Amazon Owes You For Damaged Inventory! Get It Back… – The Selling Family
Did you know that Amazon very likely owes you hundreds of dollars?
As Amazon FBA sellers, Amazon handles all of our inventory. But sometimes things happen to our inventory on their watch.
They have policies in place that are meant to give the seller money back if the fault is on Amazon. The problem is that we don’t always get the money back as automated as we should.
So, we have to go into our accounts and do some maintenance to make sure that any of our inventory that has been damaged, misplaced, or destroyed has been credited back to our seller accounts.
If we don’t do it ourselves, Amazon isn’t exactly going to offer to do it for us!
One option is to do this manually by running your own reports. I’m going to show you how to run the most common report in this blog post.
To be honest, I no longer do my reimbursements this way. I’ve switched to a service called Seller Locker that fully automates the reimbursement process.
I’ll tell you more about it later, but I just want you to know that you have options!
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How To Use Amazon Reports To Get Money Back
Have you taken a look at all of the report options there are in Seller Central? It’s pretty overwhelming! Who knows what each one is for and why we should be running them, right?
We’ve got Stranded Inventory, Reserved Inventory, Inventory Adjustments (which we are talking about today) and so many more.
The good news is that some of these reports will actually help you get some money back that Amazon owes you! It’s almost like a tax refund (and just as fun to prepare…). As a business owner, I don’t get tax refunds anymore, so I’ll take whatever reimbursement money I can get!
Finding Inventory That Amazon Has Damaged
Those Amazon warehouses are big places. There are lots of people, machinery, and even robots handling our products. Items are bound to get damaged while at the fulfillment centers.
The report that I am going to show you today is the Inventory Adjustments Report, which is specifically for damaged inventory.
There are more than 7 different scenarios that you can use these reports to get money back from Amazon. But for this post, I’m going to focus on the one for damaged inventory.
Steps For Getting Reimbursed On Damaged Items:
I’m going to show you step-by-step how to go through the damaged inventory report and reconcile it so that you can ask Amazon for a reimbursement on the products that have not been reimbursed already.
Their stated procedure is that they will automatically reimburse us after 10 days of an item being damaged. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.
So, check out this tutorial and follow along so you can submit your own case to request some money back from Amazon.
1) Go to Reports > Fulfillment > Inventory – Show More > Inventory Adjustments
2) Select: Damaged & Timeframe of choice (I recommend 365 days or from account inception)
3) Copy / Paste the data to a spreadsheet (I use Google Sheets) 
4) Sort by FNSKU (Row C) in your spreadsheet
5) Delete any lines that have both a “Damaged at Amazon…” and “Transfer to holding…” This means these items have already been reimbursed automatically.
6) Delete any lines that have only “Transfer at holding…“
7) Save the file as .CSV once you have reconciled the items on your spreadsheet.
8) Open a new case with Amazon by going to Help > Support. Scroll to the bottom of that page and click the Get Support button
9) On the next screen, select Selling on Amazon (this should be the only option)
10) On the left-side menu, select Fulfillment by Amazon > Inventory Damaged or Inventory Lost in Warehouse
Then press the Select Issue button next to Investigate Inventory Damaged in FBA Warehouse
11) Before you can provide your information, you need to click on the Contact Us link that I’ve highlighted here. That’s because you don’t have a Transaction ID to provide.
12) Fill out your information and be sure to also use the Add Attachments feature to attach your .CSV file from earlier. Finish it off by pressing Send.
13) Get a reply from Amazon in less than 48 hours
14) Receive your reimbursement in 3-4 days
Here’s a message that you can use for Step 12 in the Please describe your issue field:
Hello,
I am reconciling my seller account and found that there have been some items damaged at the warehouse. I have taken out the ones that have already been credited to my account. But, there are still some that need to be reimbursed.
I am attaching a .CSV file with the items that still need to be reimbursed.
Can you please research these products and credit my account where needed?
Thanks.
Yes, that’s a LOT of steps and it’s pretty slow – which is exactly why I stopped doing it on my own!!
Where To Go From Here?
Now you’ve seen the possibilities when it comes to the money that Amazon owes you. It’d be pretty nice to have Amazon actually deposit some extra money into your account, right?
There are at least 6 more reports like this that need to be run to make sure you get back all of your money.
Most of those reports require running the report, looking at the data in Google Sheets, and contacting Amazon Support.
I used to go through this process manually a few times each year to get my reimbursements. But contacting Amazon Seller Support has become more tedious and I just don’t really have the time to go through all of the steps.
In fact, I actually used to sell a course that taught people how to run all of the different reports. But I recently realized that it’s just not the best use of anyone’s time anymore. There are better options now and I always want to find the best options for you.
Time is money and I know that my time is better spent sourcing inventory than scrolling through reports! I’m sure you can relate 🙂
Luckily, there is now an amazing service that runs the reports for you and identifies reimbursement opportunities.
Ready to take action?
Automated Reimbursements with Seller Locker
Seller Locker works by syncing directly with your Amazon account and tracking your inventory.
Once you grant Seller Locker access to your Amazon account, they’ll start scanning for lost inventory, damaged inventory, inbound shipping discrepancies, and even fee discrepancies.
If Seller Locker detects any reimbursement opportunities, they let you know that it’s time to take action and get a reimbursement.
If you use their Chrome extension, they can even populate the “Contact Us” fields for you!
Seller Locker is a paid service, but they don’t get paid until you do. Seller Locker charges you 25% of any successful reimbursements that you found via their software.
It’s a small price to pay for the number of hours it saves you. Plus, it’s WAY better than not getting any money back at all because you didn’t want to run all the reports!
You can read my full review of Seller Locker to see it in action. When I first tested the software, I got a $100 reimbursement after using the software for 4 minutes. The reimbursements were granted by Amazon just 20 minutes after that. So easy!!
If you’re ready to give Seller Locker a shot, go ahead and sign up here. Remember, you don’t pay them anything until they get you some money back.
Share Your Success Below!
Have you been running reports to get money back? Or maybe you’ve been using Seller Locker for even faster reimbursements? Share below so we can celebrate and be encouraged with you 🙂
About Jessica @ The Selling Family
Jessica is an experienced content creator who has been sharing her knowledge about selling online since 2012. With a passion for Amazon FBA, creating and selling low-content books, and blogging, she has helped countless individuals and businesses succeed in their own online businesses. When she’s not working, Jessica enjoys spending time with her family, playing games, and watching her favorite shows.
Jessica is an experienced content creator who has been sharing her knowledge about selling online since 2012. With a passion for Amazon FBA, creating and selling low-content books, and blogging, she has helped countless individuals and businesses succeed in their own online businesses. When she’s not working, Jessica enjoys spending time with her family, playing games, and watching her favorite shows.
