Amazon offers some things that are unlimited (such as their unlimited photo storage service, and their Kindle unlimited service), but did you know that your Amazon purchases can be subjected to the generally unspoken Amazon Purchase Limit Policy?
Now, in some cases this makes sense – for example, if a new product is in limited supply (such as only being able to purchase two Amazon Echos), or if there is a hot new video game, and they don’t want you ordering a ton of them to resell yourself.
But here’s the thing: people have run into Amazon purchase limits on things as mundane as diapers, and running afoul of the Amazon purchase limits can cause you to have your account cancelled!
Check this out – this wording happens to be from a notice of an Amazon Purchase Limit on video games, but other than the item in question, the warning about the limit is pretty much the same each time:
Amazon Purchase Limit Policy
The video games item you were just viewing is in great demand. In an effort to provide as many customers as possible with the opportunity to purchase this item, we are limiting the total number of units that can be purchased. As a result, we are limiting the number of units that may be purchased to both one per household and one per customer.
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Failure to comply with this policy will result in account actions including, but not limited to:
- Cancellation of all outstanding orders, including video game orders and other orders.
- Closure of the offending customer account and related accounts, including:
- The customer account used for making purchases and selling items on Amazon.com Seller accounts
- Any international accounts at Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, or Amazon.co.jp
- The Your Media Library account area, including any digital products you may have purchased
- Any Amazon.com Associates account or Advantage account attached to the closed account
When an account is closed, access to any Amazon Wish List, Baby or Wedding Registry, or profile pages is lost. Any purchase history, saved gifts in Gift Central, and digital products in Your Media Library will not be accessible. Additionally, any outstanding Amazon.com gift certificate or check funds balance will be unavailable.
Did you catch the possible consequences of violating the (essentially hidden, unless you’re hit across the face with them) purchase limits?
You could lose your account! You can even forfeit gift cards that you have!
Not only that, but accounts that are associated with yours – such as the accounts of family members – can be closed too!
Now, we can hear you thinking “Oh sure, they say that, but they wouldn’t really do it unless it was a flagrant and egregious situation, right?”
Wrong. And not only that, they will strike without warning. Take the plight of this person, for example, who, out of the blue, received the following email from Amazon:
Hello,
We want as many customers as possible to be able to enjoy the items we sell, and so for some popular items we’ve limited the quantity that may be purchased from our store.
We have put these limits in place for several reasons and to ensure a fair experience for all of our customers, we must enforce them.
We’ve noticed that you have recently exceeded that limit with your orders on multiple accounts.
Effective immediately, your Amazon.com account is closed, and you will no longer be able to shop in our store.
All other accounts related to yours have also been closed. If you were to open a new account, it would also be closed. We will not accept the return of any additional orders placed under a new account, and we won’t issue further refunds for those orders. We appreciate your cooperation.
If you are a Kindle customer, you can continue to access Kindle content in the Manage Your Kindle section of your account (www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle). To access other digital content, visit the Your Account page and click View Your Digital Orders (www.amazon.com/youraccount).
We appreciate your cooperation.
Going forward, any questions must be directed to qla@amazon.com. Please do not contact Amazon’s Customer Service department, as they will no longer be able to assist you.
Best regards,
Account Specialist.
Amazon.com
So now you may be thinking “Aha! ‘Multiple accounts’! He must have been doing something wrong!”
Here’s how he describes the accounts: “Two years ago I added my kid brother and my mother to my Amazon.com prime account. A month ago my girlfriend created an account for the sole reason of buying diapers and toys for her sister’s newborn (her nephew). My brother and my mother use their accounts; they are NOT shill accounts that I created for resale (i.e. large quantity purchases) and only 5 purchases have been made on my girlfriends account—with each order being diapers or children’s toys… I have purchased some things for myself on my brother’s account and a few things on my mother’s account but I rarely use hers. I would say if you broke down my purchase history into a percentage 80% of what I buy is on my account; 15% on my brothers; 5% on my mothers.”
