Hello,

Please forgive the naivety, and apologies for the long post. We are trying to establish why refunds have been issued for orders and hope someone can help. Unfortunately, we appear to be in circle loop with Amazon and they are not providing much help…

The products we sell predominantly fall under non-returnable, so if the customer is dissatisfied, they can request a refund from Amazon and not return the item. Fine. Not great, but that’s the way Amazon sets things, so we work within their parameters.

As we understand things, we can request the reason given by the customer which has resulted in a refund a minimum of 45-days from the refund being issued. This appears to allow for a return to take place where relevant and for Amazon to reimburse the refund if the item has not been returned within the timeframe (As mentioned, most of our items can’t be returned, so not sure why we have to adhere to this, but… Amazon).

Anyway, we want to know the reasons given by the customer so we can work to avoid the issue in the future. Also, if it turns out the delivery arrived damaged, we can apply for a reimbursement because it will have gone via FBA and becomes Amazon’s issue.

So today - we have a few refunds from back in early April and would like to get to the bottom of why they’ve been refunded. We opened a separate case for each one requesting the reason given by the customer.

For the first one we get a response saying that it was refunded due to ‘Account adjustment’. Naturally, we go back to ask firstly what this means, and secondly, what the customer said to cause the account adjustment… They reply: “In regard to your concern, please be informed that Amazon account adjustments are issued when the company cannot fulfil the order due to delays in shipping, damage to products, or delays or various reasons wherein it is the policy where Amazon (retailer company) initiates the refund to the customer to gain the loyalty.”

So, I have now asked which reason from the list they provided is relevant… but they can’t/won’t tell me. This particular refund was issued 50-days after the sale (our standard policy is 30-days), so guess falls under Amazon gaining customer loyalty…

The next one should be nice and simple - product refunded, wait the 45+ days and ask the question…

The response we get is that the order units have still not returned to FC. "Units declined due to reimbursement policy: 1. The item is not eligible for reimbursements for reasons that include the request being made for the wrong store, account status is non-normal or selling contract does not qualify for reimbursement for these issues. See the FBA reimbursement policy page for more details.".

Our account is completely normal, the request has been made correctly etc, so we go back to say we’re not looking for a reimbursement and just need to know the customer reason to avoid a repeat in the future etc.

They reply: "Since the order was not returned to Amazon FC. Please kindly note that as per Amazon policy, we are unable to disclose the refund reason. If the order was return to FC the order refund and return reason will be updated."

So, apparently, we can only get a reason for an FBA refund if the product is returned, but the product is not eligible for return, so no reason will ever be available(!). Given a whole swathe of products/categories are non-returnable, it suggests Amazon doesn’t intend log a reason given by the customer for any of them.

Now call us old fashioned, but we really care that our customers are getting a great service and critically, get what they pay for. If they’re having issues, we can only really change things for the better if we know what they are.

Yes, understood, Amazon are Amazon and contradictions are to be expected, but this feels like a new policy to obscure any responsibility Amazon might have in poor service. This is also having a knock-on in our ability to be better. FBA is an important and convenient method for us, and appreciate it should be used in conjunction with FBM which gives better connection to customers etc, but that shouldn’t mean FBA is completely out of the question.

Anyway, does anyone have any ideas what we can do to be able to get the reason given by the customer – previously, raising a case in the requisite time has seen them forthcoming. Have we just run into a couple of novice case responders following the wrong script, or has policy changed completely?