Open letter to marketplace seller‑support teams

Open letter to marketplace seller-support teams

To seller-support teams at marketplaces and payment platforms,

We are writing to the people who answer sellers when an account is restricted, a listing disappears, a payment is held, or a fee changes. We know that many of these interactions begin after a decision has already been made. A seller may be trying to learn what happened, what information is needed, whether the decision can be reviewed, and when money will be available. The answer may come from a support agent who did not make the decision and cannot see how it was reached. This letter is for that moment in the process.

We are the Platform Council of Reseated, the Founders Assembly: a global assembly of small-business owners organized in seven councils. Reseated launched on 10 February 2026 and is a nonprofit. Our Council describes recurring practices affecting business users of platforms; it does not speak for any one company or seller. Members remain anonymous unless they choose a public seat. Our mandate is to collect reports, test whether a problem is recurring, develop a proposed fix, consult publicly, and bring recommendations to an Assembly ballot. The Platform Fairness Standard was adopted by the Assembly on 13 August 2026 as RC/PL/2026/1.

This letter is not an accusation against individual support workers. We recognize that support teams operate within systems, rules, and escalation paths that may be outside their control. We are asking for processes that let you give business users a useful answer, route a case to someone empowered to review it, and explain what happens next. A seller should not have to guess whether the person responding can help, or whether the conversation has reached its end.

What the reports show

As of 27 August 2026, the Platform Council had 426 members in 48 countries and had received 1,799 reports originating in 50 countries. The median amount at stake in reported platform cases was approximately US$4,102. These are reports collected by Reseated, not a census of all businesses or all platform decisions. They describe members’ experiences and are evidence of a recurring problem, not a finding about the conduct of any particular company.

The reports concern two principal situations tracked by the Council: 1,012 reports involving an account suspension and 787 involving funds held. These categories are the Council’s recorded situation types; they should not be read as a claim that every suspension involved a payout hold or that every funds-held report involved a suspended account. In the last 30 days before this letter, the Council received 156 Platform Council reports.

Reports came from 50 countries. The largest country counts in the dataset were the United States, 214; Germany, 105; Brazil, 102; Mexico, 97; Spain, 93; the Philippines, 91; the United Kingdom, 83; and France, 83. These are counts of reports, not country-level rates. They do not establish that the experiences of businesses in one country are more or less common than in another, because the Council does not have comparable totals for all platform users or businesses in those countries.

Members reported businesses of different sizes. Among Platform Council members, 37 percent described their team as just one person, 42 percent as 2–9 people, 17 percent as 10–49 people, and 4 percent as 50–249 people. For this letter, the relevant sector is the business’s relationship with a platform: marketplace selling and payment services. The Council’s August 27 dataset does not provide a reliable count by the seller’s underlying industry, such as food, clothing, or manufacturing. We therefore do not present an industry breakdown or infer one from the reports.

Across the wider economy, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises make up about 90 percent of businesses, account for 60–70 percent of employment, and contribute roughly half of global GDP, according to the United Nations. The International Labour Organization separately estimates that MSMEs account for about 70 percent of employment worldwide and that around 80 percent operate in the informal economy.¹² These global estimates are not measures of platform usage. They help explain why a platform decision can affect a business’s ability to trade, pay workers, and meet obligations, particularly where a business has limited alternatives or reserves.

Existing policy context

Rules differ by jurisdiction and by the type of service. We do not suggest that one legal regime applies to every recipient or every case. We ask support teams to understand the requirements relevant to the business

user and service involved, and to build a clear process that does not fall below the protections already required where they apply.

In the European Union, the Platform-to-Business Regulation requires a provider, when restricting or suspending a business user, to provide a statement of reasons. It also requires at least 30 days’ notice before termination of the whole service, subject to the Regulation’s terms and exceptions.³ The Digital Services Act requires statements of reasons for certain platform restrictions and suspensions, including information about whether automated means were used. Its transparency framework includes a public database of statements of reasons; the European Commission reports that the database launched in September 2023 and has received more than three billion statements.⁴ These provisions concern their defined scope and should not be treated as a universal rule for every marketplace or payment service.

In Japan, the Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms applies to designated platforms. The designated online malls identified in the policy materials include Amazon Japan, Rakuten Ichiba, and Yahoo! Shopping, with Qoo10 added. The Act requires covered providers to disclose matters including conditions for withholding payments.⁵⁶ This is a jurisdiction-specific transparency framework; it does not establish that every platform or payment service is covered.

These cases show that clear reasons, advance notice in defined circumstances, disclosure of payment-withholding conditions, and information about automated decisions are already part of the policy landscape in some jurisdictions. They also show why support teams need accessible guidance: a seller should not have to determine alone which office, rule, or escalation route applies after a disruption has begun.

What we ask of seller-support teams

The Assembly’s Platform Fairness Standard asks platforms, before an account suspension, listing removal, payout hold, or fee change, to provide written notice, a specific reason, review by a person, and a time limit on

payout holds, with the same protections in every country where the platform operates. The Council asks support teams to help make these principles real in the day-to-day handling of cases. We respectfully request the following:

1. Give the business user a usable notice. When a restriction or other material action is taken, make sure the seller receives a written notice in a channel they can access and retain. Identify the action and its effective date. If advance notice is not possible, say why the notice followed the action and what immediate steps remain available.