Granted, some Amazon Purchase limit issues aren’t as extreme as this one. For example, people have been simply told they are unable to order the items they attempted to order. Like diapers, as this person who calls themselves Amazon Mom over on TheBump explains:
I just tried to order two more boxes of diapers via S&S {Ed. note: S&S refers to the Amazon service ‘Subscribe and Save’} and I got the following message: Sorry! We are unable to create a subscription at this time because the product is out of stock or you have exceeded the purchase limit.
They aren’t out of stock so I am assuming I am the latter. Does anyone know what the purchase limit is? I can’t find any info on FAQ. I ordered two boxes last Saturday, but I had extra coupons that expire 3/31 so I figured I would stockpile and order two more since I have two in diapers.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Amazon published their purchase limits?
Have you run into some version of the Amazon Purchase Limit Policy, either when trying to order something, or by having your account closed? If so, let us know about it!
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Another horrible and arbitrary policy by amazon, honestly it would b fine except they set the quantities so low it doesn’t really make sense. Sure if I was buying 100 of the same item on a sale fine, but I’ve seen limits at 3 or 4 of the same thing??
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve been trying to buy things Through amazon Fresh and for some reason it decided to tell me that I had reached the as of this point unheard of purchase limit. I had been trying to buy Soda (Coke and Pepsi, Sue me) but even though I’ve ordered them about the same amount the coke gets removed saying I’ve reached the purchase limit that I’ve never friggin heard of. I don’t order things often as I’m on limited ‘income’ but they never threatened to close my account over it. Even though I’ve been trying all morning and last week.
I just wanted to buy 2 3-packs of a personal safety alarm for my daughter and her friends. Bunch of college students going around the place, thought it might be reassuring to have a little electronic screechy device to potentially scare off attackers. It won’t ward off the really determined predator but maybe the amateurs at least. Might as well give it a shot.
But I can’t buy more than one pack of the brand I want. Are they really so afraid of resale that they can’t sell me two packs? My daughter is a friendly person, she has more friends than the rest of the family combined and we want them to have an extra means of scaring off creepers after some guy walked up to three of them and asked if they were over 18. Terrible pick-up line at best…
This is feedback asked for by Amazon on a problem customer service could not solve:
I wanted to buy 2 beds for my home. Amazon limited me to buy only 1. I have a 4 bedroom house what would be the problem with selling me 8 beds if I wanted them? Customer service could not solve the problem of Amazon selling me 2 beds, they concluded I could only buy 1. I am sure any other company that sells beds will sell me as many as I want for my home. According to reports if I broke Amazons rules of trying to buy 2 my Amazon account would be closed and any funds in my Amazon account would be seizes by them and I would never be able to buy from Amazon again. Who would not see this situation as not believable. I believe it, it happened to me. Please forward this feedback to the head of the company, I think his name is BOZO or something similar, very fitting I think. I know Amazon is a very large very company with a very rich owner, it does not seem to be very logical to me for a company to be run like this. One customer at a time being pissed off like this will eventually close it. I guess any CLOWN can start a business. Very Disappointed, I and a lot of other people thought Amazon and it’s owner was a person and a company of this age.
I usually pay up the young yang for adult
diapers for my elderly mother Who is severely
Incontinent. She goes through sometimes 6 diapers a day and I have been ordering them for years and years on Amazon, at normal increments of time. But I saw a fabulous deal on them on Amazon right as I am
preparing to go out of town for an extended period of time and leave Mom with a caregiver. I decided to stock up rather than pay someone $30/hour to go to Walmart. Next thing I know I am told I have exceeded purchase limits. What a load! Their attitude belongs in the diapers I buy.
I am buying a ram and it is limited to ONE ITEM”. Really!? The guy is selling one ram for $23 and “2 Ram Kit” for $57. That’s disgusting and Amazon is allowing that. I thought if you buy more it gets cheaper. No! greedy seller is making it more expensive buy selling it as kit (2x4gb).
Can’t believe this commie bullshit is still going on. I have the money, let me buy it, It’s none of Bezos’ business.
Honey, that ain’t communism. It’s late stage capitalism. Blaming everything on “the commies” is very silly.
