When did they change it to we have to pay to reimburse the customer?
Edit: now they have 2 pages that conflict.
Amazon Buy Shipping protections
There are two types of protections available from Amazon Buy Shipping: Claims Protection and OTDR Protection.
For Claims Protection: Amazon Buy Shipping shipments qualify for A-to-z and SAFE-T claims protections against “Package didn’t arrive” claims when all of the following conditions are true:
The buyer was reimbursed by Amazon for not receiving their package.
The shipping label was purchased with Amazon Buy Shipping and was a “Claims Protected” shipping service. The “Claims Protected” badge will be displayed in the Amazon Buy Shipping user interface before purchase and in the order details page Shipping label purchase section after the label is purchased. (Note: “Late Delivery Risk” labels are ineligible for protections).
3.Note:* Based on Amazon’s observation of millions of shipments, we have a high confidence that “Claims Protected” shipping services will deliver on time. “Late Delivery Risk” shipping services are those that, according to Amazon’s estimated delivery date, have a lower chance of being delivered on-time for the specific order.
The order was shipped on time, which will be considered at the moment of the carrier’s first scan, not when you confirm shipment.
When all of the above conditions are true, Amazon will fund the buyer reimbursement and the customer-reported claim will not be counted against your order defect rate.
Could you provide a link to that first help page, where it says we’re responsible for the financial loss? Is that verbiage in the regular help content? If so, I hope someone will bring this up with the mods (I am not on the NSFE).
If this is a recent change, it should have been announced on Seller Central.
If you use Amazon Buy Shipping and ship on time and the label you purchased has the Claims Protection badge, then INR will be covered by Amazon and not held against your metrics ODR. This hasn’t changed with the exception of the introduction of the “Late Delivery Risk” badge. If you purchase a label through Amazon Buy Shipping that has the “Late Delivery Risk” badge, then you loose your INR protection and OTDR protection. This is why Amazon has made a change to the wording in their shipping policy.
Right now, we see the AHT program is self destructing which means there will be several sellers that will most likely be seeing this “Late Delivery Risk” badge.
To begin with, AHT had 2 day handle time on all of our items. Then, we had one item go to 1 day handle time. Now, we have 3 items at 1 day handle time and one showing that it thinks it should be same day shipping. Yet all of the Average Actual Performances are 2 days or more (which is what the AHT is suppose to be calculated at).
The change in the policy wording, SSA and AHT are all very iffy right now. On top of that, we have seen an up tick in addresses that do not validate in the USPS system and some vary erratic pricing since the July 13, 2025 price increase. Here is a sample of the things we are tracking …
Anything with a “-Z4” next to the price is an order that the address doesn’t validate on USPS.
The one with the “Risk” next to the price is one of the items that the AHT was set to 1 day handle time.
The lines with the last column showing -0.05 or -0.04 are where Amazon is charging a lower price for Zone 5, Zone 6 or Zone 7. You can see there are a few with the correct price mixed in. You can also see that Amazon estimated delivery times are basically 5 or 6 business days ( a TD6* with the zip and then W1 stands for 6 day estimated delivery with one weekend day within that six days which would be 5 business days).
Let’s just say Amazon Glitchmas in July when it comes to shipping right now.
Sadly it is an image from the NSFE. I can’t seem to find the link in the help pages.
I went looking and that is where I found the conflict with the image and hoped someone on here could offer some insight.
I had an INR claim yesterday because a customer shipped an item to a hotel they were only in for a night or two. The item did arrive 1 day late(customer already checked out) and Amazon brought the issue straight to an A-Z but covered the cost as well as protected us from any INR or OTDR hits. I was glad it worked out this way because I was getting sick of telling the customer to try to call the hotel to write “undeliverable” on the package and try to get it back to us. I was going to get a return label for them and call the hotel to put it on the package. This customer didn’t think it was silly to use ground shipping to a hotel they would only be in for a night or two.
Per Amazon
“The customer claimed an issue with delivery. Amazon’s A-to-z Guarantee covered the cost of this claim on your behalf because you used Amazon’s Buy Shipping and the customer issue was outside your control.”
