What FBA did to one seller's feedback

Account suspended/payments delayed due to bad FBA feedback?

Earlier, we commented how we were getting bad feedback due to FBA fulfillment errors, and we wondered if this would affect our seller performance. In fact, in the past 8-9 months, 100% of our neutral and negative feedback has come from FBA-fulfilled orders, and zero bad feedbacks from merchant-fulfilled orders.

Further, we speculated that poor "seller performance" (that is, poor feedback based on FBA mistakes) could result in getting an account suspended by Amazon Alliance.

Apparently this has already happened to another seller. Read the full thread on the Amazon discussion board.

Another payment delay from FBA

...these happen about once or twice a month with Seller Central/Marketplace 2.0. Never any explanation why...and of course, they never offer to pay mortgage or credit card late fees, which directly result from their "technical problems".

FBA charges VCF fees (variable closing fees)... one of the biggest complaints we hear

The FBA policy that we receive the most complaints about is the VCF (variable closing fee).

This fee is $1.35 per order. Usually it's deducted from your s/h reimbursement (3.99-1.35 = $2.64 s/h reimbursement). When this was initiated, we were told this is to cover the A-Z program (an insurance-type program which covers sellers in case of damage/loss in transit).

However, FBA sellers receive no s/h reimbursement, and receive no A-Z protection. In fact, in case of returns, FBA charges an ADDITIONAL 5% restocking fee (if they even bother to recover & restock the damaged/returned item).

This raises many questions: Doesn't Amazon/FBA use UPS to ship all their orders? And, aren't all packages automatically insured up to $100? So, what happens to this money?

(a) Why are FBA sellers still charged the VCF for the A-Z insurance program, when the packages should already be insured?
(b) Why are FBA sellers penalized (not reimbursed) when damage or loss occurs in transit to the customer?
(c) What happens to the UPS insurance money? Does FBA "double-dip" and keep both the insurance money and the seller's money?

PS - For a complete list of FBA fees, visit:
Fba fee comparison sample

and,

FBA Passive Fees (often not explained up front)