Amazon’s restocking fee policy can be found here.

If this is the case, then you can charge a restocking fee. You are not required to refund according to the return reason selected by the buyer.

This has become a serious problem… This is when a lot of us have no choice but to consider a career change. The stress and headaches are not worth it in this life.

If you are truly intent on charging a restocking fee the best way to go, assuming that the returns are auto approved, is to deduct the cost of the return label and the restocking fee and refund the balance.

Then file a Safe-T claim for the buyer using an inaccurate return code and provide your proof that it was inaccurate and what the correct code should be. If the Safe-T claim is granted then the return is buyer faulted and a restocking fee is in policy. If it is denied then you will have to refund the amount you withheld as the return would be seller faulted.

If you can show the item is NOT defective- you can file a saf-t claim for it. I have been reimbursed many times when buyers wrongly use this code to avoid paying returns.

Some would say if the item is not damaged or defective be glad and resell it and they don’t charge the fee when the wrong code is used.
Others say they charge the 20% AND they are willing to go to A to Z (and or get neg feedback)to fight it out if the buyer objects to the fee and wants to go there.

I imagine you have to weigh the risks and rewards of the 20%…saf -t will give you the label cost pretty much guaranteed if you represent properly. Use photos. State the item has been inspected and tested and as described in listing.

The choice is yours.

I would deduct the restocking fee and return label cost from the product refund and be done with it. Buyers will choose any reason to return an item, and if the items are not defective then there should be no problem. You may want to document such returns, just in case. But filing safe-t claims for basic returns is a huge waste of time. Anyway, it’s the buyer that should be paying for the return, not Amazon.

We sell apparel & we have never lost a Safe-T claim.
We don’t send pictures except when the wrong item is returned.
Whenever we get one of these bogus “inaccurate” or “defective” returns we send the following to AZ…

Hello Amazon,
After a full review of this item, we can confirm:
Item is not defective.
Item is exactly as described in listing.
Item is exactly as shown in listing.
Thanks,

We have never lost a Safe-T claim

Back when I was actually getting orders (15-20 a day), this was a constant problem. I’d e-mail them and politely ask if they could tell me what was wrong with the item. In 99.9% of the cases, they’d refuse to respond. That right there told me it was fraudulent (and no, none of the returned items were actually defective). They just didn’t want to pay return shipping for something they were too thick in the head to read the instructions for. But I will grant that part of the problem is Amazon gives pretty paltry return options to choose from. I’ve experienced this myself as a buyer when I want to return something.

All that being said, I never did file a “safe-t” return on those fraudulent returns. I wasn’t a high enough volume seller where my metrics were ever really safe from being hurt by a negative seller review. Just a couple negative reviews could make me lose the Buy Box on all my listings. It wasn’t worth the risk in my estimation. Plus, those return postage fees are all claimable on taxes at the end of the year anyway. Doesn’t exactly make me whole, but better than nothing.

Happened to me about a month ago. Seller after having the item for three weeks she claims that it wasn’t as the website said. Sent it back, never read any of my emails asking what was wrong so I could fix it and telling her if nothing was wrong that I wouldn’t refund shipping either way and would take a restocking fee. I coded all the emails I sent as [important], so I don’t know if she just didn’t see them, deliberately ignored them, had her Amazon messages blocked or what. When it showed back up here, I went over it and the page with a fine tooth comb 4 times and could not find a single thing wrong, and since I had basically written the page I knew it was write. She gave me a 1 star and blasted me " I will make a point to avoid doing business with this seller, ever again! I would advise ALL potential customers, “proceed with caution” in dealing with this seller!" Up to then I had a 100% feedback, here, on ebay still from when I sold there, on ecrater, and EVERY site I had ever sold on, not that she knew that. But buyers don’t need to proceed with caution when buying from me. They do need to look for any messages though in response to theirs. I do remember that when doing the refund, I put the more correct return code on the refund page.

I know that many seem to think that it isn’t worth it to take a restocking fee or to deny refunding shipping, but why should we pay out of pocket to a scammer and the restocking fee as far as I am concerned is to help pay for my time involved with the claim as well as the ‘paperwork’ of relisting the item again. I can’t afford to be handing out money for false claims. At this point she didn’t bring an A2Z against me.

if it was me i would just give them a full refund
but that is me
and i am not you