Warning for Amazon Associates

Hi Everyone,
I hope you’re doing well. First off, I’d like to thank Kyle, Carson, Jay and everyone else in here who’s helped me in my journey to make money online, I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

This is actually my very first blog post and the reason why I'm making it is because this community means a lot to me and I know how hard it is being an aspiring entrepreneur.

So, Amazon sent me an email today where they said I was in violation of their operating agreement. Here’s what they said specifically:

Your Associates account is at risk of closure.

Why?

We reviewed your account as part of our ongoing monitoring of the Amazon Associates Program. During our review, we determined that you are not in compliance with the Operating Agreement.
The violations include the following:

-You are incentivizing others to visit the Amazon Site via your Special Links by offering rebates, cashback, discounts, points, donations to charity, or other incentives, or by stating that customers can support you by shopping through your Special Links.

So, I called Amazon to find out what they meant and they said that my affiliate disclosure page is the only page in direct violation and the reason why is because of statements like: “if you purchase through my link, it will support my blog” as well as “if you purchase through my link, it will be no additional cost to you.”

They said that those types of statements violate their operating agreement because it could be encouraging customers to support me versus just focusing on the product, so I had to delete those statements and then they told me everything was restored back to normal once I emailed them back.

The thing is, I had copied the template for the affiliate disclosure page from Wealthy Affiliate a year and a half ago for my site and Amazon hasn’t said anything until now.

I think the main reason they reached out to me is because I’ve been having a lot more sales than usual, and it’s probably because of the holiday season.

Anyway, I wanted to provide this warning to others who use Amazon because they said I had 5 days to comply otherwise they could’ve closed my account and withheld my fees.

I don’t want that to happen to any of you so just make sure you adjust the wording on your pages and posts if you copied the template from here like myself, and you’re an Amazon Associate.

All they want is for you to disclose that you’re an Amazon Associate who will earn a commission if someone purchases through your link, that’s it.

You can’t say “at no additional cost to you.” and you can’t say “your purchase can support my blog.”

Anyway, I hope this helps you all out and I wish you much success in your online journey.

All the best,
James