Quick answer. Amazon’s prohibited seller activities are the conduct rules in its Selling policies and seller code of conduct. The “Prohibited seller activities and actions” help page now refers sellers there. Prohibited conduct includes giving inaccurate information, manipulating sales rank or search, inflating traffic, influencing ratings, feedback and reviews, sending unsolicited or marketing messages, contacting customers outside Buyer-Seller Messaging, diverting customers off Amazon, running more than one account without a legitimate business need, damaging another seller, and conduct that violates price fixing laws. Violations can lead to cancelled listings, held payments and loss of selling privileges, and the policy counts toward your Account Health Rating. To audit, check each activity against your listings, messages, review practices, account structure and the people who act for you.

Most sellers caught by this list never set out to break a rule. They put a “visit our website” card in the box, let a contractor run a “ranking campaign,” sent a thank-you email from a personal inbox, or opened a second account for a new brand without asking. Each can sit on Amazon’s list, and each surfaces later in Account Health as a warning or a deactivation that names a broad policy instead of the specific thing that went wrong.

Below we work through the list as Amazon now publishes it. What Amazon’s wording says, what each activity looks like inside a real business, where it shows up in Seller Central, and how to check your account before Amazon does. If you already hold a notice and need the appeal side, see our guide to an Amazon code of conduct suspension.

Where the prohibited activities list lives now

The Seller Central help page titled Prohibited seller activities and actions policy now refers sellers to the Selling policies and seller code of conduct for information on prohibited seller activities and actions. The code of conduct page is the list. Older checklists may use headings such as “misuse of search and browse” or “inappropriate email communications.” That conduct is still prohibited, but it now sits under broader headings such as “Acting fairly” and “Communications.” A notice that cites the code of conduct means one or more items on this list is in play, though it does not always say which.

The nine commitments at the top of the policy

In Amazon’s words, all sellers must do the following.

Provide accurate information to Amazon and our 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 on Amazon without a legitimate business need
Not engage in conduct that violates price fixing laws

Amazon states that violating the code of conduct or any other Amazon policies may result in cancellation of listings, suspension or forfeiture of payments, and removal of selling privileges. The specific prohibited activities sit in the detailed sections below that summary.

The prohibited activities sit in one policy, but the evidence for each one lives in a different part of your business. Auditing by area is faster than auditing by heading.

Accurate information. The rule under everything else

You must provide accurate information to Amazon and its customers, and update it if it changes. Amazon’s examples are using a business name that accurately identifies your business and listing products in the correct category.

Inaccuracy is usually drift, not a lie. The legal entity changed and the account still shows the old one. A product sits in a category with fewer restrictions because the right one needed approval. A listing claims a capability the product lacks because marketing copy was never checked against the specification sheet. That last case matters. Under “Acting fairly,” Amazon names “providing misleading or inappropriate information to Amazon or our customers” as an unfair activity, so an overstated claim can move a listing issue into code of conduct territory.

How to check it. Compare the business name, address and entity in your account settings against your formation and bank records. Then compare a sample of titles, bullets and categories against the manufacturer’s specification and the category you would choose if no approval were needed.

Acting fairly. Sales rank, search, traffic and prices

Amazon says you must act fairly and lawfully and may not misuse any service it provides. Its examples of unfair activities follow.

Providing misleading or inappropriate information, such as creating multiple detail pages for the same product or posting offensive product images
Manipulating sales rank, such as by accepting non-authentic orders or orders you have paid for, refunded externally or discounted externally, or making claims about sales rank in titles or descriptions
Attempting to increase the price of a product after an order is confirmed
Artificially inflating web traffic, for example using bots or paying for clicks
Attempting to influence search results through keyword manipulation or incentivizing customers’ searches to appear as organic behavior
Attempting to damage another seller, their listings or ratings
Allowing other people to act on your behalf in a way that violates Amazon’s policies or your agreement with Amazon

Sales rank and search

Sales rank manipulation is any order that exists to move a ranking rather than to sell a product. Beyond buying your own product, Amazon names orders you pay for, refund outside Amazon or discount outside Amazon. A rebate program where shoppers buy at full price and get money back through a third-party app fits that description, as does a launch service that reimburses buyers after they search a keyword and purchase. That second pattern is also an incentivized search, which is how the old “misuse of search and browse” heading survives. “Number 1 best seller” in a title is a separate violation, a claim about sales rank. For the compliant side of keyword work, see Amazon SEO and the words that sell.

