The “Time Bomb”: An Introduction to Eligible Amazon Reimbursements

More than a year has passed since you opened your Seller Central account on Amazon. During this time, your business has grown immeasurably...
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Opportunities in Your FBA Business

Your product listings have expanded, and you have begun to rely increasingly on FBA services to manage the storage and shipments of your items.

You recently learned that, since your account’s inception, you very likely lost substantial sums of money, be it from lost and damaged items, shipment discrepancies, or unrefunded customer returns. Up until now, you either have not heard of this or did not find these issues significant enough to give too much thought.

With that in mind, you decide to start a thorough analysis of your reports and recover everything Amazon rightfully owes you.

If this fits your description even remotely, you should know that some amounts for which Amazon should reimburse you may no longer be available. If too much time passes from a particular event or transaction, Amazon may no longer approve your request. Just like the audit of the account itself, timing is essential to ensure that you maximize your profits.

As such, there are a couple of aspects you should know about Amazon’s Terms and Conditions and Reimbursement policy. In this thread, we highlight the essential guidelines every seller should be aware of when filing for reimbursements:

1. Inventory Reimbursements

– Amazon will usually allow for inventory reimbursements to occur only for events that occurred at most 18 months before the present day. Items damaged before this time may no longer be eligible for a refund.
– For damaged and missing items from the warehouse, Amazon requires that you allow 30 days from the date the event occurred before filing for reimbursement.

2. Inbound Shipments

– In case of discrepancies between the amounts sent to the Amazon warehouses and the amounts received, you must submit your requests for reimbursement for the missing items no later than 9 months after the shipment date. You will not be able to recover any discrepancies that occurred before this time interval.
– For recent shipments, Amazon may take a couple of weeks from the time the items were received before you can resolve any discrepancies. This reflects changes to Amazon’s policy to improve the accuracy of reconciling shipments. Additional time may be required to pass for the items to reach the intended fulfillment centers, as well as any reshipments to other locations for closer proximity to customers. The average wait time is around 2 weeks but may vary due to the reasons above.

3. Customer Refunds

– As is the case with inventory reimbursements, it is likely that customer refunds for items that they never returned will no longer be eligible for reimbursement after more than 18 months from the day of the event. This is something to keep in mind especially for veteran Amazon sellers who wish to audit their account information since the time of inception.
– According to Amazon’s policy, when a customer receives a refund for an item he or she never returns, a reimbursement is issued no longer than 45 days from the date of the return. Any requests for reimbursements before that time will not be approved.

If you want to learn more about unprocessed reimbursements, let’s get in touch!

You can schedule a discovery call here and unlock a free audit for your Amazon FBA business.

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