when I say fun story, it's actually like a horrible, nightmarish, terrifying evil story. 

Kelly Johnston [00:02:09] Well, that setup definitely has me intrigued. 

Lesley Hensell [00:02:12] About TikTok. So this is a story about some viral brands. And I want to bring it up because this is kind of a new to you kind of concept for a lot of people in Amazon land. And I know that even though there's also uncertainty around TikTok right now, there's a lot of interest in TikTok. Because if you know anyone who owns a brand that is on TikTok or has been on TikTok, you know that there is money to be made over there. There is a lot of excitement around TikTok, it is possible to build a following. And if you're not TikTok savvy, the way that brands and products do these things is that they will get influencers, they will give influencers their products. And then they will have those influencers do lives about the product. Now you don't have to use influencers, but this is a pretty common thing to do if you don' have your own studio or your own agency. And so you will, or agencies will also, for you, hire these influencers. And so if it's a, let's say it's a product that's a kid's product. And so they'll get a bunch of mommy blogger types who are influencers who will use the product on a TikTok live stream, talk about it, and then they will have a link. And when you make that purchase from TikTok shop, it credits that mommy blogger, just like an associate's account or any other affiliate account, and she gets a commission on that sale. And it's super, super effective until you are a viral brand who also sells on Amazon. And so I just wanted to kind of give a warning to some folks out there, if you are contemplating doing this because you have a cool brand or a cool product that you think is so viral, if you're not super familiar with TikTok, you're gonna wanna hire an agency because these TikTok folks, they are literally putting up product streams. They're making sure that you have 10, 12, 18 videos a day about your product on TikTok, it's constant content creation. And that's what they specialize in. They don't specialize in following the rules on Amazon, a completely different platform. Well, unfortunately, there are some agencies out there who are working for brands that are also on Amazon. And instead of doing what we all thought these folks would do, which if you like. Get the mommy bloggers address and you send her the kid product. They're actually telling the mommy blogger, hey, go buy the product on Amazon, leave a review, and then use that product to create your content. And we are going to reimburse you for that product. And then not only that, but then they would say, you know, when we that you left a five-star review. We'll give you a bonus so they've been yeah extra five bucks more. We're talking small ball here None of this changes anyone's life And that's part of what hurts my heart is that none of this Changes anyone's wife. Well apparently there were some agencies doing this and They would get on their Whatever service they were using to talk to these content creators and say, hey, buy this product and then use it to create content for this brand. Um, and then the content creators would all buy the product and then write a review instantly. And so Amazon knew there were bad things that, but, and, uh, unfortunately there was such a huge volume of reviews, um, that, that this took down these viral brands and. I don't know. If it's so this is where I'd love your opinion, Kelly. These brands that are now like forever banned from Amazon for doing this. What do you think is the bigger influencer on Amazon coming down so hard? Is it a FTC because the FTC is all over Amazon. So Amazon feels like it has to be, you know, really strict or is it B Someone at Amazon doesn't like this TikTok overflow. Is there something that they're not liking there? 

Kelly Johnston [00:07:04] Yeah, that's a great question. And two years ago, three years ago I would have said it was the FTC. Because Amazon is reliably very, very anti-regulation seeking. They do not want that tension from any regulatory body. But they do particularly want to avoid both FDA and FTC scrutiny because those tend to have the most impact on the way that they operate. But now, I don't think that's the answer, at least not entirely or not in the majority. I feel like there are two answers, one of which you didn't mention, that are driving this very strong enforcement Number one is that they don't like the tick-tock phenomenon. I feel like they know that there's something happening With that platform that they can't that they can't get that zeitgeist. They're not gonna get the boost from that. They're benefiting. That's number one. But number two, I do think they are actually really concerned about platform trust, both from a buyer and seller side issue. They know that if these brands are getting away with this using the TikTok stream you just mentioned, and there are no consequences, it's going to create more problems. They're going to really falter on some of those small business initiatives and as the economy kind of does this flex and contract dance that we're seeing and it's probably going to continue to do for the next several months, they don't want to lose more small brands or those initiatives than they have to. So I think there's a self-preservation aspect rooted in two different things driving this enforcement. 

Lesley Hensell [00:09:08] That's a really good point that I had not really thought of. And you know, Kelly brings up something worth talking about that I know that our listeners and the people in our land, although we all want Amazon to be successful because they have to be successful for all of us to be successful. Right. There is kind of a ha ha element sometimes. When they blow it. And, you know, a great example of this is Amazon Hall. So Amazon All is the Taemu Temu, whatever the heck y'all Shane Shein of Amazon 

Kelly Johnston [00:09:49] I like Shimutemu or whatever it was we were calling it.

Lesley Hensell [00:09:54] We met Temu, and you know they, which to me just reminds me of Whales, and they really rushed to get that up because A, they felt like they were losing sales to Sheen, Shane, Temu Temu which they were, but it was all for junk, junkity junk. And then number two, they realized that there was going to be something that would happen with tariffs and with the oh my goodness, Kelly, it just flew out of my head, the $800 thing. The de minimis exception and you know, the de minimus is actually an exemption. That is killing K-Mu machine and Amazon knew it was going to kill Paul too. So they rushed it out there and got it out super fast. And it was ugly. And all the products were extra garbagey, like worse than Shenmue and how to can't say them, worse than those other two marketplaces, if that's even possible. And you'd look at the jewelry and you would just know it was full of lead just by looking at it. 

