We’ve been pretty lucky to have a very small number of A-Z claims over the past 10 years of selling on Amazon. When we do get one, we receive an email from Amazon letting us know a buyer has a problem. At that point we submit any required information or issue a refund to the buyer. For the most part, it’s pretty cut-and-dried and painless. As a result, I was pretty surprised to get the following email this weekend:
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SUBJECT: A-to-Z Guarantee Claim Decision for Order 104-XXXXXXX-XXXXX33
Hello,
We have granted the claim for this order and issued a refund to the buyer:
— Order Number: 104-XXXXXXX-XXXXX33
— Date of Claim: April 16, 2017
— Refund Amount: $18.14
We have determined that you are responsible for the claim, as the buyer reported that the item never arrived and there is no signature confirmation of delivery. As a result, we will debit your account for the refund amount.
To avoid future claims, you may wish to use a trackable shipping method that requires a signature, or ship using a label purchased from Shipping Services.
For tips that may help you avoid claims in the future, search “A-to-z Guarantee” in Seller Central Help.
Best regards,
Amazon.com A-to-z Guarantee Program
http://www.amazon.com/help/atoz
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I never received an email asking for any information prior to receiving the above email. It seems the buyer opened the claim and it was immediately granted. In the case of the above order, the buyer provided an un-deliverable shipping address and asked that it be re-shipped to another address. We indicated we would reship it as soon as the package arrived back to us.
Amazon of course has access to the emails outlining the conversations that took place so it is odd that they did not:
- Ask for the original tracking information as they usually do even though they have access to it.
- Ask us if we re-shipped the package to the new address.
- Give us the option of refunding minus shipping costs since the address was the buyer’s mistake.
I immediately responded to the claim as an appeal since that was the only option and asked why we hadn’t been contacted or asked for any additional information. I also asked if Amazon had changed their policy.
Hello, This order had an A-Z claim submitted today. Why were we not given the option to represent our case? The buyer asked us to resend to another address. Why didn’t you ask us if we did? The buyer provided an un-deliverable address. Why didn’t we have the option to refund minus shipping as per our and Amazon’s policy? I find it most unusual Amazon refunded without asking for any information from the seller. Thank you.
The response I received:
Hello,
We have reviewed the buyer’s claim and the information you provided for order 104-XXXXXXX-XXXXX33. You are responsible for the claim because the tracking information does not prove that the merchandise was delivered to the buyer’s shipping address.
You can contact the buyer to make return arrangements, but please keep in mind that they are not obliged to return the item. They may be willing to do so if you provide a pre-paid return label, organize a collection, or issue a refund for the return costs.
To learn more about claims for non-receipt and how to avoid them in the future, please visit http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=12758941#fulfillment.
Sincerely,
—
Rahil XXX
Account Specialist
A-to-z Guarantee Program
The response did not address any of my questions and added a part about making return arrangements. (Interesting response since the buyer claimed non-receipt.) I again asked the same questions and asked for clarification. The new response:
Hello,
We have reviewed the buyer’s claim and the information you provided for order 104-XXXXXXX-XXXXX33.
The maximum estimated delivery date or 30 days from the order date had passed and the buyer had not received the merchandise. You are responsible for this claim because you had not submitted the tracking number to us when the claim was filed.
We understand you may not agree with our decision, but the A-to-z Guarantee claim will remain unchanged.
In the future, please enter tracking information on the Confirm Shipments page or in your Shipping Confirmation File as soon as you dispatch an order. It is not sufficient to provide tracking information directly to the buyer.
To learn more about this policy, search for “Confirm Shipments” in Seller Central Help.
You may contact the buyer to check if they received the merchandise after filing the claim. If so, please advise them to contact us at buyer-guarantee@amazon.com to confirm receipt of the merchandise and authorize a new charge. Please keep in mind that contact between parties must be respectful. We do not allow inappropriate or excessive contact between parties.
Sincerely
—
Wangkhem XXX
Account Specialist
A-to-z Guarantee Program
Once again, my questions were not answered and I was given a bunch of conflicting information I did not ask for. First of all, I did not provide any information since no one gave us the chance to do so. Secondly, all of our shipments contain tracking information in the Amazon dashboard. I responded again asking for a member of the leadership team to review the case and to please answer my questions. I haven’t heard back on that yet, but I will update this blog post when I do.
I did come across this in the seller forums:
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Ok, head spinning a little at this one.
