So … which is it? Customer fault or Amazon FC fault - can’t really be both, can it.
| detailed-disposition | reason | status |
|---|---|---|
| CUSTOMER_DAMAGED | DAMAGED_BY_FC | Unit returned to inventory |
It doesn’t matter, since it was returned to inventory and a whole new customer will be returning it soon.
I think it always says returned to inventory even when it doesn’t stay in sellable inventory and they actually return it to me.
Yes, “Unit returned to inventory” just means something was physically returned for that specific order, versus refunded for not being returned when the window closed.
As with everything, you have to wait for the return, and trace the LPN to the order number and look at your reimbursement options.
Yup. I was questioning the disconnect of the single return showing both CUSTOMER_DAMAGED and DAMAGED_BY_ FC in my OP.
It can actually be both. The item can be customer damaged because an inner package was open, and the primary packaging destroyed by the material handling system. Got those a few times.
I just meant that I don’t trust Amazon, and that they will often put product back into circulation when they shouldn’t.
In our experience they will use anything to return inventory to us, charge a return fee, and shipping. Over 90% of our returns are resalable, many of which are damages associated with handling on their end, like a small tear in a poly bag or a scuff on a printed box.
We see the same, so we have authorized the “grade and resell” option, which is hoped to cost us less money than the removals shipped back to us. “Damaged by customer” seems Amazon’s favorite excuse, but except for the LPN sticker, there seems nothing wrong with the package.
I wish we could “coach” Amazon with some sort of instructions or notes about what WE would call “damage”, but they make these evaluations using criteria that are not explained.
Ya, they are completely untrained in our products and are hired at the lowest price available, not the highest quality or even competent. Why perform better when you can simply push the expense of that incompetence downward.
The good news for those sellers with low moral character, is that if Amazon employees are too incompetent to see they returned a camera instead of a steering wheel (which has happened) it means they are most likely not able to verify when a dishonest seller claims the wrong item was returned when in fact it was. The owners and I have not reached that level of depravity, but each time Amazon sends us back the wrong item without an LPN# we question our morality versus justice, and wonder if we should not respond in kind. ( We have not done this, but I cannot fault those sellers that do, who take much higher losses merely for Amazon’s profits)
Perfectly good items get shipped back to us all the time, even with Grade and Resell on. It drives me crazy. But damaged, defective, and swapped out items also get put back in stock and resold, creating new angry customers and costing me even more money. If Amazon can screw it up, I assume that they will.
Often that ‘damage’ is the LPN label they stick to the product packaging.
As a buyer, I have received a few “new” items with LPN stickers on them, one was a roll of 1000 labels. I ordered 2, the other was actually new, and I was able to determine by weighing them both that the LPN marked package was missing labels. The leading edge was not a clean cut as it would be new either. So I don’t trust their grade and resell abilities.
I wonder if the “disposition” column reflects what was reported (“The customer reported that the item was damaged” = CUSTOMER_DAMAGED), and the “reason” is how/why.
The item wasn’t received “damaged” at the warehouse and then shelved and sold, so the damage must have originated in the pick-and-ship phase.
Fer Shure!
The damn paper envelopes that Amazon seems to use for anything and everything is to blame here. In the days of jiffy bags, we had zero damage. Zero. Nada.
Now, “customer damage” is claimed when it was clearly Amazon putting our product in a FREAKIN’ PAPER BAG and then dropping a mahogany end table on the package with our product in it when loading the vehicles used for delivery. I have talked to a few Amazon delivery people, and the independents are given a whole 5 mins to load their cars, and expected to drive away, and “sort things out elsewhere”. The Amazon vans used by contractors are loaded by simply tossing totes into the back, the shelves are loaded and arranged when the driver does a “sort out” of a single tote, as the totes are supposed to be loaded “by area” on the “route” they are assigned.
I am dying laughing. That about sums up the FBA experience.