Kelly Johnston [00:11:07] Oh yeah, you're like, here's my dose of cadmium. Thanks. 

Lesley Hensell [00:11:13] I'd really like this arm to fall off. I'm gonna order these bracelets. 

Kelly Johnston [00:11:17] Green is so my color! 

Lesley Hensell [00:11:22] So they rushed that out there, and it really hasn't done well. And now they're trying to kind of rebrand it and make it cooler and probably trying to get it where they initially wanted to get it. But now there's this de minimis thing, which is where finally, we're actually taxing the individual packages that are being shipped from China, and those have avoided any kind of character taxation. For a long time, which was really hurting US sellers who were paying tariffs on the same products that were coming in large loads over to the US and going to a warehouse. And so it's really, really screwing over US sellers big time. And then also, these guys also get away with these super, super discounts on shipping, which are insane, which that still has not been addressed. And I would argue is actually, from a fairness perspective. You know, you can argue for or against tariffs. There is no argument for that extra special shipping deal that these foreign shippers get where they're shipping from Shenzhen to me in Texas cheaper than someone, than Kelly can send me something from North Carolina. And it's because they're getting subsidized by the U.S. Taxpayer, not. The Chinese government, they get plenty of that too, but they're getting US subsidies on that. So anywho, I think that Amazon saw the writing on the wall with that and they're like, we're going to hurry it up and they want something, it's still just hot. Well, now they're talking about, like they have their hat in the ring to acquire TikTok. And to me, it would just be the of it it would just be the instant death of it just like What was that stupid shopping thing they did, that live shopping thing, and it went nowhere? 

Kelly Johnston [00:13:17] Oh, yeah. 

Lesley Hensell [00:13:18] Where you could you could like virtually pour it into someone's store and look around and they would hold up the scarf for you and show you how you could tie it with these different outfits yeah and that was like a big deal they tried to do and it totally fit so to me if amazon took over TikTok, that's what it would be. But maybe. 

Kelly Johnston [00:13:37] Yeah, there's such different animals, like I don't see. Yeah, I just don't see that working, but anyway. 

Lesley Hensell [00:13:47] If the whole Amazon model has been, let's build something sustainable. And TikTok is about let's capitalize on the trend right now. 

Kelly Johnston [00:13:56] Right, everything about it is a different business perspective, a different leadership perspective, a different type of talent perspective. Marrying those things does not make sense. And we already know that Amazon's leadership is kind of, you know, betwixt and between right now because they can't decide if they want people to come back to the office and yet have a desk. I can't see how they would administer to something like this. In a way that would be effective. But, you know, hey, stranger things have happened, but. 

Lesley Hensell [00:14:31] True every all the time since 2020 but but all of this blah blah to say if you're a seller on Amazon you cannot trust that an agency has you know I almost said has your best interest at heart that's not true what you can't trust is that they know the rules right it is completely possible You could hire a TikTok agency that can violate the rules and not realize it. You could have some person who is thinks they're helping you. And they're like, oh, you know what? This would be a really easy way that way. We're not having to drop ship product to these people. They're ordering it themselves or just reimbursing them. And we can get our client reviews and they I can see like, you know, young and experienced account managers who are only done to talk or other platforms. Legit not knowing that they are hurting you by doing this. 

Kelly Johnston [00:15:32] It's so many violations wrapped up in one and it's such a very definable pattern. I'm not surprised Amazon was able to catch it. And I am not surprised that they're like, Oh no, no, no, we cannot has this. But yeah, you're, you are totally right. I, I don't see how you can bank on an agency, particularly one that is geared towards social media. To have that much of a concept of what does or doesn't fly on Amazon. Now, arguably I would expect them to understand the rules of say, the differences between meta and TikTok or Twitter and meta and all that kind of stuff because that's their bailiwick. But I would be very shocked if they had that level of nuance with Amazon and that then falls on you, client with the brand to make sure that you're doing your due diligence And asking about those kinds of things, because you gotta look out for yourself and your baby brand that you have made and are loving and bringing into the world. 

Lesley Hensell [00:16:42] Yeah, and don't think that the TikTok agencies don't value Amazon also because they do, and I'll tell you why. There's still logistical issues sometimes with TikTok shops and with having enough inventory on hand there. And so what these guys do is if something's run out on TikTok shops, people are searching for or they're even redirecting to the brand website. And a lot of times those are not Shopify stores. And so instead they'll just have a buy it on Amazon link and you click and you go to Amazon. And they would actually rather that continue so that people are clicking even if it is not getting them the TikTok shop income because you want the viral to continue and it might be, oh, it's only one or two days. You're gonna have a few of those sales until we're restocked on TikTok. Um, the, the presence on Amazon does matter. It also helps with organic search. Uh, it's important to have the brand names out there on search. You want, if you're on TikTok shops, you really should be on Amazon also for all these reasons. Um, so it's, it not like they are unaware of the importance of Amazon. There is a backstop and also just so when people are searching, if they see the products on Amazon, they think it's legit and Kelly and I had a conversation about this earlier this week. Where we both admitted that we have seen things, her on TikTok, me on, I think it was like on an Instagram or something that directed to a TikTok shop, and I, neither of us purchased there, we actually went and bought the product on Amazon. 

