One of your seller account is terminated, so please use new credentials for registration

I signed up for an Amazon Seller Central account last year to test the waters. Later I got busy and forgot about the account. Now a year later I am back and want to start selling. I go back and try to sign into my account but instead I get his with the error message:

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“One of your seller account is terminated, so please use new credentials for registration”

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My guess is that Amazon deactivated/terminated my account due to dormancy. I can understand that, but why didn’t they warn me? The other thing that is very frustrating is that if you want help on your terminated account then you must first sign into the account in question. BUT HOW CAN YOU SIGN IN IF THE ACCOUNT DOESN’T EXIST ANYMORE??

Has anyone been able to restore an account that was “terminated?” From what I am reading it sounds like I am SOL and need to create a new account. This is such a poor user experience and makes me wonder how an amazing, customer-service orientated company like Amazon has such a poorly designed Amazon Seller Central website. Doesn’t make any sense and very disappointing. /end rant