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As the internal competition in the cross-border e-commerce industry becomes increasingly serious and platform rules become increasingly stringent, some people choose not to follow the conventional path and use various means to register accounts and operate stores, thus deriving a series of gray industries, such as the common buying and selling of accounts by sellers, selling investment links, internal complaints , etc. Recently, a post on a seller forum exposed the behavior of relevant practitioners registering Amazon accounts by purchasing other people's identity information, and attracted the attention of many sellers in the industry. Today we will unveil the mystery of these gray industries and take a look at the issues surrounding bulk registration. Bulk registration of Amazon accounts is everywhere Regarding buying and selling accounts, I believe all sellers are familiar with it. Even I often see service providers selling Amazon accounts and even personal identity information in my circle of friends. So where do these accounts come from? The following post from a seller may be able to answer some questions. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan The seller revealed that he saw content related to Amazon's part-time job in the circle of friends of a former employee from Shanxi, and the content of the part-time job was actually to register an Amazon store. The content of the part-time job advertisement is: Store registration on Amazon e-commerce platform, 500 rewards for successful registration, simple and convenient operation, no operation is required on your part during the whole process, if you have any ideas, please message me privately. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan At the same time, the part-time job advertisement also attached content about "Amazon cross-border e-commerce registration process and auxiliary matters" , and the materials that part-time employees need to provide are: - Photos of the front and back of your ID card;
- I bind my bank card to my mobile phone number.
In addition, the part-time job also requires registrants to cooperate in obtaining the verification code and conduct video verification. After successful registration, a repurchase contract will be signed, the commission will be settled within 7 days, and the company cancellation process will be initiated after 7 days. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan The disclosure of this information also shocked many sellers. It turned out that this was how the service providers got their accounts. No wonder it is so difficult to get accounts recently! From the above advertising content, it is not difficult to see that this behavior has obviously been standardized and scaled , and the unity of the self-will of both parties to the transaction has made it a gray industry that is outside the platform and regulations. However, some sellers still have doubts about whether this behavior is reasonable: "I hope that people like this will be punished by law soon. They only do things that harm others and do not benefit themselves. They make money and then walk away, leaving innocent people to take the blame." "What a shocking piece of news! This has actually become an industry. Will it increase the risk level of normal sellers in Shanxi?" ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan But the truth about using other people’s information to register accounts in bulk does not end there. Other sellers’ personal experiences and revelations have revealed more secrets of this industry. Some sellers also said that the service providers in their circle of friends often posted this kind of "part-time job" . Even earlier, there were people who used the company's business to collect a lot of company information and legal person information to secretly register stores. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan It is true that with the rapid development of technology today, it is not difficult to obtain other people's identity and privacy information. And because cross-border e-commerce practitioners see the profitability, they are frantically developing this model offline, wanting to use other people's identity information to register batches of Amazon accounts. It is understood that it is not just service providers that purchase identity information in bulk. Many big sellers and cross-border e-commerce companies have also participated in it and required or coerced their employees to register Amazon accounts. Is the registration process too complicated? Many big sellers and e-commerce companies are also involved For experienced sellers, a set of identity information, business license and other materials can only be used to register one Amazon account , and its importance is self-evident. However, outsiders who have never come into contact with Amazon do not know the value of this information. Many service providers and companies take advantage of this and obtain other people's identity information through various means and channels, and then use it to register accounts on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon. According to another seller, he had experienced this before: when he was still in college, the identity information of the seller and his classmates was used by a cross-border incubation agency to register Amazon accounts, but the legal person of the main body of these accounts did not have the right to operate and use, and signed a buyout agreement with the agency . Later, the seller learned that their identity information was not only used to register Amazon, but also to register for Shopee, Lazada, 1688 and other platforms. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan In addition, many e-commerce companies and big sellers have been exposed to the "scandal" of requiring employees to register Amazon accounts using their own identity information. According to users, an employee of his company was "give and take advantage of" the company and resigned because he refused to provide his personal identity information to the company to register a store ; another old employee was also treated unfairly for refusing to provide his identity information to the company and had his commission for that month directly deducted. ▲ The picture comes from the seller communication group At the same time, large retail companies are also the "hardest hit areas" for buying and selling personal information and forcing employees to register accounts. If there is a demand for buying accounts, there will be services that sell accounts. The operation of multiple stores by big sellers has become an open secret in the industry, and their channels for obtaining store registration information are even more than those of ordinary service providers. According to Lanhai Yiguan.com, a large cross-border e-commerce company in Shenzhen regularly brainwashes its employees every day, instigating them to use their ID cards to open new accounts for the company, and then promising to give them a subsidy of 1,500 yuan a year . Yibai Network's financial report shows that by 2019, the company had opened 333 stores on third-party platforms in the name of employees or third-party entities ; by the first half of 2020, the number of Yibai Network stores reached 1,846, including 367 Amazon stores . These strings of data not only reflect the huge demand for accounts among Chinese sellers, but also reveal the chaos in the industry of reselling identity information and buying and selling accounts. As this gray industry gradually spreads to the entire cross-border circle, it is difficult for us to imagine what the future trend of cross-border platforms and Chinese sellers will be. However, if we want to eliminate this phenomenon from the root, we have to find out the reasons behind these transactions. "Account copying" has become an industry phenomenon So why do they do this? There is only one answer: profit is the primary driving force. Behind the service providers' crazy registration of Amazon accounts, what is brought to the entire industry is the soaring prices of Amazon accounts and a serious imbalance between supply and demand. It is learned that, as the Amazon platform's account review has become stricter, the prices of many accounts and registration links on the market have soared to 5,000 or even 10,000. ▲ The picture comes from the seller communication group For service providers and some incubators, using other people's identity information to register on Amazon has relatively low costs and risks. After successful registration, they can sell it to other sellers who need accounts at a higher or even double the price. It is precisely because of this considerable rate of return that they have aggressively targeted the registration of uninformed people. As a result, service providers have become "gods" in the eyes of sellers who can "give you as many accounts as you want." From the perspective of cross-border e-commerce companies, operating multiple accounts can not only sell goods in multiple stores and make profits, but also share risks and provide an extra layer of protection to deal with changes in Amazon policies and account closures. As for laymen who are willing to provide their identity information and related data, their purpose is simpler. They can get generous rewards by just providing some information and performing simple operations . Why not do it? It seems that this "account copying" behavior has become an industry phenomenon and tends to be process-oriented and scaled, but the exposure of this inside story has been condemned by many sellers. Some sellers believe that even if they successfully register an account using someone else’s information, the risks and accidents that may occur later are incalculable. If there is a problem with the account, the legal person who registered the account will be blamed, while the middleman can stay out of it. Another seller reported that he wanted to get a proof of address from a bank, but he couldn't get one from a certain bank in Taiyuan because Amazon was prone to fraud . Based on this, the seller also suspected that it was related to the bulk registration of accounts in the market. ▲ The picture comes from the seller communication group In short, as the platform becomes more and more perfect and demanding, sellers' demand for multi-account operation has increased significantly, but both service providers and cross-border companies should not use other people's identity information and register accounts without the knowledge of the parties involved. We would also like to remind our readers: Never provide your identity information, company and family information to others easily. Be wary of recruitment scams for part-time registration accounts. Call the police if you encounter any suspicious persons.
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