Kelly Johnston [00:18:24] And there was such a different price, the price difference too. That was the other thing that I was like, wow, I'm not paying $45 for this. When I can pay 28, this is ridiculous. Um, and it was the same exact brand. And, and, you know, I've bought from TikTok shop. Don't, don't get it twisted, but not all TikTok shops look the same to me, you know? And it's, I have not yet developed the language and, um, Acumen that I would like. To tell you what I think one that looks good versus one that looks bad is, but I intuitively know when I go and look and go, mm, that doesn't feel right to me. So yeah, I definitely, definitely will continue to do that if I have any kind of suspicions about something. And so, arguably like you said, the agencies are invested, the brands are invested and Amazon is invested, but Amazon sure does want people to do it right. But that means that you as the brand owner are really where the buck stops to make sure that you understand that the strategy that you're paying for with that agency is compliant. 

Lesley Hensell [00:19:36] Amen to that. Okay, so let's get to some fun questions now that y'all have sent in and thank you again, everyone who sent in a question. We really appreciate it. And the first one is 

Kelly Johnston [00:19:51] You scare me when you do that. 

Lesley Hensell [00:19:53] The first one is six words. Oh, all right. It is non-specific, but it's so lovely that I had to ask it and it comes from Brian. Hey Brian, why does Amazon hate small businesses? 

Kelly Johnston [00:20:09] It's like the thing I saw the other day, Wiremen. It's just not that, Wireman. 

Lesley Hensell [00:20:14] Right, so he could have just stopped at, why does Amazon, could have stopped right there. 

Kelly Johnston [00:20:20] Oh, man. Oh, I'm struggling. I want to give a flip answer, but I also want to get a serious answer. So do you want to you want give a stab at it, and then I'll lay my two cents? 

Lesley Hensell [00:20:34] So Amazon doesn't hate small businesses. They actually love small businesses, especially if they have brands. The problem is that Amazon, when they enforce or when you have an account manager or don't have an Account Manager, A lot of what happens to you is based on the size of your revenue and the number of transactions you have in your account. So if you're a very large account with a lot of transactions, it takes a really long time to get enforced against sometimes because you have a lot transactions where if you are small, one or two cranky people can take your account down. Then it looks like Amazon hate you because you're small, but it's really based on amount of enforcement. Or another example, if I'm huge, I can pay the $5,000 a month to get the premium support. There might be a category manager who cares about me because my brand is super hot and cool. There may be reasons. Amazon cares more about my business. And so it looks bad because they might be more willing to help those people now. I will tell you, Kelly and I have worked on suspensions of some of the largest sellers on Amazon. People who do a billion with a B dollars on Amazon alone. So those people get suspended too. Huge major brands get suspended to keep the stuff you've bought on Amazon, y'all. I promise you there are things you bought on the Amazon that those brands have been suspended from Amazon before. Especially if you buy any supplements on Amazon, there's certain categories where I promise you these cool brands that you love, they've been suspended. It just, it feels worse towards small businesses, partly because the impact on you is so much bigger. You know, I've got clients who have been suspended from Amazon, but they're still selling Like gangbusters on Shopify and Walmart and you know, whatever the heck and so they're fine like they're they're not fine fine, but they lost 40% of the revenue not a hundred and And and then they like double up on eBay and they've got a bunch of personnel and they figure it out Small dude really hard to play 

Kelly Johnston [00:23:13] Oh, yeah. I mean, gosh, it's it's such a night and day experience. And to add to that, I think the other thing that's really important to understand is that Amazon is like the Freemasons. And what I mean by that, and I haven't used this analogy in a hot minute, is that the departments within Amazon that govern various things that impact sellers and small businesses are not connected in a way that you think they might be. Where you might expect seller performance to say, have a regular and ongoing rapport with category, you would be mistaken. Those investigators, because they are in a specialist type of position, are not taught about seeing things from a big-picture point of view and about how you evaluate small businesses fairly across the spectrum. Likewise, there's not a whole lot of other communication across teams that would probably promote a level of nuance in how these businesses are evaluated, and I can tell you from copious amounts of experience. Outside and inside Amazon, that depending on who you were talking to, whether it's a SaaS rep, category manager, somebody in seller support, somebody and seller performance, somebody an FBA, each one of them has their own unique definition of what makes a small business valuable. And many of those things are going to be at cross purposes. And when you have that, plus the, what's the word I'm looking for, the mandate to be responsible for all things risk management when you're in seller performance, it becomes really difficult to take each one of these individual businesses and look at them as a unique entity and make decisions based on that. You have to be able to scale what you're doing to protect the platform as a whole. All of that, which is really in the weeds a little bit, is meant to convey to you that it's not that Amazon hates small businesses. It's that they are trying to manage a very large, very complex, very unwieldy platform in a way that allows them to continue to exist with a minimal of regulatory oversight, minimal bad debt, and systems that basically function to their liking. People are gonna get cut down on that and it's not personal, it's business, but it still sucks and when it's your business, it's insanely painful. 

Lesley Hensell [00:25:50] Amen to that. Yeah, so I love that question, Brian. Thank you. We just got a question via YouTube from the comments from Scott. Hey, Scott. Thanks for listening again. And it's a really good one. 

Kelly Johnston [00:26:07] I love it. 

Lesley Hensell [00:26:09] It's more than six words, but it's another really good question. Do you believe that Chinese sellers are still getting a free pass on violating certain terms of service, but U.S. Sellers don't get the same pass? Do you have an example? So I don't have an an example, but I have gossip that I was told by someone that's really good. Will that pass? Will that passed? Yeah, go for it. Ha ha ha! 

