Merchant Center account suspended - Help... 😱😥

[PerArne]

Hi

In August we received a warning from Google Merchant Center that customers weren't able to purchase from our store, sapatos.com. I contacted GMC's support and they said the error message was wrong because they had tested our page. They said we should not be afraid and it would probably be okay next time it was scanned.

But in September our account got suddenly suspended with this warning message: "Account suspended due to policy violation: User cannot purchase". I contacted their support again and they were really surprised but they said it would be fixed in a couple of days. GMC experts from Dublin, New York and Polen have tried to fix it but nobody understands why this error is triggered.

We are using Shopify's standard app "Google Shopping" and the feed should be okay. We have even tried to use other feed apps but it does change anything. 

Now we have been suspended for more than 6 weeks and it's almost killing our business. The traffic and revenue is dropping alot and I'm not sure how long we can survive. We really appreciate if anyone has any tips or advice on what we can do. 🙏🙏🙏

Best Regards

Per Arne

sapatos.com

[stevelamar]

Hi PerArne -  I am sorry you are going through this - that is really frustrating. What warnings are you getting in GMC? Did you get any more details in the warning or the suspension notice? Did your active product count drop in GMC at all during the warning period - perhaps you have some products that are in your feed that cannot be purchased which triggered the warning? If there are too many errors in a product feed that get flagged, it can cause wider issues.

Let me know what you can send over as you review your GMC account - otherwise I am happy to look into your account for you to see what I can find. 

[PerArne]

Thank you for reaching out, Steve. I will upload a few screenshots here and hear what you think. Have you heard about similar cases? The GMC support says they almost never experienced it before. For 6 months (in the middel of September) they suspended our GMC account, but some of the Google Ads where still running until 21st of October. Now everything is stopped... 😱😥None of the Google Ads campaigns are converting anything, even if they receives clicks and traffic???

What do you think? Thanks again Steve... 🙏🙏🙏

[stevelamar]

The fact that you were put on warning in mid-Sept then suspended is not out of the ordinary. Google gives you time to fix the issue before issuing a full suspension. Because all of your products were disapproved I have a suspicion this is due to your country/payment discrepancies. All of your products are listed in USD, but the checkout is NOK. GMB does not like inconsistencies that might confuse the shopper and listing one price in USD and the checkout flow being in another is very likely what is causing this issue. Since your products are showing on your site in USD, I assume your product feed also uses USD? The product feed has to match the landing page content exactly (product names, descriptions, prices, etc) or products will get flagged.

If your store needs to process payments in NOK, there is not an easy solution unless you change your settings to process in USD. Are you able to offer other payment methods?

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/shopify-payments/multi-currency/setup

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/shopify-payments/multi-currency

Steve

[PerArne]

Thanks again, Steve.

Our Shopify store is using NOK as currency and the feed is therefore also using NOK. Unfortunately Shopify doesn't support NOK for their multi currency yet, but hopefully they will soon do. We are showing customers local currency, but everybody have to checkout in NOK.

I would be more than happy to give you access to our GMC, Steve. I would be REALLLLLLY happy if you could have a quick look at it. If that's okay it would be great if you could send me a private message with the email address I should invite. We'll definitely give you a payback if you could help us, Steve... 🙏

[stevelamar]

If your feed is in NOK and your products are in USD on the site, this is going to cause issues. I just sent you an email on your webshop address through your website and I can take a look.

[vinods]

Hello @PerArne 

Trust you are doing good. As per google policy your country "NORWAY" is allowed for Google Ads.

Its not the country issue.

Let me know if i can help you can I contact you or you can feel free to contact me.

Thanks

Vinod

[Alma_T]

I am getting exact same sudden suspension message on GMC which says "Account suspended due to policy violation: Misrepresentation of self or product (Untrustworthy promotions)" and all our products on GMC are now "disapproved".  No other information is provided.

We have been on GMC/google shopping for years and have made no recent changes. Just out of the blue. Our currency is only USD. I sent a "contact us" to GMC but I suspect with COVID19 it may be a long time if ever I hear back. Would anyone be so kind as to help me?

Best regards,

Alma

https://walkingsticksandcane.com

[stevelamar]

Hi Alma-

This is a very different issue :  "Account suspended due to policy violation: Misrepresentation of self or product (Untrustworthy promotions)" means there are bigger issues with either your products or your shop and will need Google's involvement to get resolved. Did you get any other messages or warnings? Are you running ads in more than one account or doing anything that might violate Google's terms? 

