If the performance team has written to tell you the account is deactivated because it is related to another account, the notice you received almost always reads like this:
«We have found that your account is related to an account that may not be used for selling on our site. For this reason, you may no longer sell on Amazon.»
It is a sentence that explains nothing: it does not say which other account, nor which piece of data connects you. From here on, the work is yours — you have to work it out before writing to Amazon, because an appeal that does not name the cause is rejected without being read.
Amazon needs one shared data point between two accounts to connect them. In the cases we see, it is almost always one of these:
- you opened a second account to keep selling after a block;
- one of your personal details appears on another account: mobile number, identity document, email address, payment card, bank details;
- you have an old Amazon account still open and forgotten;
- you log in from a connection used by another seller too — it happens between business partners, in coworking spaces, within families;
- an agency or an acquaintance runs your account from the same computer they run others from.
One thing that frightens people and is not true: having a buyer account and a seller account in your own name does not create a related-account link. Amazon keeps the two worlds apart.
One shared data point — a phone number, a payment card, an IP address — is enough for Amazon to link two accounts. Tell us what yours share: we work out the real exposure together.
What if the other account is not mine?
It happens, and it is the case where moving quickly is worth it. There are two routes, and which one applies depends on your history with that account.
- The account was yours and no longer is. Open a dispute from the performance notifications page in Seller Central and attach the documents that prove the handover: the sale deed, the purchase or business transfer agreement, the termination of the contract. Paper, not an explanation.
- It was never yours. From the same page, declare that the account does not belong to you. Amazon states explicitly that if it cannot confirm what you declare, the account is not reinstated and will not be allowed to sell in future — which is why this route is only taken when you have something to show.
What happens to the money in the account
It is the first question people ask, and the answer is in the notice itself. Amazon writes that the funds remain available after the deduction of any A-to-z claims and chargebacks, and that it normally takes around 90 days — though they can be held longer. The balance stays visible in the Payments section of Seller Central, and each marketplace publishes its own address for payment review queries.
There is a condition the notice does not put in bold: if Amazon opens a separate investigation into the account and finds deceptive or fraudulent activity, abuse of its systems or repeated policy violations, it can withhold the sums in whole or in part. So the 90 days are not a passive wait.
Put plainly: those 90 days are the window in which the position should already have been put right, because requesting the funds opens a second review.
The Plan of Action is the only channel through which the performance team listens. It is written in three parts, and the order is not decorative: those are the three answers Amazon is looking for, in that sequence.
1. What happened. Name the cause of the link, do not dance around it: which data point was shared, with which account, since when. If you write «I do not know why this happened», the appeal is already over.
2. What you have done. The actions already completed, not the ones you are planning: you changed the card, separated the connection, closed the old account, removed the agency’s access. With dates.
3. What will stop it happening again. Permanent controls, not good intentions. It helps to cite the sections of the selling policies and seller code of conduct you have re-read.
Close by asking for reinstatement. One line, without pushing.
The three parts — what happened, what you have done, what will stop it recurring — have to be written on the real facts of your case, not on a template. Send us the details.
A mistake we see constantly
People who receive a related-account notice tend to answer the same day, afraid of losing time. That is the opposite of what helps: the first appeal is the one that counts most, because Amazon also reads what you wrote before. Two extra days spent gathering evidence beat an appeal sent immediately and rejected.
If your case is a suspension but not a related account, the route is different: it is in how a suspended Amazon account is reinstated.
Want the Plan of Action written by people who do it every day? See the Amazon account reinstatement service, or send us your case — the first assessment is free.
Suspensions, performance, compliance: talk it through with someone who does it daily. The 30-minute call is free.
