Hi Sellers,
I’ve been going back and forth with Amazon Seller Support for a while now longer than month - including multiple “Leadership Team” reps - and no one can give a straight answer. I’m sharing this here because I believe other sellers might be experiencing the same issue, and this deserves visibility.
The Problem:
Amazon has been deducting promotional rebates (e.g., coupon amounts and even free shipping) from my earnings during the time I was enrolled in the New Seller Incentives (NSI) program — with no credit back, and zero transparency.
Even worse, some orders with NO ACTIVE coupon at all still show promotional rebate deductions with no reimbursement or clear explanation.
Here’s What’s Happening:
1. Coupons Running Under NSI Still Incur Promotional Rebates
An example breakdown of transaction, this is what they explained to me. For Promo Rebate: -$2.50
-$1.00 coupon fee
-$1.50 free shipping (why is this deducted on an FBA order?)
2. Promotional Rebates Charged Without Any Reimbursement
Many transactions show minus $$ in “Total Promotional Rebates” but no corresponding credit anywhere. Clicking into transaction details gives no clear breakdown or justification.
3. Orders Deducted Even After Coupon Expired or NOT Active.
January Orders Had No Coupon at All - Still Deducted. In January, I did not run any coupons, and Amazon still deducted $1–2 promotional rebates on some orders.
I was told several times by Seller Support that it was a temporary shipping charge that would be credited back automatically - but in most cases, it never was.
These deductions are untraceable and unexplained.
What Amazon Told Me:
“Promo rebates are not part of NSI.”
“Coupons are separate from promo rebates.”
“Free shipping charge is offset and not really deducted” - yet it still shows up as a -$1.50 deduction on my end. Amazon’s Explanation on “Free Shipping”Promo Rebates (Still Confusing)
Amazon told me that even for FBA orders, not all buyers are Prime members, so if a non-Prime customer places an order, they might be charged for shipping. But if free shipping applies (through a promotion or Amazon policy), Amazon cancels the shipping charge, and this shows in the transaction report as a minus $$ promotional rebate, even though I never offered that promotion myself. They claim this is just how their system tracks it, a charge and cancellation that “offset” each other, and I’m not actually losing money on it.
But as a seller, this is super confusing because
- It still shows as a negative promotional rebate in my reports
- There’s no matching credit in some of these cases
So even if this is true for some orders, it doesn’t explain all the discrepancies.
Other things they are saying,
“If you think promo rebates are covered, send us a link to the policy” - which doesn’t even exist clearly.
Why This Matters:
If you’re a new seller running coupons while enrolled in NSI, you may not be covered the way you think you are. Amazon may still deduct those amounts under “promotional rebates” without crediting anything back.
I’ve provided detailed screenshots, order IDs, whole excel sheets of all transaction multiple times as evidence and when they asked me another screenshots, excel sheets, highlighted the all error and even transactions URLs. And all I get are generic, conflicting responses. They closed my case saying “No further help can be provided.”
Has anyone else experienced this? Did you get it resolved? I’d love to hear how other sellers are dealing with this.
Pinned by community manager