Amazon Section 3 sweeps hit sellers with video identity checks

Account verification used to be a new-seller ritual. This month it is reaching accounts that have traded for years. Cross-border trade press reports a large round of Amazon account reviews built on Section 3 of the Business Solutions Agreement, with a live video identity check as the way back in and funds held while the review runs.

What happened

Reporting on September 20 describes a centralised review of roughly 20,000 accounts ahead of peak season, centred on video identity verification, with some sellers rejected even after answering every question correctly because reviewers judged that they sounded rehearsed rather than like the person running the business (HeyCross, September 20, reporting AMZ123).

Seller-facing outlets in the same market have been describing the pattern since early September: an email naming a deactivation date under Section 3 of the Business Solutions Agreement, listings pulled, disbursements held, and a video interview as the route to reinstatement, with established accounts caught alongside new ones (Maijiazhijia, September 17).

Amazon has not published a policy change. Video verification itself is long-standing and documented in Seller Central (Amazon Seller Central, identity verification). What is being reported is the scale and the timing, not a new rule.

Why it matters

The damage in a verification hold is mostly cash and calendar. Disbursements stop while the review runs, but supplier payments, freight and advertising invoices do not. Landing that in the weeks before peak is the worst possible timing, because it coincides with the period when inventory has to be paid for and inbounded.

The second cost is rank. Listings that go inactive during a review do not come back to the position they left. A reinstatement three weeks later is not a return to normal.

Where accounts get caught

• The named legal representative on the account is not the person who runs it day to day and cannot answer operational questions.
• The bank account, credit card and charge history point at a different person or entity from the one on file.
• Address, phone or entity details were updated for convenience years ago and never corrected.
• Documents were prepared by an agency, so nobody available for the call knows what they say.

What to do before you are asked

1. Open Account Info and read every field as a stranger would. Legal entity, registered address, beneficial owner, bank, card. Anything you would have to explain away is a risk.
2. Make sure the named person can actually attend a call. If they cannot describe the business, fix the account details rather than rehearsing them.
3. Keep originals to hand. Registration certificate, utility bill, bank statement and photo ID, in the name on the account and current.
4. Plan for a disbursement pause. Work out how many weeks of supplier and advertising commitments you could cover with payouts stopped, before peak rather than during it.
5. Do not treat a warning email as final. A deactivation notice with a date is a deadline to verify, not a verdict.

The Nova angle

If payouts stop, the question you need answered is which SKUs still carry the business. Nova keeps per-SKU contribution current so a pause is a planning problem rather than a guessing game. See Nova Profit & Loss and winners and losers.