Customer purchased item 9/20, we shipped it 9/21 via USPS. That was the extent of the transaction. Never any communication from customer.
Woke up to an “A-Z Claim Granted” email.
“We have granted an A-to-z Guarantee claim of $37.70 on order ******. We have debited the amount from your account but have not counted the claim against your Order Defect Rate.”
Logging into the actual claim, it gives more detail:
“Why is this happening? The carrier was not able to deliver the item to the customer. Tracking shows that the shipment is being returned to you. We have debited the amount from your account but have not counted the claim against your Order Defect Rate because we understand the delivery problem was out of your control.”
USPS tracking is currently down, so I can’t verify this, but it sounds plausible.
However, WTF!?!!? No contact from customer, no chance to fix this situation, no Return Opened, Nothing, Nada. Just a successful A-Z granted against us.
I’m glad they didn’t hit my metrics with this… should I attempt to fight it in any way?
PS: I am able to use Amazon Buy Postage via ShipRush now, which I did effective today, which should hopefully reduce these…but even so, shouldn’t they follow their own policy?
If the package is actually on it’s way back to you, it seems like this was handled appropriated.
Essentially the customer put in the wrong address, filed an INR claim. If the package is en route back to you then the customer’s owed a refund, but it shouldn’t hit your metrics because you didn’t do anything wrong.
If the package is coming back then there’s nothing to fight, this is basically no different than a regular return and refund.
It says it WON’T count as an order defect, so that part is correct.
Amazon probably used the tracking data to make their automated decision. The customer probably didn’t get their item, therefore forcing a buyer to communicate is pointless. The A to Z program is for consumers not for sellers. The SAFE-T claim and Buy Shipping programs are for you to use in this case if the item does not come back.
I wouldn’t disagree with either premise, but the fact remains that Amazon’s published policy - both in CHC & SHC alike - specifies that prior contact, with a defined waiting period for the 3P Seller to respond, is a prerequisite for filing an A-to-z Claim.
I suspect that the lack of any prior notification - of which types of situations there’s been a somewhat-startling uptick, over the last 6 months or so in the NSFE, in reports of experiencing the same - represents a sea-change in Amazon’s approach (we’ve all seen that phenomenon before on the Returns & Refunds front, among others, over the past several years).
I remain trepid on the prospects of Amazon’s automated mechanisms getting ANY policy-shift right on the first three or four revisions - if for no other reason that there’s too much old code, bad code, poorly-formatted queries, improperly-configured databases/Enterprise Network Domains, and various other examples of incompetence already baked into the pie.
They heard it, they just don’t believe in it because it’s not good for job security. A constant slew of ideas on how to make things… “better,” well that says pay raise to me…
Yea, I hear you. This used to make me so mad when I worked for Nature’s Bounty…
We had perfect systems in place that every worker bee could do in their sleep with execution excellence and they just had to keep changing everything.
I spent almost a year working with SAP on implementation there and it went so badly that after a year, the CEO at the time pulled the plug. $10M+ investment down the drain or so it would seem.
During the vetting process, SAP Execs were with NBTY execs in a conference room for weeks hashing out the project. The concerns that NBTY raised to SAP were poo pooed. They were told these things could never happen. That was all being recorded on video and everyone knew it.
NBTY was going to sue them but as soon as the videos were surfaced, they were fully refunded. That’s one crazy story and it actually happened. Kudos to Harvey Kamil, one of the most brilliant people I ever worked with. Cunning and funny.
All of this was done to get away from the AS400 which was running everything at the time.
They pivoted to Oracle but couldn’t replace the AS400 to run the manufacturing operation.
Now that Nestle owns NBTY, they are attempting another SAP implementation because that’s their ERP. Good luck with that.
Just the mere fact that SAP calls items “Articles” would be good enough for me to walk away. I still cringe when I hear the word “Articles”, even if it doesn’t pertain to physical goods.
Are you sure that’s the best public response to leave? Few buyers will probably ever see it, but still…
My first guess as to what happened is the buyer accidentally left his feedback for the wrong seller. Maybe he ordered multiple items at one time and hit the wrong ‘leave feedback’ button within his order.
That seems more likely to me than that this buyer is intentionally trying to screw you.
I’m not big on letting people walk all over me. I asked the ‘buyer’ to remove it since they most likely left it for the wrong seller but nothing has happened.
IF they remove it I can delete it. Until then it’s not going to have any effect one way or the other as near as I can tell from past responses that are/were similar.
Ehhh, it’s best not to get into that mindset though. If this was the old ebay days where a seller could leave negative feedback for a buyer, I’d say sure, go for it to warn other people that this guy’s a problem, but leaving a response to a problem customer has zero impact on them so there’s no real upside to it. At best it’s a waste of time to write the response.
I’m assuming you’ve tried to remove feedback and Amazon wouldn’t remove it? They seem quite liberal at striking thru feedback nowadays, even for FBM sellers, so it’s worth trying.
Tread lightly…as the standard opinion/consensus on what is professional is not what counts.
This was a FBA hazmat order that the customer was not allowed to return. So they went on a hate campaign over $12, leaving reviews everywhere they could find.
They were not happy when their Amzaon feedback had this with a line through it.
Funny part is, if they had simply asked nicely, myself or another employee would have refunded it without batting an eyelash. But, they left a negative review we knew would be removed by Amazon and burned up all their leverage.
IDK how Amazon goes from allowing returns and refunds on everything, even stuff that’s out of policy, to creating problems by saying no returns or (very limited) refunds in certain categories.
The problem here is, Amazon customer service already pissed them off by saying no return, no refunds, so they lash out at you with a negative review, because most buyers don’t know the difference between Amazon’s customer service and customer service provided by a 3P seller. If I weren’t a seller, I would likely assume the seller refused me the return/refund when I clicked the button to contact someone and it automatically directs me to Amazon customer service because it was an FBA order.
Basically Amazon customer service botched this and then left you to deal w/ a pissed off customer.
When buyers purchase multiple items from multiple sellers in a single order, their messages regarding any problems often get sent to the wrong seller. This is also one of the reasons why sellers get so much feedback for the wrong orders. This buyer may have just been more confused than malicious or untruthful.
Because the laws regarding hazmat shipment cannot be met by the general public and disclaimers/label and packaging requirements are not assured to the carrier for transporting said returned hazmat items.
No they didn’t, the customer simply wanted a different outcome that did not align with their own decision tree or competency in reading the details. They would have received a refund if it was delivered late.
That’s why hazmat items say this…
They could offer a returnless refund, assuming that the customer isn’t requesting too many of those.
Supplements are another category where FBA causes negative reviews/feedback as a result of not refunding people who are unhappy for one reason or another as @ASV_Vites knows.
Sellers rarely have the chance to find out about these issues until after the negative is left as well since Amazon’s responsible for that CS.
Also, dishonest customers get a refund, and honest ones are basically told too bad, no return/no refund.
Few buyers will probably ever see it, but still…
