Answers
How do you check Amazon seller account health before buying an FBA business?
Short answer: Ask the seller to open Seller Central's Account Health page and 12 months of performance notifications on a live screen-share. Read every warning, intellectual property complaint and listing removal yourself, and check whether they touch the products that make most of the profit. A recent suspension, complaints on a top product or a refusal to show the account live are reasons to hold back part of the price or walk away.
Why does account health matter?
An Amazon FBA business is only as safe as the seller account it runs on. If the account is suspended, or a best-selling listing is blocked, sales can stop overnight. Sellers often show sales and profit but leave out the warnings, policy notices and performance problems that decide whether the account will keep selling. Checking account health is how you price that risk before you pay for it.
What should you ask to see?
- The Account Health page in Seller Central, shown live on a screen-share, not as a screenshot.
- Performance notifications for the last 12 months, including any policy warnings, listing removals or appeals.
- Order defect, late shipment and cancellation figures where the account shows them.
- Intellectual property or authenticity complaints against any of the products.
- Any history of suspension, with the reason and how it was resolved.
- Brand Registry ownership and the trademark behind it, if the business claims a brand.
How do you read what you see?
- Read every notification yourself. A seller's summary of "a few minor warnings" is not the same as reading them.
- Look for patterns. Repeated complaints about one product, or the same policy warning more than once, suggest the problem will come back.
- Check which products carry the sales. A warning on a minor product matters less than one on the item that makes most of the profit.
- Confirm how the business will transfer: whether the account itself moves or the brand and listings move to your account, and what Amazon's current rules allow.
What are the red flags?
- The seller will not show Seller Central live.
- A recent suspension or reinstatement that the listing does not mention.
- Intellectual property complaints on a top product, or no trademark behind a claimed brand.
- Listing removals or restricted products among the best sellers.
- Most profit from one product that already has a policy warning.
What does a composite check look like?
This is a composite example, not a real deal. An FBA brand lists $7,000 a month in profit, asking $200,000. On a live screen-share the buyer finds two authenticity complaints in the last six months, both on the product that makes 60% of profit, and a listing that was removed for two weeks before being reinstated. The buyer asks for the complaint history and supplier invoices, treats the top product as at risk, and offers about $150,000 with $30,000 held back until the account has run six months after closing with no new complaints on that product.
Run the listing through the free red-flag checker first, then work through the FBA due diligence checklist.
Frequently asked questions
Is a green Account Health rating enough?
No. Read the notification history too. A good rating today can sit alongside repeated complaints on one product.
Can a past suspension be a deal breaker?
Not always. What matters is the reason, whether it was fixed, and whether the same product or supplier is still in the business.
Should I ask for supplier invoices?
Yes, when there are authenticity complaints. Invoices from a real supplier are usually what an appeal relies on.
Sources
- FirstPass Memo, red-flag checker rules, our own rules, published as /rules.json
- FirstPass Memo, seller question bank, October 2026 (general checklist), our own questions
- FirstPass Memo, free buyer calculators, our own calculators; the formulas are on each page
Related
- Free red-flag checker
- FBA due diligence checklist
- Red flags when buying an FBA business
- How to verify Amazon FBA sales
- How to check supplier dependence
- What an FBA business is worth with inventory
- Red flag: depends on a platform
- Red flag: top customer over 25%
- Glossary of listing terms
- More questions buyers ask
Get the 38 seller questions for ecommerce (not Amazon) listings
Enter your email and the next page gives you the ecommerce (not Amazon) seller question checklist (web page and PDF) straight away, no waiting, along with the other free files: 11 seller question checklists (151 questions across eleven business types), the 72-hour vetting plan and a 14-column deal-tracker spreadsheet. We also email you the links so you have them later.
No newsletter: we send one email with your links,. Reply "stop" to hello@firstpassmemo.com to be removed. Looking at a live listing priced $10k–150k? Get a full memo: $79, pay after delivery instead; its confirmation page has the same downloads.
Composite examples are invented and labelled. Figures from other sites are quoted with a link and the date we read them; FirstPass figures are asking prices and seller-stated profit, not sale prices. Informational screening only, not investment, legal or tax advice.