Kelly Johnston [00:26:34] Hot gauze. I'm ready. Let's go. 

Lesley Hensell [00:26:36] Yeah, so Amazon has invested a lot in China, and that includes having offices in China. Offices that cater to sellers in China and that offer services to sellers in China that are not offered. It sounds good, I have gossip too. Offers services in China are not offer to sellers in the United States, as you know. If you're a seller in the United States and you have a real issue, you have to wait for the Accelerate event to come once a year, and then you have go there and stop people or sign up and beg to be in one of those Amazon Cafe things, and then hope that the person you talk to actually cares enough to follow up. There are people who are other service providers, not in our space, but other spaces. For Amazon sellers who have told me that they have talked to Amazon about China and talked to Chinese folks and sellers about Amazon and China. And there has been a lot that has been given a pass, a lot is forgiven, a lot has turned back on. Amazon is fully aware of the shenanigans where a Chinese seller will have 10 seller accounts, 20, 100, 1000 seller accounts. And that when an ASIN is taken down on one, they pop it up on another and they know. Surely there is some limit to this. I don't fully understand it. The people who've told me this are very reliable and reputable. They are not prone to exaggeration and they are certainly not prone to talking trash about Amazon. These particular people want to believe everything good about Amazon, but this is regaling to them. And I understand that if you're looking at it from a purely business standpoint of how can we move as much product as possible, I don't understand it in view of the other Amazon values around platform and customer safety. 

Kelly Johnston [00:28:54] Kelly? Yeah, I'm trying to gather like, because you covered a lot of the same things that I would say. When I was still at Amazon, the CN platform and seller performance support structure launched, and I saw it then that there was a lot, a lot being done to court the Chinese seller cohort and bring them into Amazon's fold that we would never have overlooked for any other marketplace. And I always felt that it was basically, they were willing to look the other way in pursuit of that profit base. And it was a pretty much universally reviled decision amongst my colleagues, none of us liked it. And they ended up shuttering it, you know, and obviously they've. Reconstituted those efforts and moved them into different ways of bringing those sellers on, but they largely abandoned a lot of what they were were originally doing, but the the same stuff is happening. I I don't understand it. I agree with you that there's got to be some sort limit. What it is I don't know, and I'm not going to name names, but you will probably remember there was a particular vendor in China that we discussed not that long ago that we know is kind of playing in that field a little bit doing those things. 

Lesley Hensell [00:30:41] Oh my goodness, getting away with so many things. 

Kelly Johnston [00:30:45] Guess who I'm seeing all over TikTok right now. 

Lesley Hensell [00:30:48] Oh, is it them? Wow. Yeah. 

Kelly Johnston [00:30:55] Multiple different products. So, you know, ice maker over here, not really, but this is the first thing I came to. I don't know why I came. I don' even have an ice maker. I don't know why that came to mind. But you know an ice-maker, a equipment cart, a drill, literally all different products by this one vendor. And the content is so scripted and it's so obvious. Now if I had never heard of this particular Chinese vendor, I would have been like, wow, their marketing is really good. Holy moly. When I now that I know what I know, oh, it looks terrible and coordinated and I cannot understand how they are allowed to continue to do this. 

Lesley Hensell [00:31:42] Yeah, they do some really shady things that hurt American sellers, frankly. 

Kelly Johnston [00:31:48] And that's the thing, it's like, I don't begrudge a corporation like Amazon or eBay or anybody else from trying to grow internationally. But how in the world do you look your original, your OG base in the face, your home-based country and say, so sorry, we value this other country so much more than you. And we're gonna let them do things that we would crush and grind your business into the ground for. I just, I can't. Amen to that. I can with that. And I'm not in any way trying to be xenophobic or isolationist with this, because I do think that there's a place for global trade. And businesses should be able to expand beyond their borders. I think there is a very real reason that that value, that's valuable and it matters. But letting it happen this way, I just I find it really distasteful. 

Lesley Hensell [00:32:47] Oh, I'm, I am number one fan of free trade, free trade and fair trade. 

Kelly Johnston [00:32:56] So this is... Do the F's in that sentence. 

Lesley Hensell [00:32:58] Yes, this is where the fair comes in because fair trade in in this case is not just about like governments and tariffs and subsidies and you know Slave wages and all that stuff. I mean you can make arguments around all of that for fairness but in this it's a company Applying different rules to people in like you said homegrown our country which is where all the consumers are and all of the original sellers are. Everyone who helped you grow. And then prioritizing that, like Kelly said, there's stuff, I mean, there are sellers in China who have sold stuff that have ingredients and elements in the products that if you sold them in the US, you would be banned forever from Amazon. Because it's stuff that kills people and somehow those Chinese sellers just stop selling that product after they're told to and then they're fine That's that's really bad. Like she mentioned cadmium earlier. That is that's a real thing 

Kelly Johnston [00:34:06] The big problem in kids' costume jewelry is just what made me think of it. 

Lesley Hensell [00:34:11] Yeah, um, y'all, if you have children, uh, don't buy any costume jewelry. Like I'm not even going to say unless it's from the U S just don't buy costume jewelry, don t do it. Um, find, go to a state sale and find 1950s costume jewelry at an estate sale and give that to your little girls to play with. Uh, do not buy any current costume jewelry at all. It's one of those things that we've seen where you're like, Oh my Lord, it just don't do it. There's there aren't very many products where I'd say don't I'm not one of those don't buy any supplement. I'm, not one of those people, but costume jewelry for children, just go to a garage sale and buy 1950s, 1960s costume jewelry. You can find it in neighborhoods. It's cooler. Anyway, just come back to the little girls and you'll pay less anyway. And you might find something cool. Cool to put on your neato dress or your suit or whatever. OK, I have two people who've asked a duplicate question, so that must mean it's very important. 