Traffic, duplicate pages and price changes

Bots and paid clicks are named directly, and so is a second detail page for a product that already has one. Raising the price after an order is confirmed usually happens when a seller-fulfilled item was underpriced by mistake and someone asks the buyer for more money. The right path is Amazon’s cancellation and refund process.

Damaging other sellers and price fixing

Negative reviews on a competitor’s product, orders placed to return them and false reports are attempts to damage another seller. Amazon also does not permit individuals with active selling accounts to file infringement notices as an agent of a brand when that could benefit their own selling account, and says such sellers may have their account terminated. See our piece on competition among sellers.

The price fixing line points to federal law. The FTC describes price fixing as an agreement among competitors, written, verbal or inferred from conduct, on prices or price levels, and says a naked agreement among competitors to fix prices is almost always illegal. Matching a rival’s price independently is different. This is educational information, not legal advice.

Four growth tactics that each break part of Amazon’s code of conduct. Open each one to see which clause it breaks and what to pull from your records.

Ratings, feedback and reviews

Amazon says you may not attempt to influence or inflate customers’ ratings, feedback and reviews. You may request them from your own customers in a neutral manner, but you may not do any of the following.

Pay for or offer an incentive, such as coupons or free products, in exchange for providing or removing feedback or reviews
Ask customers to write only positive reviews or ask them to remove or change a review
Solicit reviews only from customers who had a positive experience
Review your own products or a competitor’s products

The violations we see in practice are quiet. “If you love it, leave five stars, and if not, contact us first” is selective solicitation. A refund offered “if you update your review” is an incentive to change one. A relative reviewing from their own account is reviewing your own product. The Communication program policy adds that requests may not suggest, incentivize or persuade buyers toward favorable reviews or toward updating or deleting unfavorable ones, and may not be repeated more than one time per customer per order. It points sellers to Amazon’s Request Review feature. More in faking reviews and what Amazon does about it.

Federal law adds a second layer. The FTC’s Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465) covers fake reviews, buying positive or negative reviews, undisclosed insider reviews, company-controlled review sites, review suppression and fake social media indicators, and the FTC’s announcement says it allows civil penalties against knowing violators.

Communications and customer information

The code of conduct says all communications to customers must go through Buyer-Seller Messaging and be necessary for fulfilling the order or providing customer service, and that marketing communications are prohibited. The old “inappropriate email communications” heading now falls under this rule. Amazon’s list of policies in Account Health Rating includes “Communication guidelines,” and the Communication program policy adds the detail below.

Direct contact through any other channel, including email, phone, mail or social media, is strictly prohibited.
Prohibited content includes marketing messages, coupons or free products, requests for payment through other channels, external contact details, and language discouraging customers from filing a claim with Amazon.
Proactive messages must be sent within 30 days after the order is completed, include the complete 17-digit order number and serve a permitted purpose.
Order or shipping confirmations, “thank you” messages and introductions to your customer service team are not permitted proactive messages.

Amazon expects replies to buyer messages within 24 hours, and says that after 48 hours the buyer may be eligible to file an A-to-z claim on seller-fulfilled orders. Breaches can lead Amazon to block messages, restrict proactive messaging, or suspend or terminate selling privileges.

Customer information has its own rule. Addresses and phone numbers received to fulfill orders may be used only for that, must be deleted after the order is processed, and may not be used to contact customers outside Buyer-Seller Messaging or shared with any third party. Loading order addresses into an email tool or keeping a spreadsheet of past buyers breaks every part of that rule.

Messaging habits that feel like good service can sit on Amazon’s prohibited list. Open each sent message to see what the policy says about it.

Directing customers off Amazon

Under “Circumventing the sales process,” Amazon says you may not divert Amazon customers to another website, which means no links or messages that prompt users to visit any external website or complete a transaction elsewhere. Diversion usually hides in physical places, such as inserts offering a discount for ordering direct, a manual that says “buy refills at” your site, a message saying a replacement is cheaper on your own store, or a request to pay a difference through another payment service. A brand name on a product is different from a card that says “save 20 percent at our store.” When unsure, remove the prompt from anything that ships through Amazon.

Three illustrative items sellers make every day, scanned for prohibited activity. Open each tab to see which spot breaks the rules and which is safe.

Multiple selling accounts

You may only maintain one Seller Central account for each region in which you sell unless you have a legitimate business need for a second account and all of your accounts are in good standing. If any account is not in good standing, Amazon says it may deactivate all of your selling accounts until all are. Amazon’s examples of a legitimate need are owning multiple brands with separate businesses for each, manufacturing products for two distinct and separate companies, or being recruited for an Amazon program that requires separate accounts.

