The buyer wants to push me to the point of no return with scamming
Hey, Amazon fellow sellers, this is my last hope of bringing light into my life. Maybe someone will share their experience on how to deal with this.
I've been selling on Amazon for the last 1.5 years. It has been tough during this time, many things felt unfair over here in Amazon, lost some money at first due to items not being received or other scams. Anyway, I got through it and kept selling, started making my first profits.
Now I'm writing this post due to a situation where one buyer has pushed me to the edge of a cliff. One month ago, I started receiving the SAME item orders from a buyer. Sometimes she makes an order with express shipping (I'm selling low-cost items, and the express shipping is 5€ more expensive than the item price itself), sometimes she chooses basic shipping, which is half of the item price. And then she started opening returns, for every order with a reason "Description on website was not accurate", comment "It's not what I expected". She keeps ordering the SAME item and then always returns with the same reason. I was losing money because I had to refund the item shipping price, sometimes the EXPRESS shipping price, which is 1.5x bigger than the item price itself + I am getting charged the return shipping price by Amazon. Now at the same time, while she is returning the products (while they are on the way to me), she files an A-to-Z claim for the item not received and she got a refund with Amazon explanation "The tracking information for this order shows that it was delivered to an invalid address.".
And she keeps ordering, returning the item, and at the same time claiming A-to-Z, my order defect rate has skyrocketed. I had lost a bunch of money due to losing the original shipping price + paying the item return price. How is it possible that a customer gets an item not received refund while he returns the original item? The original item is always returned untouched. I've contacted Amazon support, they are telling me to f off, I've tried to report the buyer, they are emailing me that I've reported the buyer in the wrong form and are sending me a link to the SAME form, telling me to report her there (in the SAME form), telling that its the right one.
Iv'e appealed the A-to-Z claims with screenshot and comment that the item was returned and it prooves that it was delivered, they are rejecting with a reason "The tracking information for this order shows that it was delivered to an invalid address."
I can see that we cannot block buyers from ordering so im just loosing hope and have no idea what to do.
Only positive thing is that she's not leaving me negative feedbacks.
Anyone please can suggest me what to do at this point?
The buyer wants to push me to the point of no return with scamming
Hey, Amazon fellow sellers, this is my last hope of bringing light into my life. Maybe someone will share their experience on how to deal with this.
I've been selling on Amazon for the last 1.5 years. It has been tough during this time, many things felt unfair over here in Amazon, lost some money at first due to items not being received or other scams. Anyway, I got through it and kept selling, started making my first profits.
Now I'm writing this post due to a situation where one buyer has pushed me to the edge of a cliff. One month ago, I started receiving the SAME item orders from a buyer. Sometimes she makes an order with express shipping (I'm selling low-cost items, and the express shipping is 5€ more expensive than the item price itself), sometimes she chooses basic shipping, which is half of the item price. And then she started opening returns, for every order with a reason "Description on website was not accurate", comment "It's not what I expected". She keeps ordering the SAME item and then always returns with the same reason. I was losing money because I had to refund the item shipping price, sometimes the EXPRESS shipping price, which is 1.5x bigger than the item price itself + I am getting charged the return shipping price by Amazon. Now at the same time, while she is returning the products (while they are on the way to me), she files an A-to-Z claim for the item not received and she got a refund with Amazon explanation "The tracking information for this order shows that it was delivered to an invalid address.".
And she keeps ordering, returning the item, and at the same time claiming A-to-Z, my order defect rate has skyrocketed. I had lost a bunch of money due to losing the original shipping price + paying the item return price. How is it possible that a customer gets an item not received refund while he returns the original item? The original item is always returned untouched. I've contacted Amazon support, they are telling me to f off, I've tried to report the buyer, they are emailing me that I've reported the buyer in the wrong form and are sending me a link to the SAME form, telling me to report her there (in the SAME form), telling that its the right one.
