When an intellectual-property complaint lands on your account, Amazon’s standard ask is a Letter of Authorization (LOA) — a document from the rights owner confirming you are allowed to sell the brand. This is where many resellers discover, too late, that their supply chain cannot produce one. This guide covers what a valid LOA looks like, why appeals fail, and what the paid “unlock” industry does not tell you.
A letter that passes review is specific. It names:
Who signs matters as much as what is written. Amazon expects the signer to be reachable at the brand’s corporate domain. A letter from a factory that manufactures the product, or from a junior contact on a free email address, rarely survives review — manufacturing something is not the same as owning the trademark on it.
Only sometimes. A distributor’s letter works when the distributor’s own agreement with the brand explicitly includes the right to sublicense — and the letter says so, mapping the authorization to your entity with real IP language rather than generic “purchase and resale” wording. Most distributor relationships do not include sublicense rights. Buying legitimately from an authorized distributor gives you clean invoices (see our invoice requirements guide), but it does not automatically give you a document that answers a trademark complaint. Those are two different pieces of paper.
A real case from a sourcing professional we interviewed: a seller hit with an IP block paid a reinstatement service $750. The service produced paperwork, the account was unblocked, the seller resumed selling the same inventory from the same source — and was blocked again shortly after. The letter had been schematic: it existed to pass one review, not to reflect a real authorization. Nothing about the underlying supply chain had changed, so neither did the outcome.
That is the structural problem with the appeal-for-hire industry. A well-drafted plan of action can fix a documentation gap when your sourcing is actually legitimate. It cannot manufacture an authorization that the brand never gave. Sellers who cycle through unlock services are paying repeatedly to re-enter the same trap.
Invoices prove you bought the goods; an LOA proves you may use the brand’s intellectual property. If your distributor has no sublicense rights, the brand itself must issue the letter — and closed brands generally will not.
For drafting help when you have genuine documentation — sometimes. To obtain an authorization you do not have — no. The $750 case above is the typical trajectory: temporary unlock, same block again.
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