Quick answer. A code of conduct suspension means Amazon found that you broke its Seller Code of Conduct, which requires sellers to act fairly and honestly. The code covers accurate information, misuse of Amazon features, harming other sellers, influencing ratings and reviews, unsolicited communications, contacting customers outside Buyer-Seller Messaging, diverting sales off Amazon, running more than one account without a legitimate business need, and price fixing. Amazon says violations can lead to cancelled listings, suspended or forfeited payments and removal of selling privileges. To appeal, identify which rule you broke, show how you stopped it, and explain the controls that keep it from happening again.
Code of conduct cases feel vague because the notice often names the policy without pointing to a single listing or order. That vagueness is the first problem to solve. An appeal that guesses at the rule, or answers every rule at once, reads to Amazon as a seller who has not found the cause. The sections below take each rule in the code, show what typically triggers it, and set out how we build the appeal.
What Amazon’s Seller Code of Conduct Requires
Amazon states that all sellers must meet these standards.
- Provide accurate information to Amazon and customers at all times.
- Act fairly and not misuse Amazon’s features or services.
- Not attempt to damage or abuse another seller, their listings or ratings.
- Not attempt to influence customers’ ratings, feedback and reviews.
- Not send unsolicited or inappropriate communications.
- Not contact customers except through Buyer-Seller Messaging.
- Not attempt to circumvent the Amazon sales process.
- Not operate more than one selling account without a legitimate business need.
- Not engage in conduct that violates price fixing laws.
The code is short, and it is written as principles rather than a checklist. Amazon fills in the detail through its other policies, such as the Customer Product Reviews policies, the communication guidelines and the product detail page rules. A notice under the code is often a notice under one of those policies as well, and the appeal has to answer the specific one.
Common Code of Conduct Violations
| Rule | Examples Amazon gives |
|---|---|
| Accurate information | Using a business name that does not accurately identify your business, or listing products in the wrong category |
| Acting fairly | Creating multiple detail pages for the same product, manipulating sales rank, raising the price after an order is confirmed, inflating traffic with bots or paid clicks, keyword manipulation, letting others violate policy on your behalf |
| Ratings, feedback and reviews | Paying or offering incentives for reviews, asking only for positive reviews, asking customers to change or remove reviews, reviewing your own or a competitor’s products |
| Communications | Marketing messages, or messages not needed to fulfill the order or provide customer service |
| Customer information | Using customer details for anything other than fulfilling orders, or not deleting them afterward |
| Circumventing the sales process | Links or messages that send customers to another website or ask them to buy elsewhere |
| Multiple accounts | Running a second account without a legitimate business need or while another account is not in good standing |
| Filing IP notices as an agent | Filing infringement notices for a brand when it benefits your own selling account, such as removing competitors |
What usually sits behind each rule
The examples in the table are Amazon’s. The causes we find behind them are more ordinary than sellers expect.
- Accurate information. A business name on the account that does not match the registered entity, a changed address that was never updated, or a product placed in a category with lower fees or fewer restrictions.
- Acting fairly. A duplicate detail page created by a team member who could not edit the original, or a launch service that ran search and buy campaigns.
- Reviews and feedback. A follow-up email tool that filters unhappy buyers away from Amazon, an insert card offering a gift for a review, or a refund offered on condition that a review comes down.
- Communications and circumvention. A thank-you message with a discount code for the brand website, a QR code on the packaging that leads to a newsletter signup, or a customer service agent who emailed a buyer from a personal address.
- Customer information. Buyer addresses exported into a marketing list or a spreadsheet kept after orders closed.
Related guides cover Should You Buy an Amazon Seller Account? The Risks Under Amazon’s Rules and Amazon UPC and Barcode Rules.
See also Amazon Seller Feedback.
How a Code of Conduct Case Reaches You
Most code of conduct cases appear first on the Account Health page as a policy violation, sometimes with a warning and sometimes as a deactivation. The notice names the policy area and, where Amazon chooses to, the ASIN, order or message involved. Amazon’s Business Solutions Agreement says a suspension or termination notice will indicate the reason and any options to appeal, except where Amazon reasonably believes that notice would cause harm.
