Dear Amazon Sellers,
We are a UK-based seller offering FREE returns, as we don’t have a return address within the USA. To facilitate returns, we arrange them via DHL and provide FREE labels to Amazon customers.
Until now, this process worked seamlessly: we provided the label, customers shipped the item back, and we issued a refund upon receiving and inspecting the item. Occasionally, some customers bypassed this process and opened A-Z claims instead, which at least allowed us to represent our side of the story. While we didn’t always win these cases, it was an accepted part of selling on Amazon.
However, we’re now facing a new issue and are hoping to hear if others have experienced something similar.
Since Friday, we’ve had two cases where customers initiated a return. We promptly provided the FREE DHL return labels via Amazon messages and even uploaded screenshots of the labels to ensure Amazon saw we’d fulfilled our obligation. Despite this, both orders were refunded directly by Amazon Customer Service.
Since we’re not part of the Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) program on Amazon.com, we cannot file a SAFE-T claim, nor is there an A-Z claim process to appeal. When we contacted Seller Support through chat, the response was, as usual, disappointing. Here’s a message we received from a Leadership team member:
“Hello from Selling Partner Support. My name is Karolayn and I am a member of the Leadership team. Please be informed that Buyers and sellers are expected to work together on returns and refunds, even if the seller asks Amazon to mediate or intervene. I can totally understand the seriousness of this situation, and would suggest contacting the Buyer and requesting to return the item mutually. To help us continually improve, we ask that you take a moment to complete our survey below to tell us about your experience with this specific interaction. Were you satisfied with the support provided?”
We’ve emailed the buyers to request the return of the items, but once they’ve received the refund, they seem uninterested in responding.
If anyone has experienced a similar situation and found a way to either retrieve their items or convince Amazon to correct this mistake, we’d greatly appreciate your insights.
Wishing you all continued success, and thank you in advance for your advice.
All the best,