Kelly Johnston [00:35:16] Hey, great minds think alike what we got. 

Lesley Hensell [00:35:18] Yes, we have both Noah and Sarah asked this question. So thank you both. One says, Why does Amazon ignore my emails and please for help? I've explained my situation multiple times and I receive AI responses or no response. And Sarah says, How do you get through to Amazon when no one's responding? Even if your responses are well written and professional, I've done nothing excuse me to deserve no response from them. Oh, I feel you both so much. 

Lesley Hensell [00:35:50] Hmm because this is something that we we rail about literally every day. So we are right there with you right there. With you. Go ahead, Kelly. I know you have things. 

Kelly Johnston [00:36:03] Oh, yeah. So, first and foremost, I commiserate with you and I'm sorry. I know how frustrating it is to be in a painful situation with your business and not get the response that you deserve. I get that. Sometimes, and this does happen, I see it pretty frequently. We will have a client come to us for help and we're reviewing what they've already sent to Amazon on their own behalf and it's darn near perfect. I mean. Beautiful essay with punctuation and clarity and staying on task and addressing the things you were asked to address. What more could you ask for? And polite and, you know, all the things, right? And they're still not getting a response. And then we see situations where people are rightfully upset, but they're a little off target in what they're talking about because they're focused on how they feel, not on what has happened. And even the best, most, like... Skilled writer. If you're upset enough, you're going to miss the target because you're focused on how you feel and not what's actually happened. It's very difficult to be dispassionate about your own situation. So I don't know what the situation is for either of you, but I'm going to assume that it's pretty likely that you're in the former camp, not the latter. And it's not you. There's nothing about you particularly. You do not have a scar letter A on you. You don't have a target on your back. It's kind of luck of the draw. There's a lot of variables that can go into why you're not getting a response, that have a lot to do with Amazon systems being clunky and not very good, with people making mistakes, because keep in mind, as much as you think that what you're seeing is AI, you have, I'm telling you, there's a massive team of humans behind all of this making determinations and decisions, and they still screw up too. So if you have AI involved in a particular workflow, which is possible. Plus a human, and they both screw up, well then your stuff may get put in file 13. So there's a lot of reasons that it can happen, but I wanna assure you that it's most likely not you, and yes, you have every right to be upset about it. 

Lesley Hensell [00:38:30] You absolutely do. And this is where I have to give a plug for Riverbend, because we have the same problem that you do. A lot of times, our clients have already appealed once or twice or more when they come to us. Or we have some clients that we handle all of their ASIN appeals, like they're a larger seller. Or even some small sellers that tend to need one to two ace in appeals every month, and we do those for them. And so we will send something to Amazon, and it says that evaluating thing, and then if they don't, or they send back the nonsense thing, and then you try and appeal again, and they're like, we can't accept any more appeals. That kind of garbage, it happens to us, too, because a lot of times... What Kelly didn't mention that we've said so many times before, I know you all have heard it before, which is probably why she didn't say it. They only have time to spend like three minutes on each case. And so when they get behind in their cue, you know that they just hit deny, deny, denied, denied. They clear their cue out so they don't get in trouble for not doing as much work as they're supposed to. So you can be the victim of that. Bonity, not quality. Yeah, absolutely. So. So what we do is we send escalations. Once we have run out of options at account health and or with seller support, if it's a seller support thing, because we do those too, when we run out of options then we start to escalate. Now first I do have to say, there are options for a phone call with seller's support and a phone with account health. And so if you go into, if this is an account health issue and you go in to your performance notifications, dashboard thingamabobber where it's got the list of like here's all of your violations and here's the percentage you're on time shipping and all those things uh in the top right there's the thing where you can call ahs um now be ready because the whole time is usually 45 minutes to an hour but a human being will talk to you and they can often be useful not always but It can be, and sometimes they will see the injustice of your situation. They'll look at your last appeal and they'll be like, oh, this does look like it addresses the things. And so they will escalate for you internally. It's awesome if they do that before you burn an exterior, external escalation that you do yourself. So we actually have some clients that are on a service we call Valet, where we do all the things for them. And that includes calls to AHS and we have some lovely team members. Who make these phone calls to AHS and have a super high percentage of resolving ASIN issues by getting on the phone with AHS and talking it through and maybe AHS escalates or whatever. Great solution. So if this is an account health issue, I would try the Call Me Now on AHS. And if it is a different kind of issue, it is worth doing. I like doing the chat over on Honestly, I have a better time on chat because I'm not dealing with accent same same 

Kelly Johnston [00:41:58] And you can kind of tailor it a little bit to your timing, you know, you get. 

Lesley Hensell [00:42:02] Yes, you can take a breath if they ask you something that you're like, wait, you can take the breath before you answer. Um, y'all, I have a problem that I've talked to a lot of people about it. And I understand I'm not the only one. There are some very specific overseas actions that I can, I, I have a hard time hearing. And I think that other people have this too. Like if you get me on the phone with a Filipino, I'm all good. The thirst. Certain provinces in India that I can't understand them. And it is me, it is not them. They could be speaking great English. And so that's why I do get on the chat. Other people don't have that problem. But if you're like me, you know, you can have a much better conversation with them if you can understand them and they have beautiful written English in most cases. So I would go there. So that's a great place to go if you haven't done it already, y'all. There are probably people laughing at me right now, but seriously, I wish I could figure out why I have this issue, but I do. 

