Countless shipment problem due to FBA warehouse employees miscounting inventory.
Over the past year we have noticed a drastic up tick in problems with our shipments sent to FBA warehouses. Granted FBA hasn't just lost entire shipments which we're very grateful for but these continual small issues are pilling up and effecting our account and shipping health metrics.
We've been selling FBA for about 9 years and only experienced these shipping issues once in a rare occasion. Now these issues are happening with every shipment, every week. Basically we pack all of our boxes with FBA units and upload the box contents using the "Enter Through A Web Forum" feature under send to Amazon. The amount of units in each box are triple checked in relation to what we've uploaded to Amazon. About 7 months ago, as this issue increased, we figured it might be our fault. Since then we have scrutinized every box in every shipment to ensure the unit counts match exactly. We currently have 9 issues with shipments that we have contested and been rejected despite being 1000% sure that the unit count per box was accurate and an FBA an warehouse employee 1000% made a mistake checking in our inventory and simply miscounted. I'd understand the rare mistake but this frequency is completely UNACCEPTABLE!
For example: 50 units expected 49 units received OR 50 units expected 51 received.
We've been paying for a professional account for over 9 years in hopes that Amazon provides the service they've promised under the same contract we abide to. However they are continually drastically falling short of this promise and we are being punished for problems on their end.
Please help us resolve these false shipping issues @Dominic_Amazon
Countless shipment problem due to FBA warehouse employees miscounting inventory.
Over the past year we have noticed a drastic up tick in problems with our shipments sent to FBA warehouses. Granted FBA hasn't just lost entire shipments which we're very grateful for but these continual small issues are pilling up and effecting our account and shipping health metrics.
We've been selling FBA for about 9 years and only experienced these shipping issues once in a rare occasion. Now these issues are happening with every shipment, every week. Basically we pack all of our boxes with FBA units and upload the box contents using the "Enter Through A Web Forum" feature under send to Amazon. The amount of units in each box are triple checked in relation to what we've uploaded to Amazon. About 7 months ago, as this issue increased, we figured it might be our fault. Since then we have scrutinized every box in every shipment to ensure the unit counts match exactly. We currently have 9 issues with shipments that we have contested and been rejected despite being 1000% sure that the unit count per box was accurate and an FBA an warehouse employee 1000% made a mistake checking in our inventory and simply miscounted. I'd understand the rare mistake but this frequency is completely UNACCEPTABLE!
For example: 50 units expected 49 units received OR 50 units expected 51 received.
We've been paying for a professional account for over 9 years in hopes that Amazon provides the service they've promised under the same contract we abide to. However they are continually drastically falling short of this promise and we are being punished for problems on their end.
Please help us resolve these false shipping issues @Dominic_Amazon
70 respuestas
Seller_RjJZfZ6AqIQPn
I have the same issue with CLT2.
Seller_dj5uuHqRWs6gC
50 is 49,
90 is 89,
150 is 149.
Seller_ylsKOwBx3Uv1t
The rate of intake discrepancies has increased in the last year for sure. I thought it was mostly issues with the CLT2 warehouse but since we have to send to other warehouses with the new fee structure it's still happening it appears to be a fairly widespread phenomenon.
Once they've denied your appeal, you can make a ticket and keep trying to escalate it, though that's often a frustrating process as they'll often just try to close those tickets as fast as possible and the easiest way is to say you didn't send the proper amount, but if you've got the time to keep fighting you can sometimes get reimbursed. One case with over $1k in missing merchandise took me several months to fight, so your mileage may vary.
Seller_xCvZ5nxqEdcJM
I once had a "42 units expected 0 units received" All claims rejected. Had to eat about $3k on that one
Seller_R1E4mOXsr1BJb
Same here. I have had multiple issues with counts of the last few months. Most of the problems seem to be at certain receiving warehouses. I have a count discrepancy every other shipment it seems. Which is impossible. I count the items I ship and I print the ASIN labels that I need for each shipment. If I print out 120 labels for a SKU and use all of the labels in that shipment, then there are 120 items. Plus, every time I have disputed the error, it gets denied.
Jameson_Amazon
Hi @Seller_Z0SamZ2n4rceQ,
Thank you so much for reaching out about this. I truly apologize for the frustration this experience has caused.
When you have a moment, can you please send me your shipment IDs and their corresponding case IDs for the shipments that have discrepancies?
I'd be happy to take a further look into these shipments to see how I can help further!
Thanks again,
Jameson
Seller_Z0SamZ2n4rceQ
Hi @Jameson_Amazon Thank you for reaching out to help.
