You did not wake up today planning to fight Amazon.
You woke up to ship orders, answer a few emails, and maybe tweak a product page before lunch.
Instead, you’re staring at unfamiliar orders, weird email addresses, and a string of chargebacks that feel like they’d send you into endless debt.
The common thread in these? Email ids that end with @buyforme.amazon
Amazon’s Buy For Me program, which was in beta the last time you heard, could now be the reason your store shuts down. Let’s go over why you are or might face this in the first place and what you can do to keep your business afloat.
Right now, the following scenario is playing out for sellers:
You never agreed to this. You do not control the order experience apart from fulfilling it, and you’re left paying for the consequences. Amazon gets the brand association and the customer experience, while you get the risk.
“I was recently told to try an experiment: put my brand name ( which is unique) into the Amazon search bar to see what happens. Lo and behold, my entire catalog from Shopify appears there and includes old products that I have discontinued. I never authorized this, and in fact on some wholesale websites, I explicitly stated that I don't sell on Amazon.”
- An exasperated seller venting on Reddit.
This is not a partnership at all. If anything, it’s more like coercive exposure with a smile.
Before this Buy for Me fiasco, regular chargebacks were tormenting merchants. Nearly 70–79% of chargebacks were because buyers wanted to try out the product through bracketing. And most of the time, banks side with consumers rather than sellers, even if you have solid proof.
“The admin drain is real. It's become standard to spend my Thursdays exporting PDFs and timestamps instead of chasing profits. My fun now is shaving minutes off dispute packets”
- An exhausted merchant ranted on Reddit.
On top of that, you have to make sure you aren’t in trouble with processors, given that chargeback rates above about 0.9% to 1.0% usually triggers crisis mode, which leads to reviews, penalty programs, or added requirements. Go above 1%, and you’re done for.
Even then, at least it was dealing with “friendly fraud” rather than signaling a systemic shutdown of businesses.
Buy for Me disputes feel like you’re speedrunning towards bankruptcy.
If the customer does not recognize the merchant name, disputing it becomes almost impossible.
Throw in the fact that Amazon is handling the discovery but not the returns or merchant branding, and you quickly see why these disputes hit harder than “normal” ecommerce disputes.
Unfortunately, no single tactic alone stops Buy for Me’s access to your store. But there is a layered approach that can help you fill in the gaps of every step.
It’s like chess: each piece has a role that supports you, and you can’t win the game with any one of them alone.
Once a payment goes through, the damage is done. If an order is prevented before payment, it’s never at risk for a dispute. No payment = no dispute = no fee = no threat to your processor account. Preventing it before authorization is the strongest single defense.
Look, we know most tools that do this aren’t free, but it’s better than calling it quits because of some bots. Even if you block ids, Amazon’s known to rotate them. Some Buy for Me orders will end up sneaking through. Flagging them early stops accidental shipping, stops you from losing inventory, and shows processors you are actively managing risk rather than reacting only after the chargebacks pile up.
If Amazon’s systems cannot discover your products easily, they cannot place future bot orders as readily. It’s only fair, especially because they blocked Perplexity from doing the exact same thing.
While this step does not remove existing listings, it keeps your new products safe, so fewer unauthorized purchases happen down the road.
Signal to payment processors that you officially and publicly reject orders that you did not agree to, rather than trying to brave it out. It will strengthen your position in dispute reviews and risk evaluations as compared to now.
Template for updating your Terms of Service
[Your Company Name] does not authorize or consent to third-party intermediary purchasing programs, including Amazon Buy for Me, Amazon Buyer Services, or similar automated services that place orders on our behalf.
Orders placed through such services will be cancelled without notice. We reserve the right to refuse service and cancel orders from unauthorized intermediaries in our sole discretion.
By placing an order, you confirm that you are the actual end user and are not using any unauthorized intermediary purchasing service.
Even if opt-out responses are inconsistent, documentation matters when you talk to your processor. You show you took deliberate steps to stop Buy for Me activity on your site. That can make a huge difference when they evaluate your chargeback history.
Processors look at trends. A sudden uptick over a 30, 60, or 90-day window can threaten your account. Early detection gives you time to react before those thresholds become a problem.
While there isn’t a single way to disable Buy for Me currently, in time, better solutions will come along that won’t require this level of monitoring.
For now, the multiple layers of defense we’ve given you will help you fight back. It might take a while to get them in place, but at least you won’t have the insane number of disputes that you might be having right now.
If you know other merchants who are losing their sleep over the program, consider sending them this article to help out.
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