Amazon bots are on a rampage with fake seed and plant attacks

Amazon incorrectly flagged listings as incorrectly categorized as “Seeds & Plants,” and multiple sellers reported that bots misidentified items such as sports equipment, industrial thread glue, shoes, toys, clothes, candy, books, and curtain rods in takedown notices .

In one Sunday thread describing both the seed issue and another issue, an Amazon moderator acknowledged that the issue was affecting sellers:

“There has been an increase in these cases as they impact all trading partners. The moderation team and I are working to gather all the information and quickly resolve ASINs that are mislabeled under this policy.

“If possible, please appeal the violations. This will be the quickest way to ensure your account balance is not affected and your listings will be deleted.

“I understand the implications of this for those of you who have committed a large number of violations, but I want to make sure you address as many violations as possible to avoid further repercussions and ensure your posts are back online before the teams here can resolve the issue.

“The thread created by @Seller_qso9puw2G5kCa contains a lot of valuable information and I strongly urge you to appeal existing violations if possible at this time.

“Please do not confirm violations as they will result in deactivation of your listings.”

The moderator also linked to a thread titled “Here’s How to Appeal a Live Plant or Seed Violation – June 29, 2024,” in which the seller posted instructions provided by Amazon’s Account Health Assurance.

The seller replied to the Amazon moderator with the following response, which summed up sellers’ frustration with Amazon’s automated bots: “Can you tell us how any of us as business owners can continue to devote more time and effort to growing our business on Amazon if at any given time we a programmed bot can destroy your entire business in an instant without any customer support to immediately fix the problem???? This is out of control!!!!”