Two things trip sellers up. A legitimate second account becomes a risk when the other account is under enforcement. Timing is the other. A second account opened shortly after a warning can look like an attempt to get around enforcement even when the business reason is real. Document the need and follow Amazon’s process. A new account opened to get around a suspension is a further violation. See can you have multiple Amazon seller accounts.

People who act on your behalf

Amazon lists “allowing other people to act on your behalf in a way that violates Amazon’s policies or your agreement with Amazon” as an unfair activity. That line is why many code of conduct cases trace back to someone other than the owner, such as users with Seller Central permissions, virtual assistants, launch and review agencies, connected messaging tools, prep centers packing inserts, and agents filing reports. If any of them uses a prohibited method, Amazon treats it as your conduct, whatever the vendor contract says.

Controls that hold up are specific. Keep a list of named users and their permissions, a written rule that no vendor may pay for orders, offer review incentives or contact buyers outside Buyer-Seller Messaging, a written description of any campaign touching ranking, reviews or messaging before it starts, and a named owner who reviews all of it monthly.

Each prohibited activity leaves evidence in a different part of Seller Central and your business. Tap a room to see what to look for there.

How violations show up in Account Health

Under the Account Health Rating program policy, the Account Health Rating (AHR) indicates your account’s risk of deactivation due to non-compliance with certain selling policies and appears on the Account Health page for each store. It is a color-coded score from 0 to 1,000. You lose points when a new violation is detected and gain points when you successfully address violations. New sellers start at 200. Green, “Healthy,” is 200 to 1,000. Yellow, “At Risk,” is 100 to 199. Red, “Unhealthy,” is 99 or lower, meaning the account is eligible for deactivation or already deactivated. The score reflects the last 180 days.

Amazon’s list of policies included in Account Health Rating includes the Selling policies and seller code of conduct, Communication guidelines, Customer Product Reviews Policies, Product detail page rules and the Marketplace Fair Pricing policy, among others, so most activities covered here can move your score. Amazon notes that not all of its policies are in AHR.

Severity, repeats and the limit of a green score

Violations carry points by severity, rated critical, high, medium or low. Critical violations can lead to immediate enforcement. Repeats cost more. Points for the same policy rise each time, and the account may be at immediate risk if it reaches the maximum repeat violations for a single policy in 180 days, which Amazon says can be as low as two for higher severity violations. Regardless of score, Amazon says it may deactivate immediately if it suspects fraudulent, deceptive, illegal or otherwise harmful activity.

Worked example (hypothetical). A seller at 240, green, has a messaging tool send a review request with a coupon, and Amazon records a violation. Two months later the unchanged tool does it again, and the repeat costs more and moves toward the repeat limit. Fixing the template after the first warning would have prevented the second.

Question	Where to check	What to look for
Has Amazon recorded a violation?	Account Health page	Each violation, the policy named, the listing or order affected, open or resolved
How close is deactivation?	Account Health Rating	Green 200 to 1,000, yellow 100 to 199, red 99 or lower
Is a problem repeating?	Violations listed on the Account Health page	The same policy more than once within 180 days
Are messages compliant?	Buyer-Seller Messages and connected tools	Coupons, external links or contact details, review language, thank-you messages
Is anyone acting outside the rules?	User permissions, vendor contracts, agency reports	Unexplained access, ranking or review campaigns, rebate programs
Is customer data reused?	Order exports, CRM and email tools	Buyer addresses or phones kept after fulfillment
Does packaging divert buyers?	Inserts, labels, manuals, prep center instructions	Prompts to buy or transact outside Amazon
Could pricing conduct be a problem?	Contact with other sellers. FTC price fixing guidance	Any agreement with competitors on price

Auditing your account against the list

An audit is only useful if it ends in facts you can show someone. Keep a dated log of what you checked, what you found, what you changed and the proof of each change.

Run the account audit in order so each stop builds on the last. Tap each stage to see what to check and what to have ready before moving on.

Turning findings into a fix

Close each finding with three things. A specific root cause, not “we made a mistake” but “a contractor added a coupon to our review template on a stated date and nobody reviewed it.” A corrective action already taken, with proof, such as the template changed, the vendor ended, inserts pulled or customer data deleted. A preventive control with an owner and a date. Amazon reviewers look for that structure in a plan of action, so a good audit doubles as appeal preparation. See a plan of action that won’t be ignored.

A code of conduct notice and no idea which rule?

Send us the case and we will help you find the specific activity behind it.

