Return Requests 101: Key Deadlines and Best Practices
Sellers,
Today let's focus on the essential first step in returns management: handling return requests.
We're sharing these returns management guidelines to help you maintain high customer satisfaction levels and protect your selling account status.
First things first - timing is everything! You should respond to return requests within 48 hours.
If you miss this window, you risk automatic claim approval if a customer files an A-to-Z claim.
If you authorize a return, keep in mind to:
- Provide a valid domestic return address or a pre-paid return label if you don't have one
- Include Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA)
- Use an Amazon-generated return label or upload your own custom return label
📝 Note: Amazon-generated return labels will include your default return address but aren't prepaid.
Sometimes, you might want to close a return request. This makes sense when:
- You're offering a refund without requiring the item back (for instance, when return shipping costs more than the item)
- The return is out of policy
If you're closing a return request, always explain why it's ineligible. Clear communication prevents problems down the road!
Once you receive the returned items, remember to issue the refund within 2 business days.
For more information, check out our help pages:
Questions? Share them below! 👇
Return Requests 101: Key Deadlines and Best Practices
Sellers,
Today let's focus on the essential first step in returns management: handling return requests.
We're sharing these returns management guidelines to help you maintain high customer satisfaction levels and protect your selling account status.
First things first - timing is everything! You should respond to return requests within 48 hours.
If you miss this window, you risk automatic claim approval if a customer files an A-to-Z claim.
If you authorize a return, keep in mind to:
- Provide a valid domestic return address or a pre-paid return label if you don't have one
- Include Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA)
- Use an Amazon-generated return label or upload your own custom return label
📝 Note: Amazon-generated return labels will include your default return address but aren't prepaid.
Sometimes, you might want to close a return request. This makes sense when:
- You're offering a refund without requiring the item back (for instance, when return shipping costs more than the item)
- The return is out of policy
If you're closing a return request, always explain why it's ineligible. Clear communication prevents problems down the road!
Once you receive the returned items, remember to issue the refund within 2 business days.
For more information, check out our help pages:
Questions? Share them below! 👇
4 replies
Seller_Sqp7aJ8nhglPg
Thank you for sharing these guidelines on managing return requests. While the principles make sense in theory, many sellers like myself are facing a much deeper and unresolved issue connected to refunds and returns specifically with non-returnable products.
We are experiencing a systematic pattern of abuse that current return/refund policies are not protecting sellers from. Here’s how it works:
External resellers (often from platforms like eBay, TikTok, or OnBuy) list our products for sale. They then place an order on Amazon (usually using Prime) with their customer’s delivery address. We fulfil the order correctly, with valid tracking, GPS confirmation, and delivery images.
After successful delivery, the reseller fraudulently requests a refund from Amazon using reasons such as “wrong item received” or “defective product.” Because the ASINs are marked as non-returnable, Amazon automatically issues a refund without requiring the item back.
Safe-T claims are then denied with the justification that the refund reason is “seller responsibility.”
The result is devastating for sellers:
The product is delivered, the customer keeps it, and the refund is granted. We lose the stock and the revenue, with no recourse.
This abuse is happening repeatedly on the same ASINs, targeting non-returnable products specifically.
The bigger issue is that Amazon is fully aware of this loophole. Many sellers (myself included) have submitted evidence such as eBay screenshots, customer confirmations, and test orders showing this exact pattern. Yet the abuse continues month after month, with refunds being processed automatically.
Guidelines about “responding to return requests within 48 hours” don’t address the root problem: sellers are being financially harmed because fraudulent refund claims are being approved without returns, even when delivery proof is clear.
If Amazon truly wants to protect sellers and “maintain high customer satisfaction,” then urgent steps are needed to:
Stop automatic refunds on non-returnable items where delivery is confirmed.
OR
Ensure Safe-T claims for such cases are handled correctly and not dismissed as “seller responsibility.”
Implement preventative checks to block repeat abusers and fraudulent reseller accounts.
Until that happens, sellers will continue to face unsustainable losses while fraudsters exploit this gap in Amazon’s policies.
Seller_OC4AKQTpHwKwL
When is Amazon going to start to respond in time, professionally, read & actually answer properly?
There is no response required, we are TOLD not ASKED, typical of Amazon to try and confuse.
Most of us on this platform are small business's & we are more professional than Amazon.
Strange how big names don't want to know you!
We have no choice to accept a return, Amazon automatically does it, even when they shouldn't.
We frequently get damaged maps & books returned & the Safe T is always refused.
The Amazon "help" pages do not help. Why use 50 words when 8 would do it?