I want to buy neurofin pain relief
Tablets from Amazon it iterates me when I keep seeing a message saying quantity limited it’s not an item I get often I frequently buy other items and Amazon are very good
I tried to order 4 boxes of stick on backsplash tiles. They would only allow me to order one. I don’t know what size kitchen one would have to have to be able to tile the whole backsplash with one box. I don’t get it. If everyone is only allowed to order one box. That one box is useless if you don’t have enough to finish the backsplash. Ridiculous
No to play devil’s advocate, but the limit is like a Speed Limit:
No big deal going a couple miles over, but if everybody does it, then
SOME will go more than a couple over… analogy fizzling….but the
point is, nearly ALL quantity exceeders ARE in fact hoarding, reselling,
and taking advantage: the “doorbuster items” are underpriced for
everyone to share and enjoy: they’re not what Amazon makes money on,
so they want the love to get shared: remember, Amazon is LOSING MONEY
on ALL of these items….they’re cool with that, too…as long as it’s a promotion,
not a guy trying to double his money at the flea markets…
Just Sayin
Man, that’s a huge assumption, my friend. I can tell you from personal experience that you are incredibly mistaken. I tried to buy a few copies of a book as a gift for friends. Full price, and less than 10 copies. And I got limited. In my case, I’m fairly sure that they are limiting my purchases of the book for other purposes. If you think that Amazon is acting in the best interest of their customers (or even their economic interests) you might ultimately be in for a big surprise.
Yeah. I am probably hoarding like mad then. Got sick, must self isolate, outside is freezing, pharmacy is a kilometer away. Ran out of paracetamol – nope, you can’t have one more, you already bought pills last month. Excuse me, it was different kind of pills. How about ibuprofen? Nope. Cough syrup? No sir. Err, strepsils pack at least? No can do. Hmm. Actually, to hell with this, I will go to closest Sainsbury’s with pharmacy, cough at everyone. Getting hooked up on fast Amazon deliveries is our own fault, shouldn’t count on them fuckers and simply forget that such a service exists. This is what they are saying – don’t like it then GTFO. I think we maybe should listen and do exactly that.
I ordered a book, and it arrived ruined — it was soaking wet after being outside in the rain. Amazon no longer has a “replace” option, they will only refund your money. You have to re-order the item. Apparently I was not allowed to order two copies of this book, since I got a warning that I was over the purchase limit and would not be allowed to order a replacement copy. This is crazy! Now I’ll have to order my replacement copy from Barnes and Nobel — and will probably be giving B&N more of my future business.
qla@amazon.com, obviously, they have the power to cancel your purchase, delete your accounts, or even turn your Amazon gift cards in your accounts useless.
And they’ve even never given you a chance to escalate it or a ‘trial’ before charged.
Some websites suggested using your friends’ account but putting your credit info, so that it’s not a burden for your friends to help to buy more because of your urgent need. Please, please, please don’t do it! It would cause your friends’ accounts canceled as well.
qla@Amazon.com located in India, and can do anything to your accounts if you are judged by over the quantity limits (which you cannot find any info about on Amazon.com)
Hence, as the customers, the only thing we could do is please don’t hurt our friends and relatives’ accounts, regardless of how much and urgent we need to buy.
Needed 5 blinds, they had nine in the inventory, but would only allow me to buy four. I got someone else to order as many of the sets of blinds, up to a total of nine (the 4, 1, then asking someone else to buy the balance) and he misunderstood and bought just one, but at least I have what I need. I am asking someone else to order the final ones,which should be four. They use email addresses as their guide we learned. Always a crook somewhere in our lives. Because of the layout of our bay window there is only one style locally that will work, but at $ 70 per set, that was highway robbery, and, they could not guarantee the five I need. What a rats’ nest type of business.
I just found this article because I keep facing a “limit” when I try to order protein shakes. My husband drinks them for breakfast, and I hate lugging them from the store. He drinks one per day, and I am definitely not reselling them.
Yes, I could only order 100 items in one grocery order. I did know that there might be limit on how many items you could have in one order even though every item was different. But I don’t order that many items at once usually, although I couldn’t get Amazon to tell me that. It just kept putting things back in the Save for later section when I got to 100.
Apparently their Kindle Paperwhites are a part of this! When trying to buy them for the library I was hit with this policy. Not sure what we’re going to do now.