Here are all the most recent shipments that Amazon claims we sent inaccurate quantities in the past 120 days. I'm positive we didn't. I've packed these boxes myself, triple counted quantities, and we print our own barcode labels - which if there was inaccurate counts, we would be short a label or have to print extra labels which we did not on any of these! These are all 100% warehouse employees miscounting/misplacing our inventory in which we have been punished for on our shipping performance.
I've attached case id's, fulfillment center identifiers, and the miscounted amount of units.
15109189641 - AVP1 - 4 UNITS
15083995771 - AVP1 - 2 UNITS
14968617611 - ABE8 - 2 UNITS
14807294201 - TEB9 - 1 UNITS
15378740741 - TEB9 - 1 UNITS
15375032281 - CLT2 - 1 UNITS
15220027571 - GYR2 - 2 UNITS
Again, we aren't very worried about minuscule loss of these miscounted/lost units. The problem is losing our shipping privileges to FBA and the points to our metrics. It's beyond me why Amazon would want to lose a 10 year seller bringing in 6 + figures a year for Amazon in absorbanant fees over the fact that their own FBA warehouse employees have miscounted 13 FBA units with a total value of under $250. That makes no sense to me at all.
Seller_Z0SamZ2n4rceQ
@Jameson_Amazon@Bryce_Amazon
This is STILL going on! We just got another shipping strike due to a miss matching unit count when processed at an FBA warehouse! It's hasn't even been a week and already another one! Will someone at Amazon please look into this, because we 1000% sent the correct number of units! We've been paranoid about these strikes all month and have gone over the top in checking our unit counts! This like the many others is A MISTAKE ON AMAZON!
It's outrageous that our FBA account is nearing being at risk because of all of these mistakes made by FBA warehouses. We have an ongoing Amazon Seller loan and I cant imagine how Amazon expects us to pay this back if they restrict our FBA account due to mistakes that are 100% THEIR EMPLOYEES FAULT and we have endless proof of!
This is the shipment ID and I'll upload the case ID we just started for the dispute once that populates.
ID:FBA180T1R7FF
Seller_Z0SamZ2n4rceQ
@Jameson_Amazon @Bryce_Amazon
Here is the case ID for the previous shipment we mentioned that Amazon has miscounted.
Case ID: 15441508521
WE ALSO JUST GOT ANOTHER ONE under 4 days later for the same reason! This is absolutely crazy! We are about to loose shipping privileges to FBA over 1-2 unit discrepancies that AMAZON is miscounting! There's not even a way to fix this. Amazon asks us for invoices which we have but then this doesn't prove the correct number of units are in each box and get bounced back. We try uploading the box contents which are uploaded via the "web content" feature on send to Amazon and despite the pack groups being from Amazon itself, they still get rejected! There's no way to fix this even though were doing everything correct! We have proof we're sending the correct amount of units and Amazon is miscounting! Please fix this issue or stop penalizing us for problem that are completely a result of FBA Warehouse employees!
Here is the case ID for our most recent and sure not to be the last issue!
Case ID: 15451011151
Seller_Z0SamZ2n4rceQ
Here is yet another one! That's 3 of these unit miscount shiping issues this week!!! AMAZON ARE YOU KIDDING ME!
Here is our shipment ID FBA18074Q2H2 another case number to come but nothing seems to be being done so well see.
Jameson_Amazon
Thank you for your patience as I was looking into these shipments further, @Seller_Z0SamZ2n4rceQ. I truly appreciate you sending me all this information and I apologize for the frustration this situation has caused.
While looking into these shipments further, I noticed that you have requested a prep investigation rather than a shipment reconciliation. For these shipment discrepancies that you're experiencing, I would recommend following the steps listed on the "Reconcile your Shipment" help page to request the proper investigation. Please know that I am unable to escalate these shipments further until they have gone through the reconciliation investigation.
If you haven't done so already, I'd also encourage you to read through this post that lays out the differences between a shipment reconciliation and a prep investigation.
Now, if you are still experiencing these discrepancies after the reconciliation investigation, please reach back out to me in this thread with those investigation IDs!
Thanks so much,
Jameson
Seller_Z0SamZ2n4rceQ
Hi @Jameson_Amazon
Thank you for looking into this for us. We unfortunatley got another shipment alert today for shipping quantity issues. When I looked at this shipment to reconcile and have FBA investigate, we aren't even given that option. So for the 12TH TIME, we can do nothing and are stuck eating more of Amazons mistakes made upon our account. This is wildly unacceptable!