Iv'e appealed the A-to-Z claims with screenshot and comment that the item was returned and it prooves that it was delivered, they are rejecting with a reason "The tracking information for this order shows that it was delivered to an invalid address."
I can see that we cannot block buyers from ordering so im just loosing hope and have no idea what to do.
Only positive thing is that she's not leaving me negative feedbacks.
Anyone please can suggest me what to do at this point?
12 replies
Seller_19xPhE8YgkmxW
Hello Big_Money_Cash,
Have you tried the Report Abuse button on the Account Health?
Have you raised a case?
And as the customer has commented "Description on website was not accurate" and "It's not what I expected" they must have received it!
If you're sending to the address supplied by Amazon if that is an invalid address, Amazon should address this...
Hopefully @Kai_Amazon or one of their colleages can look into this for you
Good Luck
Brian
Seller_76AUwmqvSyRIM
It sounds to be that somebody has something personal against you or your business.
Scammers would not normally return goods, they would just claim non-receipt to get their money back.
This person is trying to destroy your account in my opinion.
Do as @Seller_19xPhE8YgkmxWsaid and report abuse. And if your account can stand, cancel any new orders. Or do this. Mark the orders as despatched then refund them immediately. There is a slight financial cost in doing this but better than losing your account.
My only reservation is that she is not leaving negative feedback so maybe it’s because it’s something else.
Good luck.
Seller_RAXEWLxQ2dbmN
Amazon might say they employ 'expert human review' but it is pretty much bots all the way in my experience.
AI is being used as a sort of firewall to keep sellers with legitimate concerns at arms length.
It is all but impossible to put your case to a responsive/responsible human being.
Seller_kSZCywEhJQQ8J
I’m really sorry you’re dealing with this. After 1.5 years of pushing through all the usual Amazon problems and only just starting to make some profit, something like this can really knock the wind out of you.
I had something a bit similar when I was 100% FBA. In my case, some buyers ordered the same item more than once and then returned it. I also had one London wholesaler order all the child variants under one parent, keep the cheapest one, and return the rest. When I looked more closely, I even noticed the consignee name had been changed, which honestly made it feel very uncomfortable.
At the time Seller Support told me to raise an abuse case. I did try a few times, but the form kept failing because the text box kept turning red, and in the end I gave up because the whole thing was too frustrating.
So my case was not exactly the same as yours, but I do understand that feeling of being pushed right to the edge by repeated behaviour from the same buyer, and then not being able to get any proper help from Amazon. That part can make you feel very alone.
What makes it worse is that the damage is not only the shipping cost, refund, return charge, or A-to-Z impact. If the same ASIN keeps getting returned, that can also affect the ASIN itself and push it down in the system, so one bad buyer can end up damaging future sales as well. That is what makes this kind of thing feel so unfair.
I also wanted to ask the moderators a few system-level questions, because I think this is bigger than just one difficult buyer.
- If an item is physically returned, does that count as relevant evidence when Amazon reviews a non-receipt A-to-Z claim? I am not saying a returned item automatically proves the buyer received it, because it could also be a carrier failure or return to sender. But it is still an important trace event, and from the seller side it is impossible to tell whether that is being considered at all.
- Also, what exactly does Amazon mean by “delivered to an invalid address” in this context? From the seller side that wording is very unclear. It could mean a real address problem, a carrier scan issue, or some other delivery-failure classification, but as it stands it is very hard to audit what actually happened.
- And if the same buyer returns the same ASIN multiple times with the same or very similar return reason, does Amazon still treat those as normal customer returns when calculating ASIN performance?
That seems important, because repeated returns from one buyer could easily be read by the system as a product-quality issue, when actually it may be a high-risk abuse pattern. But if the system ignores that behaviour completely, then it could also miss a genuine abuse signal.
