Inauthentic item claim for my own brand!
Hi everyone I woke up this morning to a message from Amazon stating:
Dear Seller,
We have removed your listing because of a buyer complaint about the authenticity of an item they received from you. The listings we removed are at the end of this email. If you have FBA inventory of the items causing “inauthentic” complaints, they are currently ineligible for removal.
Why did I receive this message?
In order to ensure that customers can shop with confidence on Amazon, we take “inauthentic” complaints seriously. The sale of counterfeit products on Amazon is strictly prohibited.
You can learn more about Amazon’s policies regarding the sale of counterfeit items in Seller Central Help:
- Amazon Anti-Counterfeiting Policy (https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/help/201165970)
- Policies and Agreements (https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/help/521)
How do I reactivate my listings?
To reactivate your listings, please provide copies of invoices or receipts from your supplier issued in the last 365 days for the ASINs listed at the end of this email:
- These documents should reflect your sales volume during the last 365 days.
- Please include contact information for your supplier, including name, phone number, address, and website. We may contact your supplier to verify the documents. We will maintain the confidentiality of your supplier contact information.
- You may remove pricing information, but the rest of the document must be visible. For ease of our review, you may highlight or circle the ASIN(s) under review.
You can send .pdf, .jpg, .png, or .gif files. These documents must be authentic and unaltered.
Ok so I’m a little concerned about this as it is my own brand and I am the only seller of my product, I have it made in China and then I have my branded packaging made from another supplier in China, so my invoices are for an unbranded generic item and then my custom packaging, but I’m worried they will say this does not prove its authenticity, I’m so frustrated I just don’t understand how I am being accused of selling an inauthentic item of my own product I created and am the only seller of! I have explained this to Amazon but they haven’t been very helpful at all and have just coped and pasted the same response as what it says in the emails, I am also now banned from adding another condition to my item listing and am being told I need to request approval to sell it…
If anyone knows what to do is be really grateful, thanks a lot for everyone’s help!
Inauthentic item claim for my own brand!
Hi everyone I woke up this morning to a message from Amazon stating:
Dear Seller,
We have removed your listing because of a buyer complaint about the authenticity of an item they received from you. The listings we removed are at the end of this email. If you have FBA inventory of the items causing “inauthentic” complaints, they are currently ineligible for removal.
Why did I receive this message?
In order to ensure that customers can shop with confidence on Amazon, we take “inauthentic” complaints seriously. The sale of counterfeit products on Amazon is strictly prohibited.
You can learn more about Amazon’s policies regarding the sale of counterfeit items in Seller Central Help:
- Amazon Anti-Counterfeiting Policy (https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/help/201165970)
- Policies and Agreements (https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/help/521)
How do I reactivate my listings?
To reactivate your listings, please provide copies of invoices or receipts from your supplier issued in the last 365 days for the ASINs listed at the end of this email:
- These documents should reflect your sales volume during the last 365 days.
- Please include contact information for your supplier, including name, phone number, address, and website. We may contact your supplier to verify the documents. We will maintain the confidentiality of your supplier contact information.
- You may remove pricing information, but the rest of the document must be visible. For ease of our review, you may highlight or circle the ASIN(s) under review.
You can send .pdf, .jpg, .png, or .gif files. These documents must be authentic and unaltered.
Ok so I’m a little concerned about this as it is my own brand and I am the only seller of my product, I have it made in China and then I have my branded packaging made from another supplier in China, so my invoices are for an unbranded generic item and then my custom packaging, but I’m worried they will say this does not prove its authenticity, I’m so frustrated I just don’t understand how I am being accused of selling an inauthentic item of my own product I created and am the only seller of! I have explained this to Amazon but they haven’t been very helpful at all and have just coped and pasted the same response as what it says in the emails, I am also now banned from adding another condition to my item listing and am being told I need to request approval to sell it…
If anyone knows what to do is be really grateful, thanks a lot for everyone’s help!
40 replies
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
inauthentic may just mean that the customer isn’t satisfied with it compared to what the listing said to expect - it doesn’t mean its a ‘fake’ copy of a genuine item
is your supplier is through alibaba ? do you have ‘proper’ invoices ?
Seller_6sxtIS0RbZ5k7
Generate an invoice to your sales department from your manufacturing department.
Do you have brand registry?
Seller_6oaak5DLiWA6k
Hi there thanks for your replies for the little shop, yes my suppliers are on Alibaba but they are reputable comoanies, I do have invoices for all of my purchases but I’m not sure what you mean by proper invoices?
