What's the right thing to do in this situaiton?
Message I received from a customer for an order which was shipped via FBA:
01-Jan-2023 17:25
item is lost so we want money back
01-Jan-2023 23:56
Hello, Sorry to hear your item has been lost. We can provide you with a full refund. I need more information to determine if the refund needs to come from us or from Amazon - do you mean the item did not arrive? Or it was lost after arrival? Was it delivered to you? Looking forward to your response, Natasha from HKGW
02-Jan-2023 10:45
Hi yea we got a message on amazong that the item is possibly lost. we never recieved it. So a refund would be great.
Response needed
03-Jan-2023 13:06
So any news on the refund? will it be processed?
Response needed
37 replies
Seller_lIrgXLRN891Wd
I went ahead and refunded them, for fear of a negative review. But I would have expected an FBA shipment would have automatically been refunded by Amazon if they had sent the customer a message acknowledging that their purchase had been ‘lost’
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
As an fba order, you always direct them to amazon CS
Never refund as amazon may also refund or replace and you cannot check the tracking
Seller_lIrgXLRN891Wd
Thank you, I’m making note of this for future reference. You are right in that we should not be refunding them, but what is stopping them from leaving a negative review if we cause a fuss? This product is in a very competitive category and even a slight change in my review profile would be much more concequential to me than refunding the order. Am I missing something, is there some way to prevent them leaving a review?
Seller_lIrgXLRN891Wd
Well, you were all right. I’ve just received notification that the customer has requested a further refund for the order from Amazon, in addition to the refund which I sent them.
Seller_xUKHc5xSYJmI4
Any negative review about the service fulfilled by Amazon usually crossed through on the seller feedback.
Seller_3TuKPsB3ieWKC
That’s the classic message that Amazon show customers when items have not been scanned on delivery or the delivery status has not been updated in customer accounts. An Amazon invitation to get free goods.
Seller_lIrgXLRN891Wd
Thanks for all the advice everyone, I won’t be repeating this mistake again.
I did end up telling Amazon seller support of the situation via their chat portal. I didn’t ask to prevent the second refund to the customer - just simply told them of what had happened.
They ‘referred me to their internal team’ (as usual) and then I received the below message, which I’m struggling to decipher and to be honest, I’m not going to chase this up, I’ll take the hit from this mistake.
Thanks again
Hello from Amazon Selling Partner Support,
First of all, apologies for the delay in response for the issue and inconvenience that caused frustration for you.
Thank you for bringing your concern regarding the order ID 405-8840521-7040314. I will try my best to clear your doubts related to the above issue.
I have dived into the issue and investigated your Seller Central account and discovered the following:
We have completed our investigation on your order 405-8840521-7040314.
Units declined due to reimbursement policy: 1
The item is not eligible for reimbursements for reasons that include the request being made for the wrong store, account status is non-normal or selling contract does not qualify for reimbursement for these issues. See the FBA reimbursement policy page for more details. Reimbursement policy: https://sellercentral.amazon.nl/gp/help/200213130?referral=A25WOC06U7PA0P_A3M4U9GBR2J6F2
You can find more information about the lost and damaged units reimbursement by clicking on the following link which will explain about the FBA Reimbursement policy: https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/200213130?referral=A25WOC06U7PA0P_A3M4U9GBR2J6F2
Your satisfaction on the resolution is our highest priority and we look forward to serve you the best.
Please let us know how we did.
Were you satisfied with the support provided?
Seller_24Bec1n3QCVmi
As a side thought around refunding FBA orders - if the order gets refunded because of a delivery issue, should Amazon be crediting the seller with the FBA fee as Amazon haven’t fulfilled their end of the deal?
Seller_zafdEAfFVqXoh
In the past I’ve had people asking for a refund in a rude one liner and after writing lots of emails to Amazon for them to investigate my suspicions a couple turned out to be scammers who are doing it all the time. Amazon needs to address this rather than wash their hands and expect sellers to automatically foot the bill. They would surely be able to differentiate between the legitimate buyers.
Seller_lIrgXLRN891Wd
By the by, many people have stated that it is easy to scrub off any negative feedback received as a result of a delivery issue
But I just want to emphasise again that I am referring to product feedback, for a private label product, I do not do arbritage, not referring to Seller feedback which Amazon do scrub off for me all the time
As far as I am aware it is nigh impossible to remove unwanted / unfair / undeserved product feedback. Like I said, Seller support have told me in the past that the only mechanism remaining is to click the ‘Report Abuse’ button on the product page (not even on Seller Central) and hope for the best. I’ve done that dozens of times with no result
