There used to be a topic in the OSFE that had this same name, but it has since been deleted. I was just looking at my starred emails this morning, and saw one for an order that a customer had requested a return for. They got a free replacement order (more than $500 value), but never returned the original order.
That lead me to think that we probably had many orders last year for which customers requested a refund that were either reimbursed, or a free replacement went out to them, but that were never returned. I’m trying to compile a comprehensive yearly list of these to try to recoup the amount, but also write them off as a loss.
I found in my bookmarks a very old Reddit topic that covered this same issue:
Amazon is supposed to handle such orders themselves, and they often do, so the money involved may not be as much as you suspect. That said, there are certainly orders where Amazon drops the ball that require seller intervention. Unfortunately, I don’t have a good way to audit these sorts of orders beyond just pulling up a list of all returns and auditing every one that doesn’t have a refund.
Yes, I do recall the thread “How do you catch the refunds that need to be reimbursed?,” which was created by Funky Monkey way back in 2013, when the ASF was still running the Jive Platform, and two subsequent corollary threads (all 3 of which she lumped into several ‘compilation’ posts, for several years, in replies to related topics).
I still have the original Jive URL, but never updated it because after the switch to Discourse on 2Feb`18, the original continued to redirect - and years later, once Amazon launched Inventory Ledger, the information for step-by-step reconciliation (what I used to post about as being the “8-step Inventory Reconciliation Process”) became more-or-less outmoded in a similar fashion to the Reddit thread which our friend @Gandalf linked; AFAIK, none of those 3 eye-opening threads continue to be hosted over in the NSFE.
I remain convinced that part of the reason why Funky went off the rails as she so-demonstrably did is rooted in the pushback she reported receiving from Amazon for showing people - in that thread, and in the aforementioned two later corollaries - how to keep things from falling through the cracks when Amazon’s automated mechanisms fail of their promise.
That’s of course no excuse for what transpired after she flew off the handle, but I do think that a perception of being persecuted by Amazon metastasized and resulted in a perception of being persecuted by any and all - a fire that was unfortunately fanned by Lady Voldemortress…
I used to follow the returns that should be reimbursed along their their journey until completion to keep Amazon honest but the fact is we always got reimbursed 100% of the time so I stopped looking. With an AOV of under $20, not overly concerned.
I do check the screen @VTR screenshotted from time to time just for the fun of it and everything looks as it should.
Well, the return screen just looks at returns but yeah if I had tens of thousands FBA returns during a max filter of 365 days, then I would have a much bigger problem at hand.
Just found the original link, but it’s not working and just redirects to the NSFE. As our friend @Dogtamer pointed out, tne new Amazon reports would render that information useless anyway. I’ll try to investigate when I have more time - BOY is proving particularly busy for us.
I have no recollection of the thread. I’ve audited the refunds at different times and have found that all of them have been refunded like @VTR has experienced.
Well, other than the Negative Receipt phenomenon, which has some of us weighing the Risk vs. Loss calculation on the Arbitration front when the Inventory Ledger foibles pile up unconscionably…
I suspect that there’s a reason why the members of the FMT/CMT have resorted to the SeSu script of “Oh, we cannot depend upon upon the Inventory Ledger - that’s merely a sop for y’all peons, and doesn’t matter unless our systems say it does” response in recent months.
To be fair, I’m largely in agreement with you, @VTR, & other members of our Seller Community, such as @ASV_Vites, who’ve opined on this subject - our own auditing of Amazon’s handling of our FBA inventory over many years strongly suggests that the automated mechanisms eventually get it right MOST of the time.
Still, I’m a tightwad - and if the contractual obligations of another party are not met, AND it costs us money, needlessly, I’ll fight it tooth and nail.