Submit Case →Book a call

When a notice arrives. Narrow the broad citation

A code of conduct notice is the vaguest serious notice a seller receives, because the policy covers so many activities. The losing response is a general apology to the whole policy, which shows the seller still has not found the cause. Work from the specific. Read the notice and Account Health page for anything named, and review account history, messages and case logs around the date. Ask everyone with access, by name, what they did in that period. Then classify the case as messaging, reviews, sales rank, diversion, information or account structure, and answer it with matching evidence. Check deciphering Amazon suspension codes for help reading notice language.

Choose the posture that matches the truth. If the conduct was yours, give a clear root cause and real remediation. If a third party did it without your knowledge, show the engagement, its end and the new control, while accepting the account is your responsibility. If it did not happen, show the records. Never deny what Amazon can see in its own data, and never create or alter records. Where genuine documents do not exist, say what you can prove and fix the process going forward. Viability depends on the conduct. A misunderstood template is different from deliberate review buying or a new account opened to get around enforcement.

The heaviest risks on Amazon’s prohibited list are paid orders, review incentives and messaging. Toggle the checks you have in place to see your level.

Mistakes that turn a small finding into a large one

Treating a warning as a formality. Acknowledging without fixing the cause invites a repeat, and repeats of the same policy cost more. Fixing the message, not the template. The tool or vendor that produced it will produce the next one. Trusting a vendor’s compliance claim. Amazon treats what people do on your behalf as your conduct. Opening another account to keep selling. That is a further violation and can put every account at risk.

A routine that keeps the account off the list

Weekly. Read the Account Health page and act on anything new that week.
Before any campaign or packaging change. Get the method in writing and check inserts for prompts to buy elsewhere.
Monthly. Review user permissions, connected tools, templates and stored customer data.
When the business changes. Update name, entity and address, and recheck account structure.
When Amazon updates its pages. Reread the code of conduct and the Communication program policy.

For related rules, see Amazon policies sellers should know about. If you already face enforcement, our Amazon suspension service explains how we work these cases.

Prohibited activity	What it often looks like	Compliant alternative
Manipulating sales rank	Rebate apps, paid launch orders	Promotions and advertising run on Amazon
Search manipulation	Paid keyword search and purchase campaigns	Accurate, relevant listing keywords
Influencing reviews	Coupons for reviews, “contact us first” messages	One neutral request per order
Inappropriate communications	Thank-you emails, marketing, outside contact	Permitted purposes inside Buyer-Seller Messaging
Diverting customers	Inserts offering discounts on your site	Use and care information only
Multiple accounts	Undocumented second account	Documented legitimate need, all in good standing

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to Amazon’s prohibited seller activities page?

The “Prohibited seller activities and actions policy” help page now refers sellers to the Selling policies and seller code of conduct, which holds the current list.

Can I ask customers for reviews on Amazon?

Yes, neutrally and once per customer per order. You may not offer incentives, ask only satisfied customers, ask for positive reviews only or ask anyone to change a review.

Is my website on a package insert a violation?

It is if the insert prompts buyers to visit an external website or complete a transaction elsewhere.

Can I have two Amazon seller accounts?

Only with a legitimate business need and only if all accounts are in good standing. Otherwise, Amazon says it may deactivate all of them.

Do code of conduct violations affect my Account Health Rating?

Yes. The Selling policies and seller code of conduct, Communication guidelines and Customer Product Reviews Policies are all included in AHR.

What score puts my account at risk?

Yellow, “At Risk,” is 100 to 199 and red is 99 or lower. Amazon may also deactivate immediately for suspected fraudulent, deceptive, illegal or harmful activity regardless of score.

Am I responsible if my agency broke the rules?

Amazon lists allowing others to act on your behalf in violation of its policies as an unfair activity. Document what happened, end the arrangement and add controls.

Are fake reviews also a legal issue?

They can be. The FTC’s rule at 16 CFR Part 465 covers fake, bought, insider and suppressed reviews, and the FTC can seek civil penalties against knowing violators.

Get Help With a Prohibited Activity Notice

If a notice cites the code of conduct and you are not sure which activity is behind it, or an audit has turned up something you need to fix and explain, our team narrows the citation, documents the cause and builds a response grounded in the facts. You can submit your case or book a consultation.

This article is educational information about Amazon’s published policies and related federal guidance, not legal advice. Amazon updates its policies, so confirm current wording in Seller Central before acting. Appeal outcomes depend on the facts and on Amazon’s decision.

You can also see all our marketplace suspension services.

Amazon Prohibited Seller Activities and How to Audit Your Account