The agreement also sets the timing rules. Amazon may suspend or terminate immediately where it finds a material breach that was not cured within 7 days of a cure notice, where the account may be used for deceptive, fraudulent or illegal activity, where your use harms other sellers, customers or Amazon, where your Account Health Rating falls below the deactivation threshold, or where the law requires it. Amazon may withhold payments for as long as it determines the related risks persist.
When the notice does not name the conduct
If the notice and the Account Health page do not identify what triggered the case, professional sellers can ask Account Health Support through the Contact us button. Ask what conduct, listing, message or account the violation concerns. Write down the answer and the date. An appeal built on a confirmed trigger is far stronger than one built on a guess.
The Multiple Accounts Rule
Amazon allows one Seller Central account per region unless you have a legitimate business need and all accounts are in good standing. Amazon’s examples of legitimate needs are owning multiple brands with separate businesses for each, manufacturing products for two distinct companies, or being recruited for an Amazon program that requires separate accounts.
Amazon also states that if any of your accounts is not in good standing, it may deactivate all of your selling accounts until all are in good standing.
This is where many code of conduct cases start without any deliberate wrongdoing. Amazon links accounts through shared people, payment methods, addresses, devices and other signals. A family member’s suspended account on a shared laptop, a former business partner’s account using the same bank, or a virtual assistant who logs into several clients’ accounts from one machine can all create a link. When the linked account is not in good standing, your account inherits the problem.
The appeal in a related account case has two possible routes. Either you show that the link is wrong, with documents that separate the businesses, the people and the payment methods, or you show a legitimate business need and bring the other account into good standing. Our secondary accounts service handles both.
Reviews, Feedback and Customer Contact
Review conduct is the area where the code meets Amazon’s strictest separate policy. The Customer Product Reviews policies prohibit offering compensation or free products for reviews, reviewing your own or competitors’ products, using review services, asking buyers to change or remove reviews, diverting negative reviews to yourself while sending positive ones to Amazon, and creating variation relationships to pool reviews. A review from a family member or employee counts as a violation by the seller. The consequences Amazon lists include immediate and permanent withdrawal of selling privileges and withholding of funds, removal of all of the product’s reviews and a block on future reviews, permanent delisting, legal action and public disclosure of the seller’s name.
Customer contact rules are narrower than many sellers assume. All contact goes through Buyer-Seller Messaging, marketing messages are prohibited, and customer information may be used only to fulfill orders. A message is safe when it is needed to complete the order or provide customer service. A message that promotes, links elsewhere or asks for a review in a way that steers the answer is not.
For feedback, the same logic applies. You may ask every buyer for feedback in neutral words. You may not offer anything to remove negative feedback or pressure a buyer to change it. Abusive feedback is handled through Feedback Manager.
Filing IP Complaints Against Competitors
Amazon accepts infringement reports from authorized brand protection agents, but it does not allow individuals with active selling accounts to file notices as a brand’s agent when doing so could benefit their own selling account, for example by removing competing listings. Amazon says sellers who do this may have their selling account terminated.
The rule catches more than deliberate abuse. A seller who manages brand protection for a brand they also resell, and who files against unauthorized resellers of that brand, can fall inside it. If you file IP notices in any capacity, keep the authorization from the rights owner, the basis for each notice and a record showing the filing was for the brand rather than for your own offers.
What Happens After a Violation
Amazon states that violating the code of conduct or any other policy may result in cancellation of listings, suspension or forfeiture of payments, and removal of selling privileges. The code of conduct is also one of the policies included in Amazon’s Account Health Rating, and repeat violations of the same policy reduce the rating faster.
The rating runs from 0 to 1,000. Points come off for each violation by severity, Critical, High, Medium or Low, and come back when violations are addressed. A score from 100 to 199 is At Risk. A score of 99 or lower is Unhealthy, which Amazon describes as eligible for deactivation or already deactivated. Amazon may also deactivate immediately for suspected fraudulent, deceptive or illegal activity regardless of the score.
What to Do Before You Write the Appeal
The appeal is only as good as the work done before it. Sellers who write within an hour of the notice usually send a document that describes intentions rather than completed changes. We work through these steps first.
