On every FF, we add sig. con. Always have, always will, whether Amazon states is possible Late Delivery or not. Over nearly 14 years, we’ve had one issue, w/ a Harlingen,Texas FF.. Soon as we gave them the name/date on the delivery confirmation, they shut up, went away.
Though the price of sig. con keep creeping up ($3.90, now),in our opinion, the extra expense is worth the lack of problems. Plus we have, at most, a dozen FF orders a year. Might feel differently if had 100 -or 1000!
Most FF are either too busy or in some cases, shady, to pay attention. A seller has to protect oneself.
When label is a "Late Delivery Risk " one, though we lost AZ claim protection and OTDR protection, are we still protected from Negative Feedback ? will Amazon still strike through such feedback automatically ?
While I cannot confirm this, it is my belief that as long as the conditions are still upheld, they will strike through.
I think their bot/script will do its usual job of detecting any keyword in the feedback to see if it mentions or relates to shipping/delivery and any associated keywords, then check if Amazon Buy Shipping was used, and if so, automatically strike through.
I could be wrong, but I believe since it is bot automated that would still hold true.
A little update on my INR inquiry that started this thread.
The buyer messaged back couple times today to say his freight forwarder didn’t receive the package at their address nor did they pick it up at post office. He think USPS totally mishandled it and it’s lost. Who knows, that’s certainly possible. He sounded nice enough and reasonable during this whole thing, so maybe he was not try to scam me, but what do I know.
The buyer didn’t seem willing to deal with USPS, wanted to know if I’d send a replacement or refund. I’m certainly not sending a replacement since who knows where the replacement is going to end up at. Did tell him I’ll submit a mail/package theft report on USPS website in case this is a known problem for that area.
Taking the experiences from @RandomSeller136, instead of just issue a refund myself, I gave the buyer the info on how to request A-Z refund for “item didnt arrive”, told him to wait 48 hrs before making the request. Now, we’ll see what happens next.
Today my customer requested “Package didn’t arrive” A-Z refund for the above mentioned order. I received an email from Amazon about it, and part of stated: “You currently do not need to take any action while our team reviews this claim. Once we have made a decision, we will notify you and the customer via email. However, if we determine that additional information is required during our review, we will reach out to you via email. You must respond within 3 calendar days.”
So couple questions:
1)How long does it usually take Amazon to decide on an INR A-Z claim when using Amazon buying shipping?
2) Does everybody usually just do nothing at this stage and wait to see what kind of decision Amazon will make, then appeal if they decided against us by not protect the claim eventhough we used Amazon Buy Shipping label?
The order was shipped on time (first scan on time too), using Amazon buy shipping label (an USPS GA “late delivery risk” label but was delivered 3 days before Amazon’s deliver by date). USPS tracking show delivered as "somebody picked up at post office. Buyer said neither his freight forwarder nor himself picked up the package, so he/the freight forwarder didn’t receive the package.
So, does this situation sound like something Amazon will cover the refund out of their pocket and not impact my account health or order defect rate (ODR)?
Responding to your question, while as stated above there are many times they instantly grant and cover the claim, when it does go to this stage, even though it says “No action required” I still “Respond to Amazon” with the following template. As long as Buy shipping was used and the initial carrier scan was on time, and you responded to any customer messages (In my early days I lost a claim for not responding to their message, learned my lesson and never happened again) I have never lost.
This claim meets all requirements for Amazon “Item Not Received” coverage. This item was shipped with Amazon Buy Shipping. The carrier shows an on-time acceptance scan of (INSERT DATE) with full tracking to delivery (INSERT DATE). Since Amazon Buy Shipping was used, the order was shipped to the exact address on the order as required. All messages to the customer were promptly responded to on-time. All Amazon selling policies and regulations were followed.
In our own experience, 5-7 business days has pretty much been the norm, and from what I’ve seen reported over the years in various versions of the ASF (“Amazon Seller Forum”), among other Amazon-biz-specific discussion venues, it would appear that many other 3P Sellers experience similar wait times.
That’s precisely what we ourselves typically do - wait and see how the A-to-z Team reacts before doing anything else (provided that the wait doesn’t become inordinately long, in which case our people who handle these matters will [reluctantly] open an inquiry case w/ Seller Support), and appealing - typically, with short, succinct bullet points including links to & an applicable quotation of Amazon’s own published policy - if the decision does not EXACTLY comport with said policy.
First a question: In general, how many days did you have to wait to get A-Z decision after you “Respond to Amazon”?
I also decided to “Respond to Amazon” right now, instead of wait, with the following message that was altered a bid from your template (Thanks for that)
This order was shipped to the exact address on the order . This order was shipped with Amazon Buy Shipping. The carrier shows an on-time acceptance scan on December 8, 2025, with full tracking showing on-time delivery (Individual Picked Up at Post Office) on December 13, 2025, 3 days before Amazon’s deliver by date. All messages from the customer were promptly responded to on-time. All Amazon selling policies and regulations were followed. If the customer claim the order was not received because they didn’t pick up the package at the Post office, then Amazon’s A-to-Z Guarantee should covered the cost of this claim and not impact my account health or order defect rate because I used Amazon’s Buy Shipping and the customer issue was outside your (didn’t catch this typo, should be “my”, hope it won’t cost me)control.
At least now I know I did what I can for a favorable result, nothing else I can do but wait. Otherwise waiting a week for the A-Z decision, I probably will be climbing the walls second guessing whether I should “Respond” or not.
I assume you mean in my “Respond to Amazon” statement.
I was trying to keep things simple enough in my statement. If a real person is reviewing the claim, they most likely would review the messages between the buyer and I, so then they’d see the mention there about the freight forwarder, if they haven’t already notice that from the address on the order.
I’m hoping for Amazon to decide on cover the claim out of their pocket and not impact my ODR. Don’t really want Amazon to deny the claim, and end up have to deal with a chargeback claim. But I guess that is a possibility.
Well, that was fast enough. In less than a day A-Z decision is here: “We have denied an A-to-z Guarantee claim of $29.95 on the order XXX. No further action is required from you at this time and we have not counted the claim against your order defect rate.”
There isn’t any info on my end as to why it was denied. but
Maybe that is the reason, or Amazon just didn’t believe the buyer’s statement that they didn’t pick up the package at the post office.
I’m sort of glad this claim didn’t effect me at this point, just hoping there is not going to be a chargeback claim coming.
Thanks to everybody for all the shared info and tips, I learned a lot from this issue. If I do get a chargeback claim, which I never had one, I’ll have to ask for help to deal with that again.
ETA: Reading the email from Amazon about the A-Z claim, this was what it said: “In this case, the claim was filed out of policy or we detected customer activity that violated our policies.”
