How to deal with Amazon Forged or Manipulated Invoices

When Amazon asks for invoices to authenticate products or product category gating, be careful! This is a new alert that has seen many sellers suspended and Amazon is in the process of cracking down. Since it is new, the machines are very sensitive and have often flagged sellers for suspension who are merely highlighting ASINs on invoices or redacting prices, both of which are allowed by Amazon's selling policies, but have resulted in suspensions. I have helped many clients who are wrongfully suspended for this recover their accounts. 

There are a few scenarios where we can mount a successful appeal for these:

1.  You blacked out the prices on a genuine invoice and sent them a copy;
2.  You highlighted an item to show the ASIN or wrote the ASIN on the invoice and sent them a copy;
3.  You did 1 or 2 above using a computer program like Adobe; 
4.  You sent a pdf instead of a jpeg of the invoice; or
5.  You produced a genuine invoice and Amazon thinks it is not genuine, but your supplier will authenticate it or vouch for your company.

If you fit any of the above scenarios, your chances are pretty good. There is one last, less likely scenario that works only occasionally, and that is the rogue employee who, without the permission of management, makes a change on a packing slip or invoice because he is lazy or just doesn't realize how bad it is to do.

Here are some tips on how to avoid suspension for manipulated documents:

1. Never alter any documents you send to Amazon.

2. Even though Amazon allows you to redact prices and highlight invoices on invoices, a good practice is to produce the original invoice as well as the redacted one, and clearly explain the highlight is to identify the ASIN.

3. Do not ever use a third-party service to qualify for approval to sell a product in a certain category. These are often fakes.