Guide

The first 72 hours.

A freeze feels like an emergency, and the first three days are when sellers do the permanent damage: the panic appeal, the second account, the sales routed through a friend's processor. This order exists so none of that happens to you.

Hours 0–4: secure and read

  1. Save the notice itself — the full email or screenshot, with its date. Every clock runs from that date.
  2. Export everything you can still reach: sales records, customer lists, payout reports, product data. Access narrows without warning.
  3. Write down the three facts: amount held, notice date, the notice's stated reason — in the platform's own words.
  4. Do not appeal yet. Not tonight. An appeal written in the first hour is written without evidence, and on TikTok Shop it spends one of only two.

Hours 4–24: name the hold

  1. Run the free decoder: platform + notice type + date → hold type, clocks, first moves.
  2. Find your shortest clock and calendar it. Most are weeks; a few TikTok windows are 12–72 hours.
  3. List the documents your path needs (invoices, ID, business records, tracking) and start pulling them — suppliers answer slowly; ask today.
  4. Tell your cash flow the truth: which payments stop, which bills they covered, what bridges the gap lawfully (see the keep-selling guide — after the hold is named, not before).

Hours 24–72: build, then send

  1. Write the appeal or document pack from evidence, in the platform's expected structure — the kit's builders exist for this step.
  2. Send it once, complete, through the official channel. Keep the confirmation and the exact text you sent.
  3. Start your tracker: every clock, every reply, every date — one page. The sellers who win long holds are the ones who can prove the timeline.

The three never-dos of the first 72 hours: never open a replacement account under another name; never route sales through someone else's account or processor; never pay or plead in chat fragments — platforms decide on the written record, so make the record once, completely.