Also Jackie 1 I had done this earlier today on the advice of another forum here with the same question but have just received this response back:
Dear seller,
We received your submission but do not have enough information to reactivate your listings at this time. We cannot accept this invoice because we are unable to verify the supplier.
What happens now?
Your listings for the below item(s) will remain inactive. If we receive more complaints about your listings, we may deactivate your Amazon seller account.
I don’t have a website so I’m wondering if that could be the issue?
Seller_6oaak5DLiWA6k
I’ve just spent 20 minutes speaking to seller help on live chat and he just copied and pasted the exact same thing as the email again and then I asked the following:
Me:What would I need to send to get approval because the items are manufactured by a third party and then I manufacture my own branded packaging for the items so which invoice should I send?
Shall I send the manufacturers invoice who makes the items or I was told on the forums I would have to create an invoice to myself from myself as I am the brand owner?
Ralph:Yes you can also do that
Me:Which option?
Ralph:Your own invoice
Me:Ok that’s what I done but I will try again
Ralph:Great thank you
I asked if he could explain what needed to be included but he wasn’t able to help at all, I’m just so frustrated because it’s my main product and I don’t know what else to show them 
Seller_6sxtIS0RbZ5k7
I have used invoice-generator.com before
Seller_Jufz5adkgPqrC
hi
you have to provide a proper invoice like other said should not be less then 90 days old and product must be 10 or more must contains the address of where you purchase must be trackable so amazon can check, sometime if invoice includes lots of other products , it is good highlight the product you want to proof of purchase so easy to find out , once it is approve your product has a chance to be reinstated.
Seller_pDVCawITfBjlm
I had the same today and the complainant was a Chinese company who had made a variation of the Trademark and tried to convince Amazon they owned the product trademark. They added a few letters to it. I checked the real trademark and it was different. I have sent both trademark numbers with links to the gov site stating they are not authorised to make this claim and are trying to remove sellers. I am waiting on a reply.
Check the real trademark against the fake one and show it to Amazon - hopefully, you’ll get them kicked off the platform
Seller_ae51e0CJoHqCX
Unfortunately I fear you are going to end up going around in circles here. My best advice is to take more learning from this situation rather than the resolve.
Amazon seller support can do very little but give you advice that is already contained in seller university. Guess you have picked that up already since you are now on the forum.
If you are selling a branded product on Amazon, then do it properly. Register and trademark the name then get it put into brand registry. It is laboursome and costly but if your product is popular it will pay dividends further on down the line.
Even if you are brand registered, it does not give immunity to any of these problems but you tend to see more warnings before action occurs.
I have an issue whereby someone has claimed that a bespoke product they had printed for a party was not authentic. This was after they put in a cancellation request that I rejected because I had already made and sent the item. Unfortunately it has caused me all sorts of grief having to prove the same thing as you. I am the maker, it is trademarked and I am the one who decides on the authenticity of the product. I was also asked to supply invoices for a product I make, I was asked to supply a letter of authorisation from the brand owner, effectively asking me to write a letter to authorise myself to sell it. It has been 2 weeks and still awaiting on appeal. (listing has not been removed just under threat of removal)
Once Amazon have instigated anything, trying to get things removed is nearly impossible, prevention is definitely better than the cure. Anyone who wants to create a branded listing these days on Amazon should make sure they own the brand or are pre authorised for the brand as this is getting stricter as time goes by.
Seller_rZax50qrWcaoG
So you don’t own the IP or manufacture it. Almost everything made in China is a copy of someone else’s product…
Branded?..
Generic…
As mentioned the chances are it is a copy, its certainly not your own product you created. Anything made in China is sold worldwide to anyone who wants it.
No need for a website to sell on Amazon but if you trademark the brand name and want to join the Amazon brand register I believe its a condition you have one showing the items for sale.
How can you create an invoice to yourself if you don’t own the IP, manufacture the item or have a registered trademark?
The trademark may already be registered, have you checked? If it is registered you could be in infringement and liable for legal action against you. Not seeing it on Amazon doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Seller_ZpuXIe3OOJwJA
We have a registered trademark and all signed up to Brand Registry but have also had this issue in the past. The last authenticity dispute lasted for over two months and despite copying in our UK IPO certificate, showing invoices of the original goods from China and generating invoices to our sales department we could not reactivate the listing. Received no help from Amazon and just got bog standard copy paste replies. In the end we closed the listing, removed 2,000 unfulfillable units then created a new listing for the same product. The whole issue was completely insane and we couldn’t justify spending any further effort on it. It was a top selling product with hundreds of largely positive reviews and was a shame to abandon it but couldn’t justify waiting any longer.
