A-to-z claim decision & instant refund for customer despite her already receiving a replacement, no option to respond

Hi all,

I really need some decent advice regarding a suspected fraudulent A to Z claim made by a “customer”.

She ordered an expensive Coffee machine (£359.95) which was received without issue and then reported as faulty after about a week. The unit was collected successfully and a replacement unit sent straight away. Only one hour after she received the replacement unit, she opened the A to Z claim and I received the email stating the following:

"Dear Specialist Electricals,

We have granted an A-to-z Guarantee claim of £359.95 on order *****. We have debited the amount from your account and have counted the claim against your Order Defect Rate.

Why is this happening?
The A-to-z Guarantee protects customers when they purchase items sold and fulfilled by you directly. Our guarantee covers both the timely delivery and the condition of items you sell. If customers are unsatisfied with either and cannot reach a resolution with you, we enable them to file a claim with us. In this case, the customer claimed an issue with the item(s) received and we determined that either the order was different than expected or there was an issue with the return for which you were responsible.

Has the claim been granted in error?
If you disagree with our decision and have new information for our review, you have the option to appeal within 30 calendar days on the A-to-z Guarantee Claims page in Seller Central: https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/pwo/index.html

We’re here to help
For more information about the A-to-z Guarantee policy or how to avoid claims in the future, please refer to the ‘How to prevent claims’ section on our help page: https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/27951

Thank you."

The refund had already gone through but I appealed it but this worryingly, was denied by the A to Z team too. They stated,

"Thank you for taking the time to provide us with additional information regarding the claim on order ****. Upon further review, we have decided to uphold our original decision.

Why was my appeal denied?
We reviewed the details for this claim and found that you did not respond to the buyer’s return request before the claim was filed. To help Sellers avoid any potential or unnecessary A-to-z Guarantee claims, we ensure that Buyers first contact you and wait for 48 hours for a response prior to being eligible to file a claim. You are required to provide a response to this contact."

After I received the reply, I was furious because I had dealt with the issue and had sent a replacement unit before any claim was filed. In fact, the customer received the replacement unit and only one hour after taking delivery, she opened the A to Z bogus claim.

I should also add I think it is suspicious that the customer would use three different addresses, the original order address, a second address for the collection of the original faulty unit and then asked us to redirect the replacement to a third address after it had been sent which I emailed her about as I thought it was strange that one order would use 3 addresses. As I was very busy at that time, I let it go but on reflection, my intuition flashed up a red light at this juncture & I should have said no & just refunded the original order.

All the Buyer/Seller communications can surely be seen by the Investigations team, if they had done their job properly, they would have clearly seen all the information they needed to see that I had successfully delivered a replacement item before any A to Z claim was opened.

I’ve responded to Seller Performance with PDF copies of the original and replacement orders to the same customer, they show the dates of dispatch, etc but I’ve had no response up until now and I don’t know where to turn as Seller Performance should be there to support us with these types of fraudulent customer, so far I’ve received no support and have lost the best part of 360 quid, who can afford to lose that much in these times?

So, what are my options please. I really want to pick up the phone and call the customer but am not sure how to proceed. Do you think this is a case for the Police? and how about Seller Performance, they denied my appeal and I have no idea if they will reopen, how can I appeal the appeal? sounds like a farce doesn’t it! Is there any option to report Amazon to the Financial Ombudsman, there must be some Organisation who can take a look at Seller Performance, I was genuinely shocked at the way they work.

Any assistance out there is greatly received.

Best wishes, Greg
Specialist Electricals.