Any assistance and advice I can get on this would be much appreciated. My business has just passed the 1 year mark, we have been doing well on Amazon but now this has happened and I am really worried. I have not done what I am accused of, but I spoke to Account Health on the phone and they seemed to suggest I should accept what I am being accused of... Any help would be gratefully received.

Some more info:

My account health has been flagged with a 'critical policy violation' and is now pending deactivation. The exact wording is 'Customer reviews policy violation (compensation offered to customer for reviews)' and when I dig in, they claim to have evidence of us contacting customers for review outside Amazon and offering compensation for reviews. We have thoroughly looked at all our practices and while we hold our hands up to one part - we have contacted friends, family and mailing list subscribers off Amazon asking for honest, personal reviews we have NEVER offered compensation for reviews, refunded for a review etc, as we know this is a big no-no. My account health, which was good and has 'Account health assurance' is now down to zero!

I have contacted Amazon to appeal, laying everything out and holding my hands up where we have made errors, offering a clear and actionable plan of action going forwards to make sure this doesn't repeat. This has now been rejected.

I spoke to an Account Health support person in India on the phone. He was re-assuring in tone but seemed to suggest that as they have 'evidence' (he can't say what and doesn't have access) the best way for me to move forward is to accept the violation and address it with a plan of action. If it was just contacting people off Amazon asking for an honest review (I now know I should not have done this - mistake made and accepted) then I would go down this route. However I am very reluctant to accept that I have given compensation for reviews when I absolutely have not.

I'm really not sure what to do. I am considering getting some (very expensive!) external support from 'specialists' in this area, but I cannot really see what they can do beyond what I have already offered. Does anyone have any experience of this, particularly whether I should accept a violation despite being innocent of what it claims? Needless to say, I cannot afford to lose access to selling on Amazon, which would be ruinous for me, but our mistake seems very small compared to paying for reviews...

Any thoughts and help gratefully received.