Kelly Johnston [00:43:02] It's the way that our brains interpret language and sound. I mean, it's one of those things. Like I struggle with certain Asian languages because they're very tonal. And my ability to hear differences between words that end in A, for example, can be really compromised because of the way, like Vietnamese is a great example of that. It's a very difficult language to learn and it's very difficult to understand with your ear, especially with an accent. So I get that, I do. It's beautiful, but that doesn't mean I'm proficient. 

Lesley Hensell [00:43:33] Yeah it's just funny that i figured it out about myself when i was like it's just it just only happens sometimes and then i figured out oh it's indians and it must be indians from a particular Please 

Kelly Johnston [00:43:44] Well, like, modern Indian dialects tend to have a very different sound than some. 

Lesley Hensell [00:43:49] Yeah, some of the dialects, I'm totally cool. So I don't know, man, it's me. But if you haven't tried that yet, try those. If you have done that, it is escalation time, give us a shout. We can help you escalate to different teams at Amazon, different individuals at Amazon. It depends on the situation. Scott sent a follow up call and set a follow-up call. A follow up comment. Um, I swear it's only half the bureaucrat and it said, how long do you wait for a first response before you follow up? Great question. Um, so it depends on a few things. One is it depends upon the severity of the situation. So like, if we've got someone brought it out of their account, uh, we go pretty fast because that's an emergency where you're actually creating a bad seller experience because you can't do anything to help the seller. If you have an account that is old and dead and we're trying to revive it, we're waiting a full week between various escalations now with seller seller sorry account health They have SLAs on everything and it tells you the SLA in seller central and so you watch that SLA and if you get more than 24 hours past whatever that Sla is you can You can then write back to them and say hey, hey where's my answer, where's response? And if they don't give you one, then you can escalate to another team because they're violating their own SLA. So in those cases, you're not even making it up in your own. 

Kelly Johnston [00:45:24] In your own head. 

Lesley Hensell [00:45:25] Yeah, a lot of times it'll say you'll get a response in 48 to 72 hours, so if you get past that 72 hours by, you know, be reasonable by a half a day or full day, then you can start. 

Kelly Johnston [00:45:36] I think that's actually a really great best practice. If you're dealing with Amazon on any particular issue and they give you a timeframe in which they intend to respond and they don't meet it, give yourself anywhere from 12 to 24 hours or whatever is convenient for you. And based on the level of triage that you require, then say, hey, you didn't meet your own SLA and I haven't gotten an answer what the heck is going on. That's a really good best practice to follow. And I think generally it was going to yield pretty positive results. Everything is relative, right? So certain situations, we. Might do things a little differently. Like Lesley said, it's like we tend to do this, we tend to do that. Each situation is unique and so we're always going to recommend what we think makes the most sense for you and your business in trying to get you moving forward in the right way. So I think that best practice though that she just highlighted is super and could be used across multiple Amazon functions. So good thing to keep in your back pocket. 

Lesley Hensell [00:46:31] It also highlights one of my favorite little secrets of how to go after Amazon when, say, they've taken down your account and you think it's unfair, they've suspended an ace and that they won't reinstate. So think about your situation like a defense attorney. So, you know, some guy gets arrested for something and we all know he did it, okay? We know he murdered his wife. Let's do some true crimes. We know he murdered his wife. It's really obvious. Most of the time it's the spouse. Let's be real. He's covered in blood all the things But they didn't read him as Miranda rights And they didn' t have a search warrant when they went through his car And you know, there's several other things that the police did that were not by the book so In amazon land, even if you did the bad thing There are times when they procedurally make errors. And sometimes that is they were supposed to respond in 72 hours. It took two weeks. Sometimes it is they gave canned responses that did not at all address what the actual issue is and brought up random other things. You could still be guilty. You can still use that to your benefit because you can say, how can you tell me to trust this adjudication on my account? When the person can't even pick the thing from the drop down, obviously they weren't even paying attention. And by the way, you were a week late. Now that doesn't always work, but it's a fun thing to do and it can work. So just throwing that out there as a little side convo here. A fun thing do. A fun to do. And so I've even on accounts like this, I have my notes when I'm talking to the client. You know, we all do summaries on our tickets. And I'll put like star star star to remind myself and I'm like response late blah blah bad drop down and so I don't pull that out until we really need it but if we really need it I'll pull that and be like you people are just fumbling fools. 

Kelly Johnston [00:48:41] Sometimes it works. I just totally got it in for some reason bumbling fools. I was like envisioning the Fred pulling the mask off the villain in Scooby-Doo. 

Lesley Hensell [00:48:52] Oh, yeah, yeah I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for the... 

Kelly Johnston [00:48:59] Melling it 

Lesley Hensell [00:49:01] Meddling kids, that's the word, meddling. 

Kelly Johnston [00:49:04] Yeah, bumbling, I think, is what led me to meddling. 

Lesley Hensell [00:49:06] The meddling. Okay, let's be real, who else ever uses the word meddling? That's not a word that gets used. It's like the word was only in the purview of Scooby-Doo. 

Kelly Johnston [00:49:18] Yeah, it feels very antiquated. I seem to remember it being more common when we were younger. 