ID:FBA180T1R7BV
Seller_Z0SamZ2n4rceQ
Just to reiterate... this has happened to our account 12 TIMES, mostly this month and look at the volume of sellers writing into this post with all of there own issues with minor shipping discrepancies effecting their seller accounts... this is a widespread issue with the fulfillment centers. Why is Amazon not looking into fixing this obviously widespread issues with its fulfillment center practices!?
Jameson_Amazon
Thank you for the follow-up here, @Seller_Z0SamZ2n4rceQ. I'm sorry to hear that this happened again. Unfortunately, I do not have insights into why exactly this has happened to your account 12 times, that said, I will do whatever I can to help further!
Now, when I take a look into FBA180T1R7BV, I see that it is eligible for reconciliation. If you are still not able to request an investigation for that shipment, can you please open a ticket with Seller Support so they can take a look into why this option isn't available? Once you open that case, please send me the case ID and I'd be happy to monitor the correspondence and provide additional assistance if needed.
Thanks again,
Jameson
Seller_TfgX4x5bRBT6k
We have been going through the exact same situation over and over and our appeals are denied every single time. On top of that it shows in our seller central Dashboard,
You have Shipment Problems to Resolve
0 Outstanding shipment problems to resolve
2 Total shipment problems last 120 days
After doing this for the last 10 years, I could go train Amazon supervisors for free, but I do not feel like they have anyone who bothers to read our messages. Every single time, it is out fault does not matter what.
Seller_XJ5fPXK82lIHl
Same here! I print the labels for the exact amount of items I have and I place them all in to the boxes and count them. For example, I just sent a shipment with 100 units and AMZ only counted 85, which is not true. I am almost wondering if they are doing this on purpose to see who your suppliers are
Seller_5fGFO0SkdxjDg
Welcome to the club!!! In a monthly basis I had been dealing with staff (or robots) errors. They cannot even read EXP DATES properly and place my units in Unfulfillable. Then the drama starts, since no reps in seller support have rights on the system to make corrections and follow up cases until they are solved. My blood pressure rises when they know a mistake was made and I read a response in which they request proof of ownership on a merchandise sent using the systems tools and that UPS tracking shows as received in final destination. No matter if you take pictures of the items you ship and submit them, they want to review invoices etc etc.
Seller_85lVOARf5WaM0
I'd like to chime in on this because I think it's so important for sellers to think outside the box.
I, like all of you have suffered the same fate.
I literally have had thousands of dollars in inventory go missing and I began getting very irate because I know if I'm a functioning business, I can't lose inventory like that in the long haul and remain in business. It was wild the stuff Amazon would lose too. I'm talking big bottles of cleaners, crutches, Nerf Guns, all the way down to stuff I personally bagged and labeled so Amazon wouldn't screw up counts.
I began getting really upset when even the prepped items I did myself were getting lost because I'd have to make sure counts were correct. So I dug in to the process a bit more and this is kind of what I've concluded:
First of all, I've decided to prep and label everything myself as I stated earlier. I noticed when I got lazy and allowed Amazon to do it, more crap got lost, so honestly, it was better for me to do it and keep track. The cost and benefits outweighted paying Amazon $1.60 per unit for a stupid bag and label and sometimes, I found when I asked them to do it, they didn't do it anyway. You honestly will save yourself in the long run, trust me.
Two, Do not lose faith when they lose your items in FBA. Sometimes they do pop up in your stranded inventory months later or even in regular inventory as they may have shipped the item to California or Texas and they lose the thing, then poof, it shows up in your inventory. I'm not deflecting blame from Amazon that they should know where your crap is, but things do happen and I get that and do agree that the whole lost inventory process with appeals is a mess and usually unwinnable.
Three, I have found that in just general, I have veered away from FBA more and more and do more FBM. You avoid low inventory fees on FBM and often times the cost of the placement fee, low inventory fee, storage/fulfillment fees, and regular fees were often much more than just buying shipping supplies and shipping things myself as much of a pain as that is. But, I don't have lost inventory as I control everything and how the item is shipped and I think my profits have actually improved because I'm not losing crap everywhere.
These are my two cents, but there is a will and way. You sometimes need to be more creative and think of Amazon as a competitor than your own friend.
Seller_byryJBPFKi3dR
We have the exact same issue, and it all started about 1 year ago. Every shipment has a problem, with 1-3 units always being off the actual count.
When we open an investigation, it always comes back against us.
We triple count each box quantity, and in addition, most our boxes have standard size/quantities from the factory already.
Of course, there is nothing we can do other than just accept it. Who knows where those missing items go. Someone probably makes a profit off them.
