This year, the annual INFORM Consumers Act verification on Amazon's U.S. marketplace feels different.

In previous years, most compliant sellers could pass the INFORM Consumers Act verification simply by submitting documents and confirming details. But this year is different: many accounts are rejected over a format issue or an unsynced address, and listings turn gray overnight.

Amazon's Annual Verification Suddenly Gets Tougher

Under U.S. federal law, Amazon must collect, verify, and disclose certain business information for high-volume third-party sellers, including identity information, bank account details, company address, phone number, and tax identification number. A high-volume third-party seller is one with 200 or more transactions and $5,000 or more in gross revenue within 12 months.

This year, Amazon's system has become almost obsessive about information consistency.

Chris McCabe, a former Amazon employee who now specializes in account appeals, says most sellers in this review wave are rejected not because their documents are invalid, but because they "don't match." The main issues fall into three areas:

First, bank account verification failures are caused by formatting mismatches, not substantive problems

If the legal entity name, operating address, or even general formatting on the submitted bank statement does not exactly match what is stored in Seller Central, Amazon's system rejects it outright.

Second, the system checks against old addresses

Many sellers have moved offices and updated their back-end business addresses. But during annual verification, the system pulls the old address entered at registration, causing a mismatch rejection.

One seller said: "The legal entity and registered country/region in Seller Central have been updated, but at the verification moment the system still retrieved the original registration data, so it was judged as a mismatch."

Third, and worse, the chain reaction

If a seller uploads a new document with a corrected address, the system repackages the entire verification file and sends it back to the expert review queue. Even if other information was already approved, they may wait ten days or more. Many sellers are trapped in a loop: fixing a single typo restarts the entire process from zero.

Listings Are Already Going Gray

Under the Information Disclosure and Transparency Act (INFORM Act), noncompliance may lead to account suspension or withheld funds. This year, many sellers have been hit.

The tighter verification is landing during the second-half peak stocking season: ads are running, ocean shipments are in transit, warehouses are being replenished, and then the account suddenly stops. A one-day sales interruption may be survivable, but once stuck in expert manual review, waits often start at ten days, potentially missing the entire Q4 golden window.

Many sellers make a mindset mistake: after receiving the notice they take their time, thinking they still have 20 days. On day 11 they rush to upload documents, get rejected once, fix and resubmit, then get rejected again over formatting. After two rounds, the 10 days are already gone.

So what should you do now? McCabe offers several suggestions:

Understand exactly which item was rejected. When people are anxious, the easiest mistake is resubmitting the same document and hoping "the system is in a better mood." That wastes a review opportunity. Instead, open a case with customer service or an Account Health specialist and ask which field does not match. Then fix the corresponding document.

If the review has been stuck for a long time, do not open a flood of cases or email executives. Appeal consultants say that if a case is in the normal review queue, frequent chasing can mark it as "complex" and move it to a slower channel. Wait patiently, or contact a specialist through the Account Health program; that is more efficient than rushing around blindly.

If you have moved, changed your legal entity, or switched your payout card in the past year, make sure all back-end information is updated before verification. Pay special attention: the "current information" shown in Seller Central may differ from the system's underlying records. The safest approach is to ask customer service what version is recorded in the system, then align your bank statements, business license, and all external documents to that version.

Finally, remember: INFORM Consumers Act verification is not a one-time event; it repeats every year. Instead of scrambling each time, treat keeping backend information consistent with official documents as a basic daily operating practice.