Refund extra charges
Hi guys,
I had a refund request from a buyer within the UK, the item was £7.25 itself, however I had to pay an extra £10 shipping fee on top of the refund to the buyer… It was automatically applied on amazon refund and I had to pay for it otherwise I would be in red… which I don’t really understand why. So I sold an item for £7.25, paid the postage myself for the buyer, then I had to refund the buyer £17.25??? I tried to contact seller support but they didn’t really answer my question as usual. Can any professional seller please help me with this? Many thanks
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
27 replies
Seller_SITNVuZK87zGK
Were you charging £10 outbound shipping on the order?
Seller_3yhYGU61cigbH
Was this a charge from Amazon for the return?
Seller_SITNVuZK87zGK
From Manage Returns - can you click Issue Refund next to the return in question and screenshot the page (redacting any customer or personal information)?
Seller_SITNVuZK87zGK
However, looking at the return details - I’ve never seen ‘Return Shipping’ as a line on mine. In most instances amazon simply supply a prepaid return label (either Evri or RM Tracked 48).
And given the return reason was the item itself was missing what on earth did they even return. I’d also note its, I assume Seller Fulfilled Prime, not sure if there is anything that amazon control on this?
Seller_VJFloi7Cs0iaR
Just for reference,
You need to pull the term ‘TWS’ and any wording that might have it in the description / bullets etc, as the term has been trademarked by someone in China and added to brand registry, it won’t be long before you receive a copyright infringement if you leave it in.
Seller_b5LDA3tnfaBEG
Looking at the return reason item missing from package how was a return of nothing cost £10? We have a section to refund return postage, if the item is returned as faulty etc and it really is I issue a refund of the £3 standard packet post, if the item is returned as not as expected or something I never issue the postage I make a refund then close the case as partial refund. Not had a major issue so far, as most people are happy with the refund of what they paid for the item.
Seller_tRuvBEHDedp4q
If customer stated ‘missing parts or accessories’ as the return reason then Amazon should have issued a pre-paid returns label and charged you for it (whether the reason for the return was valid/accurate is another matter you would have to deal with separately).
Customer then should use the pre-paid label. If they do not then I thought they are not allowed to claim the return cost back? However, whether Amazon issue a pre-paid returns label depends on whether they think item is bulky or not (I know in this case it is small, but its the set weight/size of the item that regulates this).
The return cost would normally be £3.35 for a parcel and so Amazon would charge you this (because of the return reason). However, I have in the past had trouble with sizing/weight of an item causing Amazon not to issue a pre-paid label for the parcel but for them to instead ask customer to return and then claim cost back. This seems to have happened in this case - so customer has claimed it cost £10 to send back and Amazon will force you to pay it because of the return reason.
To determine if an item qualifies for a pre-paid returns label from Amazon they use this calculation:
Length + (2 * height) + (2 * width)
If this is above 245 then its considered a heavy bulky shipment and Amazon will not issue a pre-paid returns label and instead ask either seller to arrange the return or buyer to return and recover cost from seller (in this case £10)
In my case, my item was also small, but I was using the max sizes allowed by Royal Mail for all my parcels to make it easier. RM allow parcels upto 61 x 46 x 46 so to be on safe side I used values of 60 x 45 x 45 - but I accidentally entered the values into Amazon as 45 x 60 x 45
This was calculated by Amazon as 45 + (2 * 60) + (2 * 45) = 255
As this was above 245 Amazon said it was a bulky parcel so did not issue a pre-paid label
If I had entered in the correct order then the calculation would have given 240 and I would have been ok.
So - my advice is to check both weight and size of the item (I dont know the threshold for max weight). If these have been set wrong, then Amazon will say it a bulky item and not issue a pre-paid label and you get caught in these situations where customer uses a really expensive way to return item and you get charged for it (e.g. customer may have used Special Delivery for the return)
You could try proving to Amazon the customer selected wrong return reason and therefore abusing the returns process but how far you will get with that depends on the SS person it gets allocated to.