We’ve been selling here since 2009, we’re not at all new to the A-Z experience. We’ve had a handful over the years, most of which we’ve won upon challenging.
Here’s this situation, and like the header says, I’m not sure what just happened.
Customer purchased item from us in February, we shipped within 24 hours (it was an APO address). Yesterday the buyer emailed us that he didn’t receive the order. We researched, and tracking clearly shows the item was lost in transit, never made it past our home city. We replied with an apology and said we would see if we had another copy to send, or if he preferred we could just refund the order.
Today, we receive email notification of “A-to-z Guarantee Claim Decision”, “We have granted the claim for this order and issued a refund to the buyer.”
We never even received notification of the A-Z claim. The claim history shows that it was filed following our email exchange, but we literally did not receive notification, forget about being allowed the three days to respond.
Are some A-Z’s automatic? If so, we stand to be educated. But I haven’t encountered that on the forums previously.
Could someone let us know if we missed something here, or if this is indeed screwy?
Thanks.
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Interestingly, this thread in the seller forums was submitted the same day we received our notification following the same script.
Last November Amazon changed the seller response time for an A-Z claim from 7 days to 3 days.
“Beginning November 14, the response time to an A-to-z Guarantee claim notification will decrease from 7 calendar days to 3 calendar days. This means that you will have 3 days to respond to Amazon via Seller Central to any claim filed against you by the buyer. Failure to respond to a claim in this timeframe will result in the claim being decided in favor of the buyer. Responding directly to the buyer or calling Seller Support does not qualify as an official response to the claim.”
Their official announcement indicates sellers have 3 days to give their response to a claim.
The A-Z claim information in Seller Central also states that when a claim is filed you are expected to respond right away and you have 3 days to do so. There is no mention of Amazon closing A-Z claims without contacting the seller.
If you receive an A-to-z Guarantee claim, it’s important that you respond right away.
The A-to-z Guarantee Claims feature, found on the Performance menu in Seller Central, is the best way to view, manage, and respond to claims, and Amazon also sends notifications to your claims notification email address. (You can choose how and where you receive notifications in Notifications Options.)
You have 3 days to respond to claim notifications on pending claims. Otherwise, Amazon will grant the buyer’s claim and the full amount of the claim will be deducted from your seller account in accordance with your seller agreement.
So I’m left wondering if Amazon has changed their policy or if this is one of many “miscommunications” between Amazon, third party sellers, and the ever-increasing outsourced Seller Central support staff. I’ll update when I know more.
Update: After asking for a response from someone on the leadership team, I received the following:
Hello,
My name is Ananda XXXX and I am a senior member of the Amazon.com A-to-z Guarantee Claims department. We received your message about order 104-XXXXXXX-XXXXX33.
As stated previously, the maximum estimated delivery date or 30 days from the order date had passed and the buyer had not received the merchandise. You are responsible for this claim because you had not submitted the tracking number to us when the claim was filed.
We understand you may not agree with our decision, but the A-to-z Guarantee claim will remain unchanged.
In the future, please enter tracking information on the Confirm Shipments page or in your Shipping Confirmation File as soon as you dispatch an order. It is not sufficient to provide tracking information directly to the buyer.
To learn more about this policy, search for “Confirm Shipments” in Seller Central Help.
You may contact the buyer to check if they received the merchandise after filing the claim. If so, please advise them to contact us at buyer-guarantee@amazon.com to confirm receipt of the merchandise and authorize a new charge. Please keep in mind that contact between parties must be respectful. We do not allow inappropriate or excessive contact between parties.
Although we understand your position, we have reviewed this claim and we stand by our decision. We cannot give you more information about this matter, and we may not reply to further emails about this claim.
Sincerely
—
Ananda XXX
Account Specialist
A-to-z Guarantee Program
Once again, my questions were not answered. In addition, “You are responsible for this claim because you had not submitted the tracking number to us when the claim was filed.” This is maddening considering the whole point of these emails is to find out why the claim was filed and immediately granted without giving us the chance to represent our case.
To add insult to injury she then states: In the future, please enter tracking information on the Confirm Shipments page or in your Shipping Confirmation File as soon as you dispatch an order. It is not sufficient to provide tracking information directly to the buyer.”
Again, the order itself in Amazon did have the shipping tracking number within the confirm shipments page. Once again, I responded.
Hello,
Zu Adams 