Reinstate Beyond Pages On Amazon's Marketplace

This petition has been created to attempt to persuade Amazon.com to reinstate Beyond Pages as a seller. Beyond Pages is owned by Larry and Jessica Mayfield in Bonne Terre, Missouri. Our website is www.beyondpages.org and I welcome you to check it out. We are also registered with the state of Missouri as an LLC. On Amazon's marketplace we currently carry a lifetime feedback ratio of 95\% positive, 2\% neutral and 3\% negative, however the week after Christmas our computer contracted a virus which shut down all access to our email accounts and delayed all orders for more than two weeks, which has caused our feedback over the past 30 days to take a serious hit in negative feedbacks. Over the past 30 days, we currently stand at 86\% positive, 4\% neutral and 10\% negative. Again, these are only our past 30 day feedback numbers, not lifetime. This two week delay violated Amazon's Marketplace shipment policy, which states that all orders must be shipped within a 48 hour period. We recognize that we violated Amazon's policy, however the situation was so far beyond our control, and all orders have now been shipped out and we are currently completely caught up in our shipping and orders. We have refunded those buyers who requested it without question, and we have been in constant contact with anyone who needed more information about the situation. To complicate matters, the week before Christmas my wife's purse was stolen in Forest Park, which is in St. Louis, while we were ice skating. Our van was broken into, and we had several items stolen from us, and her purse was one of them. Inside her purse we had cash (we had been planning to go Christmas shopping that evening) as well as all of our checking account information and credit cards. We were forced to shut all business checking accounts down, which may, or may not, have been a red flag to Amazon, and we put new account information up a week later after having to open new business accounts. I have no idea if this played a role in them suspending us, but it's worth mentioning. We've had such a horrible time the past month, it seems as if everything has collapsed around us. Amazon emailed us the following email on Jan 29, 2008:

"Hello from Amazon.com.

We are contacting you to let you know that your listings have been suspended and are currently unavailable for sale. You may not sell on Amazon.com until further notice.

Amazon.com retains the right to immediately halt any auction or fixed price sale, prevent or restrict access to the Site, including access to seller account and seller tools.

The feedback, claims and/or refunds submitted to your seller account profile indicate that a number of buyers have been dissatisfied with the service you have provided. In an effort to help preserve a quality buying experience for Amazon.com customers, your selling privileges have been suspended indefinitely.

Your account is still accessible to you. If you still have items to ship, please take appropriate steps to resolve your pending sales.

If you would like your selling privileges reinstated, please provide a detailed account of the steps you will undertake to bring your performance up to our standards.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Alliance Program
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com"

Again, this is due specifically to the previous month and that two week period. I responded by sending the following email to Alliance as they requested I listed a detailed account of what I will do to fix the problem. Here is the email I sent to them:

"Hello,

I had emailed you previous to this suspension email requesting that you please reinstate my account. Please let me know if you received that previous email as I detailed my entire situation to you in that email, if you did not receive it please let me know, I need my account reinstated desperately, this is my only form of income, I had a virus on my system as well as a multitude of other things go wrong late December/early January, but if you look you'll see that all of my recent positive feedbacks are from recent orders, I have things straightened out now, finally flowing smoothly, just when this suspension hit me like a ton of bricks, and I'll do everything in my power, including shipping every single day, as I have been before and after the virus disabled our system, to bring this account back to good standing. I beg you for a chance to prove that the past two years of selling on Amazon and my very good record during that time wasn't a fluke. I had a horrible string of luck, and all I'm asking is that you please base your decision to reinstate me on my previous two years, not the past month. Please don't kick me while I"m down, I beg for a chance to continue my good service and good standing with Amazon. I have a wife who works with me and a two year old son, we depend on this as our only source of income, I can't make it without this. Please Amazon, don't do this to me, don't let some jerk's decision to infect my system with a virus ruin my business as well. I'll do whatever you want of me to prove to you that I'm working as hard as I can, shipping every single day (as I always do except for the two weeks trying to clear my system of the virus). Check the negatives and the refunds, they're all from the specific time frame that I'm telling you I was down, it was truly beyond my control, you've never had any problems with my company before now, and you will not in the future, I assure you, just please give me another chance. Don't take this from me, without this business I have no idea what I'll do to support my family, jobs just cannot be had around here, and we can't live off of what I could make working two jobs for minimum wage, I have to have this business. Please, lift this suspension and see what happens over the next 30 days. I assure you this account will change dramatically, feedback wise, claims wise and refunds wise. I beg you, reinstate my account. I do this full time, so does my wife, we have for two years. I'm a good seller for you, you have to see that from my previous time with you outside of this 2-3 week period. Please don't let this one bad period of time when everything went wrong for me ruin my business too, don't take that from me, please.

