As an Amazon FBA seller, you may not realize that you could be paying unnecessary fees for reimbursements that should have come to you automatically.
Many FBA reimbursement providers take advantage of a loophole in Amazon’s system, causing you to incur extra costs. Here’s how this happens and what you can do about it.
Specifically, we find this practice taking place for Customer Return Claims, exposing a 4-day loophole whereby a seller or service provider who has not yet been reimbursed automatically for the claim – although this reimbursement is coming at day 64+ – to file a claim for review by the Amazon Seller Support Team.
Failed FBA Customer Return Example
A customer buys your FBA unit on Amazon. Amazon provides an immediate order refund for the FBA order and the FBA unit the customer received.
The unit never got returned/restocked to your FBA inventory. You lost the sale/funds and your unit. Reasons for this include the customer forgetting and failing to return the unit, the unit getting lost in transit, or Amazon failing to properly receive the FBA unit back in the FBA warehouse.
The 4-Day Loophole Explained
The system auto-pays reimbursements after 64+ days instead of 60 days.
There is a 4-day loophole in Amazon’s system where you or a provider can file a case/claim for a failed customer FBA return issue after 60 days. Amazon will approve the case and pay you the reimbursement instead of waiting for the auto reimbursement/payment on day 64+.
In these cases, the sellers are being charged a service fee for FBA reimbursements you were supposed to receive automatically.
All the cases/claims opened for such issues are wasting Amazon Seller Support’s time and resources. This time can be used for sellers who need real help.
The Hidden Fees in FBA Reimbursements
Some FBA reimbursement providers file FBA customer return cases after 60-63 days instead of giving Amazon’s system the time to auto-reimburse and pay this issue automatically
Amazon will approve the case and pay you the reimbursement instead of waiting for the auto reimbursement/payment coming on day 64+.
This way, some providers are causing FBA sellers to pay service fees for FBA refunds that were supposed to come to them by Amazon automatically. They are taking advantage of sellers not knowing or being educated about the 4-day loophole system error.
What You Can Do
Specifically for FBA Customer Return issues – Make sure to contact your FBA reimbursement service provider immediately to address this.
Demand from your provider to give Amazon’s system a 90-day window to allow it to automatically reimburse you for FBA Customer Return issues. The 90-day window will prevent you from paying service fees unnecessarily for FBA Customer Return Issue refunds that are automatically programmed to be given to you.
Make sure to check your provider once a quarter or at least once to make sure this setup has been properly enforced.
What Does Getida Do?
Getida has a default setup of waiting 90 days before filing FBA Customer Return Issues for its users, to avoid charging unneeded service fees and maximize/optimize the FBA recovery level of FBA sellers.
Amazon auto pays sellers on 98.5%* FBA Customer Return issues within 64 days. Getida has a default setup of waiting 90 days before filing FBA Customer Return Issues for Reimbursements. This is to avoid charging unnecessary fees from sellers for claims automatically filed and paid by Amazon.
*Based on over 2 million Getida sample data points.
Steps to Protect Yourself
In a case study of an 8-figure seller who switched to Getida from an alternative reimbursements service, we found:
- 72 claims filed on day 61
- 238 Claims filed on days 61-63
- In total, 361 claims were filed for Customer Return Issue Claims utilizing the 4-day loophole
- 95% reimbursement rate on filed claims
- $73,000 “recovered” and a service fee billed to the customer.
This needs to end today! As a seller, you can check your provider to see if they are taking advantage of this 4-day loophole to charge you service fees for reclaiming funds you were going to get back from Amazon automatically.
Follow these steps to see if your current provider is filing Customer Return Claims within the 4-day loophole window:
- Log into Seller Central.
- Go to Reports > Fulfillment > Reimbursements.
- Choose Event Date (18 Months) > Click Generate Report.
- Focus on the Reason Column: “Customer Return” > Make sure it has a Case ID > Copy the Order ID.
- Validate Customer Refund Date: Go to Payments > Transaction View > Paste the Order ID in the search box (top right) > Find Refund Date on the left side.
- Validate FBA Claim Date: Open Case Log > Find Case ID > Confirm Email User is a provider > Find Claim Date on the left side.
If the claim date is 60-63 days from the refund date, you have found an instance where the loophole was used.
How to Ask for a Refund from Your Reimbursement Company
- Calculate and summarize all the FBA Customer Return issues that got reimbursed within 60-64 days by your provider and include them in an Excel chart.
- Contact your provider. Send the file/data in the chart and ask for a refund for all service fees you paid unnecessarily.
- Get your refund!
Reach Out for Help
Reach out to Getida if you need help evaluating this matter. The Getida team has turned this article into a guide for anyone interested in seeing if they are due reimbursements from their reimbursement company. Get your guide below for step-by-step instructions with images for checking your seller central account to see if these 4-day loophole Customer Return Issue Claims are being filed on your behalf.
By taking these steps, you can ensure that you’re not overpaying for FBA reimbursements and that you are keeping more of your hard-earned money.
Yoni, CGO & Co-Founder of Getida, has extensive experience managing a $20 million Amazon FBA business. He co-founded Getida to specialize in Amazon discrepancy analytics, focusing on financial and inventory-related discrepancies for billions of transactions daily
