Amazon A-to-z Guarantee Claims: How to Respond and Protect Your ODR

An A-to-z Guarantee claim is Amazon stepping in between you and a buyer who says something went wrong with an order. If you ship your own orders (Merchant Fulfilled, or FBM), every granted claim lands on you and counts against your Order Defect Rate. Here is how claims work, how to answer one, and how to stop most of them before they start.

When a buyer can file a claim

The A-to-z Guarantee covers two broad situations: the item never arrived (or arrived late), or it arrived damaged, defective, or materially different from the listing. A buyer can’t jump straight to a claim the moment a parcel is late. Amazon expects them to contact you first and give you a chance to fix it, and claims must be filed within a set window after the latest estimated delivery date (90 days in most marketplaces).

In practice, most claims come from three places: tracking that never updates, a return the buyer sent that you have not refunded, and a buyer message that sat unanswered for too long.

How a claim affects your account

Order Defect Rate is the share of orders with a defect over a rolling 60-day window, and Amazon expects it to stay under 1%. Granted A-to-z claims count as defects alongside negative feedback and credit card chargebacks. On a store doing 300 orders in 60 days, three defects are enough to breach the target.

Not every claim hurts you. Claims Amazon denies in your favour and claims the buyer withdraws do not count toward ODR. That is why responding quickly, with evidence, matters so much.

How to respond to a claim

You will find open claims under Performance → A-to-z Guarantee claims in Seller Central. Amazon gives you a short window to respond (usually 72 hours), and if you say nothing it will typically decide in the buyer’s favour.

Read the claim reason first. “Item not received” and “item not as described” need completely different evidence.
Pull the facts. Tracking number and carrier scans, proof of delivery, the listing as it looked on the order date, and every message with the buyer.
Decide whether the buyer is right. If the parcel really is lost or the item really was wrong, refund or replace it yourself before Amazon rules. A self-resolved claim is far better for your account than a granted one.
Respond in the claim page, not just by email. Keep it short and factual: what was ordered, when and how it shipped, what the tracking shows, and what you have already done.
Attach evidence. Screenshots of tracking with delivery confirmation, photos taken at packing, and the relevant message thread.

Appealing a granted claim

If Amazon grants a claim you believe was wrong, you can appeal the decision from the same claims page. Only appeal with something new: a delivery scan that came in late, a carrier investigation result, or photos the reviewer did not see. Repeating the original response rarely changes the outcome.

How to prevent claims in the first place

Ship on time with valid tracking. Upload tracking the day you ship, from a carrier Amazon recognises. Missing or invalid tracking is the single biggest cause of “not received” claims.
Answer buyer messages within 24 hours, including weekends. Most claims start as an ignored question.
Refund returns promptly once the item is back or tracking shows it delivered to you.
Keep listings accurate. Size, colour, quantity and condition should match exactly what is in the box.
Use signature confirmation on high-value orders, so you have proof of delivery when it matters.
Log every claim’s cause. If two claims share a root cause, such as one courier or one product, fix the process, not just the case.

The short version

Claims are mostly a symptom of slow shipping, weak tracking or slow replies. Fix those three and your claim count drops on its own. Respond to every claim with evidence, resolve genuine problems before Amazon has to, and keep an eye on your ODR every week.

If you would rather not watch claims, messages and tracking every day, PREP’s Amazon account management handles them for you, with every order and its tracking visible in your client portal.