Lesley Hensell [00:49:25] Hehehehehe! 

Kelly Johnston [00:49:26] Ha ha ha. 

Lesley Hensell [00:49:27] Well, I do have to point out that even though I've seen all the Scooby-Doo's that never in my life did I know anyone who wore one of those neckerchiefs like Fred. What the hell? The ascot? So bad. And he's supposed to be like 20 years old too. I mean, were there 20 year olds running around with that? He was like the virile one also. 

Kelly Johnston [00:49:48] I always felt like they're each of their outfits was really really specific in a weird way right like Going out of their way to like create these weird archetypes. I don't know. Sorry y'all I haven't had anything to drink and i'm still working on. I mean I had I did have a drink but it was not alcoholic today um, so yeah 

Lesley Hensell [00:50:10] I just always wanted to know why Fred the Hot One is wearing some, like, random old man, like Mr. Roper on 3's company scarf around his neck. 

Kelly Johnston [00:50:19] He was young Don Knotts. 

Lesley Hensell [00:50:23] And we just lost everyone under the age of 40 right there. Sorry about that y'all. 

Kelly Johnston [00:50:30] I hope that helped. 

Lesley Hensell [00:50:32] Oh my goodness. Okay, so I've got one last question for us, which is great, because we've got 10 minutes left. And I only have a little bit of my lovely Shiner left. So you know, the timing on everything. I'm having a very super Texas-y week, all Texas all the time. I live in Texas, and my kid and I, I went storm chasing for the first time. Last weekend, my kid is a storm chaser and has been for several years, but he let me go with him for the 1st time. We saw 3 tornadoes, 3, count them, 1, 2, 3 tornado, and a huge lightning strike right in front of us that scared me so bad that I cursed all over the dash cam. 

Kelly Johnston [00:51:13] I was going to say, don't forget that lightning strike because I remember how much that impressed you and how much it terrified me vicariously and I was not even there. 

Lesley Hensell [00:51:21] Yeah, it was cloud-to-ground lightning probably between 100 and 200 yards away. Boom! And I said many, many words in front of my child. Don't worry, he's old-ish. He's 17. He's heard it before and said it before, so it's okay. But we had chicken fried steak and sat in parking lots, and so the Shiner goes with that. We also listened to a lot of baseball. It's been a very sexy family. 

Kelly Johnston [00:51:44] Sounds like it.

Lesley Hensell [00:51:45] Yeah, we will finish it up with this story slash question that is very upsetting, sent to us by Donald, and first Donald, I have to say I'm so sorry. I have been scammed by a company that still advertises on the internet and has a website. I claimed it was sending me proceeds by Amazon, in other words, it was running an Amazon account for him, but I've never received them. I have a contract and emails from them as evidence, so I have any recourse. Okay, so let's back it up and talk a little about what this is. There are these really sketchy people out there that they tell you, you can create passive income because you set up an Amazon account or we help you set it up. And we run it for you and you don't do anything except fund the inventory, which we flip really fast. So you get your money back really quickly. Initial investments are usually like... Somewhere between $30,000 and $60,000. They get a credit card from you. They use it for a lot of the dropshipping inventory that they're doing, and that is exactly what they do. They dropship on Amazon, which is not allowed the way that they do it. They do retail dropshippings. So for example, they list something that you can buy at the Walmart, and then they mark it up by a buck or two. Then they fulfill the order by Walmart, dropping. Dropshipping the item to the customer and that Amazon does not like. No one likes it. EBay doesn't allow it either. It's verboten all over the place. Because it's confusing. You end up getting a package in the mail from the wrong place and that customer confusion is not welcome and then the customer goes and looks up how much the product cost on the other platform and it makes them mad. So, these guys are scammers and they take people for anywhere from usually 50 to $100,000. It's very painful. And they tell you that they're gonna give you these payouts and it sounds like in the case of Donald, he didn't even ever get any money which some people at least get some money. If you search out there, Donald, the first thing I would do is some general searches on them to see if they are being pursued. There are several of these that are being pursuit right now. One out of Florida that I know of. They're being pursued by various attorneys general and the Justice Department. Some of them state level, some of them federal, are being pursued. It would be useful to do some searches, news searches, and then general web searches, use some AI to, and see it like, you know, put them in grok and see if you can find any cases against them, because most of those that have press releases. There's some of them that are also being sued, so you can search and see if you can find any evidence of them being sued. If they are, you might be able to join the other sellers suing them because it's groups of sellers sueing them. Lawyers are so expensive and litigation is expensive, so there are groups of sellers going after these guys and trying to get certified as a class or a group so that they can all do it together, saving them money, which is a great idea. Let's see, I'm wondering, though, about your liability as far as Amazon and them having a credit card. If these guys have access to a credit for you, you need to make sure that you cut it into pieces and turn it off with the bank. Almost so any Amazon account has to have an active credit or debit card. And if it's a debit card, it's got to be one of those business ones that can be used as a credit cards. So Make sure that you turn off anything with your bank and so that they can't access that because they will use that to buy stuff for their other accounts, which is really slimy. Also, I'm wondering if your account has been suspended by Amazon. In some cases like this, you owe Amazon money and it's a liability for you. So if you have a login, you need to be see if you can log into the account at all. And if Amazon has any kind of liability against you because you would need to sue them to cover that as well. What am I missing, Kelly, besides how scummy these people are? Oh, you're muted. 

