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The actual infraction can be as slight as the indictment is broad. Stine has a client whose listing for a rustic barn wood picture frame was deemed unsafe and taken down; it turned out the offense was a single customer review that mentioned getting a splinter. (The customer had actually given it five stars.) The seller was allowed back when he promised to add “wear gloves when installing” to his listing.

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Somebody bought your product, lit it on fire, took a picture, and told Amazon your product is explosive.

Quote:

But ultimately, it wasn’t the suspension that was most galling. It was the way Amazon kept responding with the same request for more information whenever he appealed. “I was caught in some kind of AI gear,” he says.

In reality, there were likely humans reading Harmon’s appeal, but they’re part of a highly automated bureaucracy, according to former Amazon employees. An algorithm flags sellers based on a range of metrics — customer complaints, number of returns, certain keywords used in reviews, and other, more mysterious variables — and passes them to Performance workers based in India, Costa Rica, and other locations. These workers choose between several prewritten blurbs to send to sellers. They may see what the actual problem is or the key item missing from an appeal, but they can’t be more specific than the forms allow...