Here's what I'll do, or continue to do, if you will just please give me another chance and reinstate this account immediately:

1.) I'll ship every single day, every item will be out within a 24 hour period of receiving the order, along with an email at that time letting the buyer know that it's on it's way.

2.) I already include a note telling the buyers that if they are unhappy with their order to please contact me before leaving feedback for resolution, and you will find that every single listing I have on Amazon tells the buyers that I give a 100\% satisfaction guarantee with every purchase. I've never been shy about giving a refund in full to a buyer if they're unsatisfied, even if they have received the book, and I never ask for a return, I just absorb the shipping costs myself.

3.) I include a customer service telephone number for all my customers to call me if there's a problem. I won't let situations escalate, I'll be diligent about correcting a situation before a problem arises.

4.) I'll continue to pack in poly mailers which are moisture resistant and tear proof, so that all items arrive safe and secure. For expedited delivery, we use envelopes or boxes provided by the postal service for even more protection.

5.) I'll continue to work hard for my business to grow, the larger I get, the more money you as a company make as well, and I realize that I'm small potatoes compared to some of the other sellers online, but I have very high aspirations for this business, setting my model to possibly compete with thriftbooks one day on Amazon.

6.) I'll continue to give a substantial portion of my profits to non-profit organizations as I detail on our website at www.beyondpages.org to help assist those less fortunate than myself.

I hope you can see that I'm very serious about this, the business I run is not a game for me, it's my life, it's my work, it keeps a roof over my head, and food in my family's stomach. I cannot be without this, every day that goes by is hurting us more and more, please, reinstate me so I can do what's necessary to make Amazon proud as well as give my family a decent life.

Let me know if you have any questions, please feel free to call me also on my cell if need be at 573-760-xxxx and I'd be happy to speak with you about anything necessary to reinstate my account.
Thank you so much for your consideration, and I truly hope you can help me with this.

Larry Mayfield
Beyond Pages
www.beyondpages.org"

As stated my family relies on this, it's my job, it's my present, my future. It's the only source of income for my family to live on, and currently, we have nothing. We're like most families in America today, no savings, nothing to survive off of, we're not out trying to hurt anyone, we're a legal business registered with the state, and all I want to do is work. Our listings are also with various other marketplaces, including Alibris, Abebooks, Barnes & Noble Bookquest, Textbooksrus as well as many others, unfortunately all of the other marketplaces combined only bring in roughly 25\% of our monthly income, Amazon is the other 75\% and we cannot survive without it. Alliance has stated they can take up to 30 days to review our request, and every day that goes by we have to scrape to figure out how we can pay our mortgage, pay our electricity, pay for the storage we currently have our books in, and put food in our stomachs. I can get a job, but the problem is that we live in a depressed area and even two full time jobs won't support us, we'll lose everything.

If you've read this far, you have my most sincere appreciation. I'm not asking for a handout, all I'm asking is that Amazon reinstate us so I can do what I need to do, go back to work to support my family. I'm asking that you please take the time to sign our petition, in which you can show support for my company and request that Amazon reinstate Beyond Pages as a marketplace seller as soon as possible.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or [email protected] and I'll be happy to answer any questions anyone may have, we have nothing to hide.

Thank you so much for your time and God Bless.