Amazon restricted my account and will not refund gift card balance of £200. Totally blindsided. Any advice??

It also said
Account Specialist who sent it (often [email protected] or [email protected]).
Not to use the usual chat function

Google says
Subject: Appeal Request: Account Restriction and Gift Card Balance Recovery - [Your Amazon Account Email]
Dear Account Specialist,
I am writing to formally appeal the digital-only restriction placed on my Amazon UK account.
My account currently holds a legitimate gift card balance that was provided to me directly by my employer as a workplace benefit/reward. I have attached the official proof of this gift card issue from my employer to this email to confirm its validity.
Because this balance consists of earned, legitimate funds, I request that you either fully reinstate my physical purchasing privileges or process a manual refund of the remaining balance back to my employer or via an alternative method.
Please review my account history and the attached documentation. I look forward to your prompt response and resolution.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Phone Number Linked to Amazon]

Same here, we unfortunately have to order almost everything due to my chronic illness and we have quite a lot of parcels arriving.

I think we’ve had two go missing in the past two years? Neither from Amazon.

I sympathise with you OP. Unfortunately you’re paying the price for those awful thieves.

Ensure that your purchases are sent to lockers or local shops where you can collect them. Once you've shown Amazon that you're a responsible buyer, it'll change your restriction

Something similar happened to me but I had a warning when I was returning parcels, for about six months, telling me that either the return was legit or they might close my account.
I spend thousands each couple of months on Amazon so obviously my returns might also be high. I guess the system flagged that up.
I think your problem is that you look like a thief but I wonder whether you are not telling it all and had that message flagged up as well when you were buying/returning?

Ah right, that makes sense.

Films, TV series, Kindle books, Audible etc.

Intangible items you can't return essentially....

I’m not sure what digital purchases are?

To be fair, it's their drivers leaving packages in ridiculous places. They often leave them in full wheelie bins by the kerb. Clearly put out of collection. How stupid do you have to be?

I don't care how many deliveries they have to make, that's not my problem, either leave it somewhere safe, knock on a neighbours, or try again later. Delivering is their job. It's not a huge ask to expect them to do it.

The gift card balance is an outrage and I am with you for wanting that resolved. Closing your account is a different issue though. They are a profit seeking business and have the right to stop dealing with customers that are unprofitable. It is probably that a combination of returns, missing parcels and low value deliveries all mean they just dont want your business anymore. Harsh but understandable

They have a clear policy that you’ve violated. Many companies have banned customers for similar reasons, it’s commonly known.

Any customer that had multiple faulty products would stop ordering from that company. Any customer who repeatedly had packages go missing would either choose a different delivery location or a collection service, no wonder they think you are a scammer.

In other situations I’ve never known a customer get their account back.

Normal for my house too. I was surprised when OP said she orders a lot, but qualified it as every couple of weeks.

I've never had a parcel go missing, but I have a good safe place. Well, not quite true. One Christmas about 10 years ago a delivery driver pretended to deliver a tablet that was due to be a Christmas gift. They marked it as delivered from outside my house. Luckily, they believed me as there was no photo evidence of the delivery and dispatched a replacement to arrive in time.

I suspect it's the refunds on missing items for OP causing the issue, rather than actual returns. I have returned lots more than 8 items in the last year.

As long as you’re not reporting lots of missing or faulty/damaged parcels you’ll be fine.

I sometimes have multiple deliveries in a day 😅

It will of likely flagged as extra suspicious that the second you don’t use the lockers again you’ve opened a claim again.

It’s bad but people return things that were not from there and even return items with completely different things in them. It’s crazy.

I’ll never keep a credit balance of over £50 just incase.

I’ve heard of some people having to give crime reference numbers for stolen parcels to get refunds as Amazon was getting high reports from certain areas. Another poster on here whose address was banned not long ago as well because her parcels never arrive.

I live in fear of this happening.
Amazon come about 5/7 days to my house.
((Is that ‘normal’ in Amazon standards??)).

Without accusing you I get parcels about once a week and had 1 thing I about 3 years that hasn’t arrived. So I assume issues with couriers but Amazon are assuming you are the issue.

They think you’re a scammer with missing parcels, returned good etc. 🤷‍♀️

I know this isn't directly related to your issue, and probably not much consolation, but Amazon is a horrible company with disgustingly unfair labour practices and an owner who is propping up Donald Trump. If you do a search of Amazon unfair business practices, you'll find an endless list of how awful they are to their warehouse workers, drivers and to small businesses.

That said, it's worth having a conversation with a customer service representative. I go to great lengths to not give them business, but several years ago, when we did use them, I found their customer service people to be very helpful.