- Save the notice, the Account Health page and any listing or message Amazon referenced, with the date, so the facts do not shift while you work.
- Stop the conduct at its source. Pause the message template, pull the insert from inventory that has not shipped, end the agency engagement or freeze the second account.
- Pull the records that show scope. For messages, export what was sent and to whom. For reviews, list every buyer who received a request or offer. For accounts, map every account that shares a person, device, address or payment method with yours.
- Interview the people involved, including staff and outside providers, and write down what each one did and when. Root causes come from these conversations, not from the policy text.
- Decide what you can prove. Every statement in the plan should be backed by a document, a screenshot or a record you can attach.
- Check whether funds are held and whether other accounts are affected, because a related account case changes what the appeal has to cover.
Only then write the plan. The order matters because Amazon reads the plan as a record of what has already happened on your account. A completed change with a date is evidence. A promise is not.
Circumvention cases need extra care
Circumventing the sales process covers any link, message or instruction that sends a customer to buy elsewhere. The cause is often packaging designed for retail or direct-to-consumer channels and then shipped into Amazon unchanged. In these cases the plan should name every touchpoint that carried the off-Amazon route, such as the box, the insert, the manual, the product label or the message, and show each one changed or removed for Amazon inventory, including units already sitting in fulfillment centers.
How to Appeal a Code of Conduct Suspension
The appeal is a plan of action. Amazon’s appeal process asks you to explain the root cause, the actions you have taken and the steps that prevent a repeat. In code of conduct cases each part has a specific job.
Identify the exact rule
Read your notice and Account Health page to find which part of the code is involved. If it is unclear, professional sellers can ask Account Health Support through the Contact us button. Quote the rule in your opening sentence so the reviewer sees at once that you have found it.
Find the root cause
Amazon’s appeal guidance asks for root causes. In code of conduct cases these are often process gaps, such as a staff member sending marketing messages, an agency running incentivized reviews, or a package insert that pointed customers to a website. Name the process that failed and why. “We made a mistake” is not a root cause. “Our message template, written by a contractor in March, included a discount code for our website, and no one reviewed templates before they went live” is.
Show what you stopped and changed
List the actions you have already completed, with dates, such as ending a service, removing inserts, retraining staff, or closing an account without a legitimate business need. Each item should be finished, not planned.
Show prevention
Explain the controls that keep it from happening again, such as message review, partner contracts that prohibit violations, and a named person responsible for policy compliance. Amazon makes sellers responsible for employees and third parties acting on their behalf, so prevention has to reach them too.
Evidence that supports a code of conduct appeal
Attach only what proves a statement in the plan. For a communications case, that means the old and new message templates and a screenshot of the template review step. For a review case, it means the termination notice sent to the agency, the contract clause that was missing and the list of buyers who received the insert. For an accurate information case, it means the registration document that matches the corrected business name. For a related account case, it means documents that separate ownership, bank accounts and addresses. Label each file by what it proves.
Our Amazon suspension and reinstatement team writes code of conduct appeals. If the case involves related accounts, see our secondary accounts service, and to stay compliant going forward, our Amazon account health maintenance service.
Mistakes That Make the Case Worse
- Denying what the record shows. If Amazon holds the messages or the insert, a denial ends the conversation. Accept what happened and explain the cause.
- Blaming the agency and stopping there. Amazon holds you responsible for third parties acting for you. Naming the agency is part of the root cause, and the controls you added are the part that matters.
- Admitting a cause that did not happen. A false admission written to sound cooperative becomes part of your account record and can create a second problem.
- Listing every possible fix. A long list of generic actions signals that you did not find the cause. Three specific changes tied to the actual failure carry more weight.
- Opening a new account. Starting another account while one is deactivated breaks the multiple accounts rule and links the new account to the old problem.
- Resubmitting the same appeal. If an appeal is declined, read the response, find what was missing and change the plan before sending it again.
First-Time and Repeat Violations
A first violation with a clear, fixable process cause is the strongest position. The plan names the gap, shows it closed and shows who now owns it. A warning that is resolved quickly also limits the effect on the Account Health Rating, because points come back when violations are addressed.