Please increase my Purchase Limit immediately. This is the first time I have come up against this. Kindly inform us – your Prime members when you decide to change your policy. Also, look at my history and you will clearly see how much I buy from Amazon. This is so ridiculous – I had purchased more than 70 items today. You all have decided yourselves to save some for later. I was down to 64 items and couldn’t make a payment!! I was told there was an error at your end. One of your Assistants in Pantry then told me over the phone I had too many items so I saved some for later and STILL can’t pay for 37 items. How many items have you all permitted me to purchase? This is so ridiculous, it’s laughable!! I feel like cancelling my entire Order. Wake up Amazon and treat your customers better. We aren’t asking you for any favours…..I await your response immediately.
Please can you increase my purchase limit. I urgently need to buy two things
I ordered 24 jars of Albacore tuna in 4.5 oz glass jars,over 5 months period. First I did order twice 10 jars, then it allowed me to order only 4 each time. I thought it was because of being an add on item but today I received a warning when i put 4 jars in the cart.I was surprised and did not know anything about their limit policy.I thought are is better for them to sell. The jars are tine , my family get through it pretty quick, even if we won’t eat it more often then once a week because of mercury. the reason i am buying them is thither are in glass jar, which is healthier for me specially , as I recover from breast cancer. I feel threatened and totally caught by surprise.I could not believe when I read your article. I think I won’t like Amazon as much anymore and will try to buy somewhere else.
Threats from Amazon like this is reason enough to avoid buying digital products from them. How would you feel to lose all of those purchases? There are plenty of other options for digital subscriptions.
When I read this response from Amazon I think of the poor passenger dragged bloody from the plane. Their site isn’t able to prevent the purchase which they say is against policy, so they afterward seek to threaten and punish. Worst customer service ever.
It appears this issue may be caused by Amazon sellers, trying to protect limited inventory, setting purchase limits to one item her customer. However, customers are not informed of these limits, so when customers who need more than one item don’t understand that a limit exists, they exceed the limit with multiple purchases (or sometimes they try an item, like it, and go right back to purchase it again).
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/does-max-order-quantity-prevent-a-buyer-from-purchasing-again/350431
I’m recovering from a brain injury and I have been experimenting with juice mixtures to find a mixture that will best support focus and memory without messing up my metabolism. Twice now, when I have ordered freeze-dried pomegranate juice, I have gotten this cryptic warning in red letters without any way to know what it might be that I’m doing to generate the warning. I use what I order and I buy more when I run out. I lack the ability to manage a business. I have never resold anything I have ever bought on Amazon.
I added one 2-pack item to my cart and received the max quantity exceeded message. It was: “Life Extension Nad+ Cell Regenerator Nicotinamide Riboside , 30 Capsules(2 Pack) Life Extension”.
I checked my cart and the item did add, but now I’m wondering if it will count as a ding against my account if I complete the order. I have ordered this item before, but it has been several months.
This also happened with a couple of different flavors of Atkins Harvest Trail bars. It was hard to even get the items added to the account because it kept preventing me, but finally did. I had never ordered these before.
I suggest you contact the seller directly and order it from them. Bypass Amazon entirely. Let the seller know what Amazon is doing with their products.
Want to order 4 more books 2 each of Jimmy Fallon’s mama and dada books and it won’t let me. Please remove the limit on the books that I want to reorder.
I tried to get a second hummingbird feeder after having a lot of success with one I purchased. I can’t order a second because of a one per house limit. That’s so odd for a feeder. I could order elsewhere but will have to wait a couple of weeks to receive and the Amazon one is ready to go.
We recently placed an Order 112-7647723-3641837. the next day we learned that the order had been CANCELLED, reason was quantities. The reason we order them is because we have been looking for these types of tables for our living room and had really not found anything that was to our liking. We don’t shop that often on AMAZON, we did this time and liked what we saw and ordered them. We truly hope you can fill this order and if not well THANK YOU and we will take our online business some where else (ebay).
Thank you again
Marcos Payan
Mere Amazon acont me Pese he our Mera acont hold Kar diya or customer cear wale bol rhe he kuj nai ho sakda
Only add “Ph.D.” in response to the “Esq” I sometimes see after your name. ;-)