 If you have any other information, I might be able to provide more guidance, but if this is the only message your received, you may have to wait this out to see when they get back to you and get more details and a request a review.

Steve

[BigRyker]

Hi, my GMC account was suspended. I've tried my best to fix it but I failed. Could you please help me?

The last email (1 hour ago) I received told me 

It has come to our attention that your Google Merchant Center account doesn't comply with our Program Policies, therefore your account will continue to be disabled.
This is our final decision. You do not need to submit your application again.

According to the account suspension policy, the account may be permanently disabled if the violation is serious. If this happens, all ads in your suspended account will stop running and we will no longer accept any ads you submit. In addition, all related accounts may be affected by this, and your newly opened account may also be automatically disabled at the time of setup.

The Penultimate email (Around 2 hours before the last email) is :

The requested Shopping Ads Policy review of your Merchant Center account has been completed. To identify the current enforcement status of your Merchant Center account, visit the Diagnostics page in Merchant Center.

Your Merchant Center account is in violation of the following policies:

Misrepresentation of self or product (Untrustworthy promotions)

UNTRUSTWORTHY PROMOTIONS (MISREPRESENTATION OF SELF OR PRODUCT)

Do I have any chance to get my account back?

My MC account still have Application review button and it's seems available. 

[VortexVR]

Dear Steve,

Big thanks for trying to help us out here!

I have 4 stores. Physical business adress in Poland, and 4 online stores, Poland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

Now, they first blocked my Swedish and Danish store when I started in February, and now they stopped my Norwegian store.

The Norwegian store was working since October 2020, Swedish was working in Jan, and stopped in Feb. Danish worked in Feb and almost immediately stopped in Feb.
My polish store is still running. I read all the policies and tried to fill out evrything perfectly, and now everything should be there.

I have my warehouse in Poland, I do NOT do any dropshipping. Everything is legal and correct and I have everything in store.

How can I get this suspension away?

VortexVR.pl

VortexVirtualReality.dk

VortexVR.se

VortexVR.no 

I get the misrepresentation error for all my stores.

Is there anything I can do to get it back up running again or is this a collective takedown of small online business stores??

Sincerely,
Daniel

[AsthaUpadhyay]

Hello Per Arne,

Really hard to listen that you issue is still not resolved!
As you told here that you have raised your concern with the GMC support and may have filled this form
https://support.google.com/merchants/contact/suspended

> When you fill up the form and the further details, you must have got the revert explaining the check out issue...

This issue arises when there is any problem or issue in the check out process such as,
> Proper Call to action button missing
>If shipping rates are missing..... i.e there can by any issue that the check out cannot be done
>May be sometimes it takes too longer to reach out the checkout page ...due to the Ajax issue, etc
Also there can be further any other issue.

If you really want this issue to be resolved and feel conferrable can share your store URL to us. So,that Our experts dealing with numerous clients have expertise in GMC can help you out in a better way.

Thanks

[shellylimewate]

Hi Astha, 

I was informed that my google merchant account is being suspended due to lack of insufficient contact information, do u by any chance know how should i fix this? i know the information is pretty straight forward, but i would like to know where should i go to double check &fill in this missing information? Is it under tools- business information in the merchant center account? 

Thanks !

S

[Sara32]

@shellylimewate this refers to the contact information on your website, not in merchant centre.  Just having a contact form is not enough, you have to have either a telephone number or email address visible on the site.  See here: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6363310?hl=en-GB

Hope that helps.

Sara

[fayssal55]

I have This issues

Account suspended due to policy violation: Misrepresentation of self or product (Untrustworthy promotions)

I need Help Please

My Website is  https://dailyshopdeal.shop

[thebigjigg]

Did you guys ever get this resolved?  We just recently got the same suspension.  Seems like a lot of merchants are getting this since March.

Misrepresentation of self or product (Untrustworthy promotions)

[Rahul-LMP]

did you guys got this resolved this is really killing our business at this time please help this is serious

[thebigjigg]

seems like this is happening with so many merchants since late March.  No luck yet.  I see a lot of people posting on the Google forums about it, then Google will delete their posts quickly.   No idea why during this crisis Google would start doing this.   Here's my theory:  they are trying to kill small business and to consolidate into big businesses.  What a perfect opportunity to do that during the crisis....