If you take a look through the forums, this kind of thing happens all of the time.
Buyers do this, to get a free return.
As such, there really isn’t a great deal that you can do about it other than reporting the customer.

https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/abuse-submission/form/buyer-abuse-refund

Don’t expect much to happen though.

how do you manage to deduct the return postage then?

thanks for your advice. That works!

I’ve used the form a few times recently to report buyers misusing returns. Only once did I get a response from Amazon “thanking” me for reporting the buyer and confirming they’d investigated but couldn’t comment further blah blah.

I always deduct the percentage that matches the label cost but be aware the buyer could file an A-Z claim. Most don’t because they know they’ve given a false reason but some do.

In our experience returns policy is actually not used in the manner in which its described on the platform. We have had several customers alleging the product is defective and when we have received the order back nothing is wrong with the item or item(s). We have also noticed mostly in the last three years some are deliberately ordering items with no intention to keep the product. They make a fictitious claim the item was not what they expected or the item is damaged just so they see a high number of returns. Also the number of customer cannot provide an accurate delivery address or full name has increased.

eBay had the above issues sometime time back and now the same people who doing the same on Amazon.

All the above actually not compliance with the terms of use and sale which was accepted at the time the account was created.

This happens all the time, we get returns daily now and nothing wrong with them, its so they dont have to pay the postage basically.

What about the ones that return something less value or empty box and you pull your hair out while Amazon do nothing and you cant do anything, don’t dwell in it , believe me, it will drive you insane!

It is part of the parcel with Amazon unfortunately. As mentioned by the other sellers on here. If it makes you feel better I sold £480 of oak doors to one customer, they painted and stained them, then returned them and then Amazon binned them “because they were made of glass and dangerous” yes a solid oak door with no hinges, nothing just solid oak, Amazon thought was glass. The refunded the buyer in full and I’m down £400 just from one order! Oh and of course I had to pay £48.00 for the customer to return them, then another around £48.00 for Amazon to bin them without my permission.

Welcome to Amazon…