Kelly Johnston [00:56:20] Sorry, barking dogs and, you know, I was trying to mitigate that. Yeah, the barking, it's the barking hour at my house. I can't think of anything that you missed. I echo everything that Lesley said, I'm so sorry. Unfortunately, these scams are just proliferating out there on the internet. And I think we'll probably get so much worse this year as people become. More desperate to find ways to bring in income with not enough hours in the day. But everything that you said and depending on what you find with regards to active or past lawsuits, it doesn't hurt to file a complaint with your state AG and the AG of the state where the business is based if it's not the same state as you. But everything that Lesley said is stuff that I would recommend and. I'm really sorry. It's hard to admit that you've been scammed and so you know where you are and you know, where you can go from here, which is up. It's still really sucks. And I hope that you're able to get some restitution one way or another, whether it's through a lawsuit or through other legal action, but you definitely have some steps to take. But I think getting an idea of where this business is with active lawsuits and whether or not there's anything going on there is a good place to start because it will inform what you do next. 

Lesley Hensell [00:57:48] And Kelly gives great advice about the attorney general's office in both states, your state and the state where they are. Because if they are already actively pursuing, which I'm telling you, there are multiple states going after a lot of these guys. They're really trying. Not every state is awesome, but a lot of them are really trying to shut these down, especially in the higher population states. So I know Florida has taken action, California, Texas, It's bigger in New York. That have more resources and also just more people who've been scammed just by virtue of the population size so It do file the complaints because they may already have an active investigation and be super excited to see your Your complaint come through because it's more evidence for them And the same thing goes for the Justice Department if you see any evidence. Oh and Woo, sometimes it's good when we keep talking. If you look, there is a federal Bureau of Investigation computer crimes unit. I believe it's called the CTC, but if you, if you do a few, if you Google FBI computer crimes, um, it pops up as there's a form and you can fill out their form online. Same thing if they have an active investigation or the justice department does, they will be happy to see your stuff come through because they will add that to like, they need more people like you to stand up. And say what happened to you so they can go after these people. 

Kelly Johnston [00:59:22] Because there could be RICO violations going on with this. 

Lesley Hensell [00:59:26] Well, all of it is in a commerce, so they can totally do federal on all of this in addition to state. But but that that website is awesome. If you if you just Google FBI computer crimes, reports, it'll it'll pop up and it is not a black hole. I've actually had a client get a call off filling out that form before. 

Kelly Johnston [00:59:48] Yeah. 

Lesley Hensell [00:59:50] And, you know, if you're like the first and only, might not get any traction. But if there are other people who've reported these guys as well, Or any kind of active investigation, the investigator is gonna be thrilled to hear from you because they want more ammunition against scumbags who do this kind of stuff. 

Kelly Johnston [01:00:09] And I'm willing to bet this is not the first time that somebody has had this problem with this particular entity that you're dealing with. 

Lesley Hensell [01:00:16] Absolutely. And so the bigger lesson for everyone, y'all, is these drop shipping agencies, if you want to call them that, or service providers, or however they whatever they say they are, if they're drop shipping, it's a no, it is a hard no. And even if they are doing what they call group buys, where they're buying large amounts of inventory, and then they have it in a warehouse, and they're splitting it up among various sellers, you have to be really cautious with that as well. You have to make sure it's actually what they say it is, and you have to make sure that there's invoices that go directly to you, not just them. So there's, you know, there is a way to have that business model, but it is there's there's a lot more to it than just trusting someone. You have to really make sure they're doing what they said they're gonna do. 

Kelly Johnston [01:01:04] Absolutely true, unfortunately. It's so, it can be really tricky and I want some, I want those of you out there who are, you know, paying attention to this particular question to know and remember that these scams have been around forever, but they do get more sophisticated and it's, you know, it's hard sometimes to know. My advice, if you see something that feels innately too good to be true, trust that. Verify before you do anything because it could save you years of heartache 

Lesley Hensell [01:01:40] And I just have to close with this very important note for everyone that in the comments, Scott says, back in 2021, I was Fred from Scooby-Doo for Halloween. 

Kelly Johnston [01:01:57] You're my new favorite person, Scott. 

Lesley Hensell [01:01:59] Our family all dressed up as the characters, all the characters. That is the best. I love it. That is such a great close. I just love it that he's been commenting on here and we've we reached him. We touched him with our friend, our totally random Scooby Doo. 

Kelly Johnston [01:02:16] Because that's what we do here. Our segues are never boring. 

Lesley Hensell [01:02:19] No, no, they're not. They're not and we didn't even have tiny hands on this one. 

Kelly Johnston [01:02:25] I left my tiny hands in my sweltering office, I apologize. 

Lesley Hensell [01:02:29] So thank you everyone for being with us this time, this go round for the Amazon Seller Happy Hour. Please, if you have questions that we didn't answer, or if you need help escalating something, because that's really where it's at these days, please give us a shout. You can see our phone number on the video. You can also go to riverbendconsulting.com. There's some nifty forms you can fill out there. Or you can email us at sales at rivermediconsulting.com. And what's super great is our sales guys are like mini consultants. So they are great at talking to you about your problem and they are happy to hear from you even if it's not gonna be a sale. Like they, sometimes you don't know, is this something someone can help me or not? And that's a valid question. And so they will talk it through with you, hear all the information and say, yeah, we can help No, but I know someone who can or whatever the case might be. So please don't be shy. Give us a call if we can help. And until next time, happy selling.