The same thing applies to return reasons. Customers do not always choose the return reason that best reflects what really happened. Sometimes they pick the easiest one, or one that avoids return costs. So if repeated same-buyer returns with the same reason are treated as straightforward proof of product dissatisfaction, that could distort the ASIN picture as well.
So does Amazon distinguish between:
- repeated evidence of poor product quality
- repeated behaviour from the same buyer that may indicate abuse
Both matter, but they should not be treated as the same thing. Otherwise the ASIN, the seller, and even Amazon’s own platform metrics could be distorted by behaviour that is not actually representative of normal customer experience.
I don’t have a perfect solution, but I just wanted to say I do believe you, and I do not think you are overreacting. Sometimes the hardest part is not even the money. It is when the pattern feels obvious to you, but nobody at Amazon seems willing to actually look at it properly.
Seller_ZVAz3d5lZuGid
@Seller_PZS4P5DAkgpSC - this sounds like a customer who knows very well how to play the Amazon system, and defraud you, the seller.
As soon as a customer make an A-z claim, they will be refunded, and almost impossible to appeal.
Have you checked out the delivery address ? - not sure why it would say 'delivered to an invalid address' ?
You're probably beginning to realise that Seller Support are not much support, and most of their replies are from scripted answers.
Can't suggest much more, unless anyone else comes along with ideas.
Seller_PZS4P5DAkgpSC
I fully agree with your questions!
Seller_IQo80d99W2DzP
@Seller_PZS4P5DAkgpSC
What is the ASIN she keeps buying?
Did you sell on an existing ASIN with a product that looks the same, but the brand name is either different, or no brand name on it?
Lots of especially Sellers abroad where you cannot get at them, want Amazon to be like eBay and they have 'their' listing, they want no one else to sell on it.
They buy generic items, register a brand, own barcodes and then claim that as 'their' listing. If anyone else sells the same item, but on 'THEIR' listing, then they buy from them and keep causing issues, until you stop selling what they consider is 'their' product page.
Amazon will not do anything about it, as they registered their made up brand name, and only the barcode is really different. They can even report you for selling fake items, so be very careful.
Could that be the issue?
Aria_Amazon
Hello @Seller_PZS4P5DAkgpSC,
I took a look at your situation, and I can see why this has been so draining.
What you're describing — the same buyer repeatedly ordering, returning with the same reason, and then filing A-to-Z claims while the return is still in transit — is exactly the kind of pattern that the Report Abuse form is designed to catch. The fact that you're receiving a circular response pointing you back to the same form is something I'd like to help with.
@Seller_IQo80d99W2DzP raised a great question about whether this could be tied to a listing-related issue, which is definitely worth exploring further. It may be worth double-checking whether anyone else is selling on the same ASIN or if there's a brand conflict at play.
Here's what I'd suggest as your next steps:
Report the buyer for abuse — go to Seller Central, locate each impacted order, and use the "Report a Problem" option to flag the buyer's activity. When submitting, reference all affected order IDs in a single report to clearly demonstrate the repetitive pattern rather than isolated incidents. This is critical in building a case that reflects the full scope of the abuse.
Create a new Seller Support case — reference all affected order IDs together in a single case. Clearly outline the pattern: same buyer, same ASIN, same return reason, and simultaneous A-to-Z claims filed while returns are still in transit. Ask them to escalate this to the Account Health team for a manual review of the buyer's activity on your account.
If you've already done this and hit a wall, feel free to share your case IDs here and I'll do my best to get this looked into further.
Hope this helps!
-Aria
Seller_EXwt7GyQDq9DX
welcome to to amazon.. Biggest scam for people have little money to give to amazon
Amazon was only a hype and that was created to rob you and me kind of people
Seller_wXsnXkMqIS7Ev
This sounds like a fellow amazon seller trying to get you to stop selling this item, have you had any agro with any fellow sellers trying to warn you off seeling this item?
Apparently there are people who will,for a price, attack and trash amazon sellers profitability and seller rating.
We had this with a chinese seller a few years ago.