I’ve never had a defective product claim before and when I got one recently, I couldn’t find any FBA or FBM returns with even a remotely similar Return Reason.
The answer to your question is no, a person cannot report an item as defective if it was not purchased on Amazon. There would be no way to do so.
The return reasons are not the only triggers for the bots. I believe they are also triggered by the word ‘defective’ in seller feedback and a couple other places I can’t think of right now.
Does the Voice of the Customer (VOTC) dashboard show anything for the ASIN?
A buyer can contact Amazon Customer Service via the telephone to report a defect which will not appear anywhere except possibly in the VOTC under See Details for the ASIN.
There’s also the off chance that the review / feedback left was removed from displaying because the bot found something else in it that it didn’t like.
Like - This piece of ■■■■ product is defective. Review / Feedback gets yanked but the defective sticks for the product in the backend. No way to find it but it’s there in Amazon’s eyes.
Thanks, this was it. I had some FBA returns I listed for sale as “Used” through FBM and, out of 3 sold in a short period, one was returned because the customer was surprised to discover that it was used (despite being listed as such) and another was returned because the customer bought two but only needed one. Apparently, the bot understood these unrelated actions to indicate that the product was defective.