📦 FBA Inventory Protection: Amazon's Lost & Damaged Policies
Dear Amazon Sellers,
Worried about lost or damaged inventory? Don't be! We've created this comprehensive guide to help you understand exactly how to protect your investment.
💰 Are You Eligible for Reimbursement?
Quick checklist - your item must:
- ✓ Be actively registered in FBA
- ✓ Meet all FBA requirements
- ✓ Match your shipping plan quantities
- ✓ Not be marked for disposal or defective
- ✓ Be linked to an account in good standing
🔄 How Does Amazon Make It Right?
Two ways we've got you covered:
- Brand new replacement product
- Direct monetary reimbursement
📊 Show Me The Money: How We Calculate Your Reimbursement
Before Sale (Pre-order):
- Based on your actual sourcing cost
- Pro Tip: Update your costs on the "Manage Your Sourcing Cost" page
- No cost provided? We'll estimate (but it's better if you tell us!)
After Sale (Customer returns):
- Calculated from refund/replacement value
- We'll subtract applicable fees and VAT
⚠️ Important Things to Keep in Mind:
- Maximum payout: £2,000 per unit
- Time limit: File within 60 days
- Warning: False claims can affect your account
- We may reverse incorrect reimbursements
📝 Proving Your Case:
- Keep those sourcing cost receipts handy!
- We respect your confidentiality
- Red flags that might delay your claim:
- Unusual pricing
- Questionable documentation
- Account compliance issues
- Recent similar disputes
💡 Pro Tip: Selling luxury items over £2,000? Consider getting additional insurance coverage!
Questions? Drop them in the comments below! We're here to help you protect your business.
0 replies
Seller_EHcsm3BRJeoc3
@Spencer_Amazon Thank you for the guide. We would appreciate your advice on the following issue.
We send products to Amazon, which come with the original manufacturer label displaying both the EAN and UPC codes. In some cases, a single product has two different ASINs—one linked to the EAN and the other to the UPC. This often results in booking discrepancies, where approximately 5% of the units are not received correctly because the UPC code is scanned instead of the EAN. For example, 95 units may be booked under the correct ASIN, while 5 units are recorded as missing.
This is proving to be a challenge, as Amazon’s customer service often advises us that the error is due to incorrect plan creation, citing a mismatch between the manufacturer identifier and the ASIN. However, we believe that if the EAN code were consistently scanned, all units would be booked correctly.
As a business, we prefer to ship products using the original manufacturer EAN labels rather than applying unique FNSKU labels.
We would greatly appreciate your guidance on how to address this issue and whether there is a solution that allows us to continue using the original manufacturer barcodes.
Best regards,
liGo
Seller_yylt4LmSkAuNg
"Based on your actual sourcing cost
No cost provided? We'll estimate (but it's better if you tell us!)"
We gave Amazon all our sourcing costs (we manufacture the products ourselves so know exactly what they cost!) and for several products, Amazon told us we were wrong and refused to change them! :)
Seller_GyixEYg6ofi9H
Absolutely outstanding, stay tuned....... @Spencer_Amazon
Seller_GyixEYg6ofi9H
Dear I sincerely appreciate the detailed and enthusiastic outline of Amazon’s FBA Inventory Protection policies. However, your optimistic portrayal of these policies starkly contrasts with the frustrating and often absurd reality that many experienced sellers, myself included, continually face.
Firstly, regarding your point on eligibility and documentation, my business has consistently and meticulously provided accurate, thorough, and timely documentation, perfectly aligning with our sourcing costs. Ironically, despite your confident claims about the ease of updating these costs via the "Manage Your Sourcing Cost" page, your system has repeatedly and inexplicably rejected these invoices, even when they exactly match the information requested. This is hardly the seamless process your post cheerfully promises.
Secondly, your guide confidently states reimbursements reflect accurate sourcing costs. Yet, my extensive records, diligently maintained across numerous case IDs clearly document scenarios where Amazon significantly undervalued reimbursements or arbitrarily rejected legitimate claims only to later accept the identical documentation previously dismissed multiple times. It's as though your reimbursement system thrives on creating unnecessary obstacles for dedicated sellers.
Furthermore, your reassuring message emphasizes Amazon’s commitment to rectifying lost inventory by offering replacements or monetary reimbursement. In stark contrast, my experience includes baffling instances where Amazon attempted to substitute missing inventory with completely unrelated ASINs from other sellers and brands, essentially instructing me to fraudulently list items I neither own nor could ethically sell. Such tactics not only border on fraud but directly undermine the trust between sellers and your platform, completely contradicting your purported protections.
Addding insult to injury, your outlined "red flags" amusingly include "questionable documentation" and "recent similar disputes." Ironically, my consistently transparent and accurate documentation has been unfairly labelled questionable without valid reason. Any repetitive disputes we encounter directly result from Amazon's astonishingly inconsistent and contradictory approach to legitimate claims, not any imagined wrongdoing on our part.
Let's consider pack-size discrepancies a favourite excuse of Amazon’s support team. Claims stating single units were received instead of clearly labelled multi-packs defy logic and reality, given we exclusively package and ship our products in strictly defined pack quantities. Despite comprehensive explanations, detailed photographic evidence, and emails escalated directly to Amazon’s managing directors, this illogical and inexplicable error persists. At this point, one must wonder if this issue reflects severe internal mismanagement or deliberate obstruction.
Equally bewildering is the frequent citing of weight discrepancies as grounds to reject claims. For instance, if we dispatch a shipment weighing 30kg via your own partnered carrier, UPS, clearly sufficient for 30 units, and only 20kg arrive, it indicates a loss, plain and simple. Your policy explicitly covers such losses, yet claims have been repeatedly rejected citing these exact weight discrepancies. Rejecting reimbursements precisely because the documented losses occurred is, quite literally, an absurdity worthy of satire.
Given the substantial and well-documented cases across multiple shipments, Amazon’s chronic failure in fairly and accurately implementing its stated reimbursement policies is painfully evident. Seller Support’s relentless incompetence marked by repetitive, generic, and often conflicting responses only exacerbates the frustration, driving sellers toward despair rather than resolution.
Can I personally ask for your assistance, @Spencer_Amazon, in finally achieving a meaningful and fair resolution across numerous outstanding issues and shipments?
If Amazon genuinely intends to support its sellers and "make things right," as you enthusiastically suggest, immediate and significant improvements in claim processing consistency, transparency, and fairness must be urgently prioritized. Until then, your optimistic promises remain disappointingly theoretical, rather than a practical reality.
Regards,
Ross (Removed by moderator)
Seller_b6KUjCVzNVzP4
Thank you for the information. However, my shipment (ID: FBA15K0BR0JB), which I sent to the FBA warehouse 6 months ago, is still missing. I have contacted support multiple times and submitted all the required documents, but I haven’t received any resolution. The reimbursement process should not take this long. I urgently request support regarding this issue and would like to be contacted by someone who can provide a concrete solution.
@Spencer_Amazon