Repeat cases are harder for a reason the reviewer can see. If the same policy was violated before and a plan was accepted, the earlier plan failed. The new appeal has to explain why the earlier controls did not work and what is different now. Repeat violations of the same policy also reduce the rating faster, so a second notice can move an account into At Risk or Unhealthy when the first one did not.
Review manipulation cases sit apart from both. Amazon describes permanent outcomes for review abuse in its reviews policy, so these cases need the most evidence and the most care with every statement.
US, UK and EU Differences
The code of conduct applies to every Amazon store, but the law behind some of its rules differs by region.
Price fixing. The code prohibits conduct that violates price fixing laws. In the United States, Section 1 of the Sherman Act makes every contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade illegal, with fines up to $100 million for a corporation and up to $1 million and 10 years in prison for an individual. Agreeing prices with other sellers of the same product, even informally in a seller group chat, is the kind of conduct this rule reaches.
Reviews in the United States. The FTC’s rule at 16 CFR Part 465 prohibits fake reviews, buying reviews with incentives conditioned on sentiment, undisclosed insider reviews and review suppression through threats or intimidation, and the FTC can seek civil penalties against knowing violators.
Reviews in the United Kingdom. The UK government states that fake reviews were banned from 6 April 2025 under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, with the Competition and Markets Authority able to enforce consumer law directly.
Reviews in the European Union. Directive (EU) 2019/2161 prohibits submitting or commissioning false consumer reviews or endorsements, or misrepresenting reviews, to promote products.
A seller who sells in several regions should treat the strictest rule as the operating standard. A review practice that draws a code of conduct violation on Amazon can also draw a regulator’s attention outside it.
How to Prevent a Code of Conduct Violation
- Review every customer message template. Remove links, discount codes and anything that is not needed for the order or customer service. Require approval before a template goes live.
- Audit inserts and packaging. Check every card, QR code and printed URL against the communication and review rules.
- Put policy terms in every contract. Agencies, virtual assistants and freelancers should be bound in writing not to offer review incentives, run search campaigns or file complaints in your name.
- Control account access. Give each person their own user permissions, keep devices and payment methods separate from other businesses, and record who has access to which accounts.
- Keep business information current. Update the legal name, address and contact details in Seller Central when they change, and check that categories match the products.
- Delete customer data after fulfillment. Set a routine for removing buyer details from any system outside Seller Central.
- Check Account Health weekly. A warning answered in days is a small case. The same warning found a month later is a large one.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an Amazon code of conduct violation?
It is a breach of Amazon’s Seller Code of Conduct, which requires sellers to act fairly and honestly, covering information accuracy, reviews, communications, account use and more. The notice usually appears on your Account Health page.
Can I email customers outside Amazon?
No. Amazon requires all customer contact to go through Buyer-Seller Messaging, and marketing communications are prohibited.
Can I have two Amazon seller accounts?
Only with a legitimate business need, such as separate businesses for separate brands, and only when all accounts are in good standing. If one account is not in good standing, Amazon may deactivate all of them.
Can I ask customers for reviews?
Yes, in a neutral way and from all customers. You may not offer incentives, ask only for positive reviews, or ask for reviews to be changed or removed.
Am I responsible if an agency broke the rules?
Yes. Amazon’s code lists allowing others to act on your behalf in a way that violates policy as unfair activity, so the appeal has to show the controls you now apply to third parties.
Get Help With a Code of Conduct Case
Submit your case for a free assessment, or book a consultation before you respond.
You can also see all our marketplace suspension services.
Sources
- Amazon Seller Central, Selling policies and seller code of conduct
- Amazon Seller Central, Account Health Rating program policy
- Amazon Seller Central, Amazon Services Business Solutions Agreement
- Amazon Seller Central, Complete an appeal questionnaire to reinstate selling privileges
- Amazon Seller Central, Account health support FAQ
- Amazon Seller Central, Customer product reviews policies
- Cornell Law School LII, 15 U.S. Code Section 1
- eCFR, 16 CFR Part 465
- Federal Trade Commission, Final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials
- GOV.UK, Fake reviews and sneaky hidden fees banned once and for all
- EUR-Lex, Directive (EU) 2019/2161
