Inventory marked as "unsellable"

What happens if an item gets damaged in transit, on its way to the FBA warehouse?

Logic would dictate that FBA would notify you, and you could initiate an insurance claim through UPS or FedEx. WRONG!

Instead, they set the item aside and don't tell you why (meanwhile, you are paying storage fees). Keep in mind, there are a million reasons they might set an item aside - it's totally your guess until you email and ask. Then it might take days (or weeks) to get an answer.

If you discover an item has been damaged in transit, you can request to have the item shipped back to you at your expense (usual cost is about $3 per item per book, $5 per item for non-media), then it's completely up to you to file an insurance claim.

And, if you used FBA's preferred shipping method to send in your items (the FBA UPS account), you're out of luck. They will NOT help you file a claim.

(click to enlarge)

Broken FBA promise - bad feedback NOT removed

When we signed up for FBA, we were explicitly promised that we would NOT receive bad feedback as a result of Amazon's mistakes.

We were told it has NEVER happened in the past. On a follow-up phone conversation, the salesperson told us they were checking into ways to remove bad feedback, in case it ever happened. Exerpt from the email they sent:


However, we are receiving neutral & negative feedbacks from FBA mistakes. In fact, roughly 30% of our inventory is being fulfilled by Amazon, and 70% is fulfilled by us (called merchant-fulfilled). In the past 8 months, we have had 100% feedback (ZERO bad feedbacks) for self-fulfilled items, yet our FBA orders have generated close to 14% neutral and negative feedbacks!

FBA has sent the wrong items, sent items late, damaged items in their warehouse, etc. So, they promised us ZERO bad feedbacks, yet, in the past 8 months, 100% of our bad feedbacks has come from them! Think about it... there's a huge difference between 0% and 100%!

Naturally this slows down sales. And it's obviously not something we're doing wrong - we have always maintained close to 100% feedback.

But it now appears, however, that they never intended on taking any preventative measures against bad feedback. They are not working on ways to prevent or remove bad feedback as a result of FBA errors, have since updated their policy page as follows (click to enlarge):

Allow me to summarize - their policy is basically "bugger off".

Now, we get an angry letter from Amazon Alliance, saying that unless we improve our feedback, our account may be suspended. HUH???

The rule is, if sellers do not maintain minimum standards (maintaining less than 5% refund rate, more than 95% feedback, and keeping low A-Z claims), they will suspend your account. How ironic, that a 5-star, 100% seller is now being threatened with a suspended account due to Amazon's own mistakes, through no fault of their own!!!