2. State the specific reason. Explain which listing, transaction, account activity, policy requirement, or other basis is involved, to the extent that disclosure is permitted. A general reference to risk, policy, or a terms-of-service clause may not tell a seller what to correct. Where details cannot be shared, explain the limits and provide the most concrete information that can be given.

3. Make the review route visible. Tell the seller how to request review, what information would help, and how to submit it. Make clear whether the request will be considered by a person with authority to change the decision. Where automated tools were involved and disclosure is required, provide that information in a clear way. Do not describe an automated response as an independent review.

4. Set a time and keep the seller informed. Acknowledge a review request, give a reasonable expected response time, and update the seller if that time changes. If the support worker cannot resolve the issue, explain where it has been escalated and what the next step is. An unanswered ticket should not be the only indication that a case remains open.

5. Explain payout holds and their endpoint. Tell the business user what funds are held, the reason for the hold, what condition would permit release, and the date or process for the next review. Do not leave the seller without a time limit or a route to ask whether the hold remains necessary. If funds cannot be released by the stated date, provide an update and a specific explanation.

6. Separate immediate support from final decision-making. Give front-line staff a safe route to flag urgent cases involving payroll, supplier payments, or imminent business closure, without requiring them to promise an outcome they cannot authorize. Make escalation ownership clear internally, so a seller is not repeatedly sent back to the same channel without progress.

7. Use consistent minimum protections across countries. Where a platform operates in several countries, apply the same basic standards of written notice, a specific reason, human review, and time limits on payout holds. Local law may require more. A business should not receive a less informative process merely because it is located outside the platform’s home market.

8. Make support usable for small teams. Keep instructions concise, avoid asking for the same documents repeatedly, and allow a business to understand what is needed without a dedicated legal or compliance team. Where a decision concerns one specific transaction or listing, identify it precisely enough that the seller can respond.

9. Record and learn from recurring problems. Track the kinds of restrictions, reasons, review outcomes, and payout delays that generate repeat contacts. Where a process creates confusion or preventable repeat cases, share that pattern with the teams able to improve notices, policies, or internal review. Protect personal and commercially sensitive information while doing so.

These requests do not ask support staff to disregard platform rules, disclose information they are legally unable to provide, or guarantee that every appeal will succeed. They ask for a process that gives a business a comprehensible explanation, a genuine opportunity to respond, and a clear account of what happens to its listings, account, and money. A decision may still be upheld. Even then, a clear explanation and a reliable review process can reduce uncertainty and help the business decide what to do next.

Evidence sharing and continued dialogue

The Council is willing to share anonymized and aggregated evidence with seller-support teams and the relevant policy or operations contacts. Any sharing would be subject to safeguards intended to prevent identification of members, their businesses, or individual cases. Members’ accounts are not permission to disclose identifying details, and we will not provide names of businesses or details that would expose a member without consent. We can discuss the fields represented in the dataset, its limits, and ways to make future reporting more useful for improving support processes.

We invite support teams to review your notices, escalation paths, appeal forms, and payout-hold communications against the requests above. If your current process already provides these protections, we welcome a description of how a small business user can find and use them. If a request cannot be met in a particular situation, please consider whether the reason can be explained and whether a practical alternative can be offered. We are also open to listening to support workers about operational constraints, provided that discussion does not identify members or imply that an individual worker is responsible for a system-level decision.

The Platform Fairness Standard has been transmitted to platform chief executives for consideration. As of the date of this letter, the Council’s record contains no replies to those letters. This letter is directed separately to the teams who meet sellers at the point of need. Your work can make the difference between a notice that merely records an action and a notice that

helps a business understand it. It can also help decision-makers see where unclear rules create avoidable contacts, delays, and loss of confidence.

Thank you for the work you do under pressure and for considering these requests. We hope you will treat clear communication and meaningful review not as an obstacle to enforcement, but as part of a reliable platform service.

For a small business, a useful answer is not simply that a decision has been made. It is knowing what happened, why it happened, who can review it, and when the business will know what comes next.

Annex: sources and basis

1. Platform Council dataset as of 27 August 2026, supplied to this letter. Counts are reports and members recorded by Reseated; they are not population estimates. The report-country counts, situation categories, median amount at stake, team-size percentages, and 30-day count are reproduced as provided. Council records: RC/PL/2026/N.1; RC/PL/2026/N.2; RC/PL/2026/RES/2026/1; and the Platform Council data as of 27 August 2026.

2. Founders Assembly Platform Fairness Standard, adopted 13 August 2026, RC/PL/2026/1. The requests in this letter restate its core protections in terms for support teams.

3. United Nations, Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day. Global MSME estimates and the date of MSME Day.¹

4. International Labour Organization, Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. Global employment and informal-economy estimates.²

5. Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, including Article 4 on statements of reasons and notice before termination of the whole service.³

6. European Commission, Digital Services Act Transparency Database questions and answers; Digital Services Act Article 17 and Article 24(5) as described in the policy materials.⁴

7. Japan, Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms.⁵

8. Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Digital Platforms policy materials.⁶

Notes and sources

Sources

1. United Nations, Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day
2. International Labour Organization, Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
3. Regulation (EU) 2019/1150
4. European Commission, Digital Services Act Transparency Database questions and answers
5. Japan, Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms
6. Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Digital Platforms