FBA Reimbursement Claims UK: What Amazon Owes You and How to Check
Amazon reimburses many lost and damaged FBA units automatically, but not all of them. This guide shows the reports to check, the five places money usually goes missing, and how to raise a claim yourself before paying anyone else to do it.
Amazon owes you when a unit it holds is lost or damaged by Amazon, when an inbound shipment is received short and the shortfall is Amazon's fault, or when a customer is refunded but the item never comes back (or comes back in a state Amazon is responsible for). Many of these are reimbursed automatically. The rest need you to spot them in your reports and open a case within Amazon's time limits.
Where reimbursement money usually goes missing
| Situation | What to look for | Report to check |
|---|---|---|
| Lost in the fulfilment centre | Units marked as lost or misplaced that are never found or reimbursed | Inventory Ledger (detailed view) |
| Damaged by Amazon | Units marked as damaged in a warehouse with no matching reimbursement | Inventory Ledger, Reimbursements |
| Inbound shortfall | Shipment closed with fewer units received than you sent | Shipping queue / shipment summary |
| Customer refund, no return | Refund issued but no matching customer return received | FBA customer returns, payments/transactions |
| Return not put back into stock | Return received but the unit never appears as sellable or reimbursed | FBA customer returns, Inventory Ledger |
Report names and menus in Seller Central change from time to time. The ones above sit under Reports › Fulfilment (and Reports › Payments for reimbursements and transactions) on UK accounts at the time of writing.
Step 1: Pull the Reimbursements report first
Before you hunt for missing money, see what Amazon has already paid. Download the Reimbursements report for the period you are checking. Each line shows the ASIN or SKU, the reason, the quantity reimbursed in cash or inventory, and the amount. You will use it to rule out cases that are already settled, so you do not file duplicates. Duplicate or unsupported claims waste your time and Amazon's, and repeated invalid claims are not something you want on your account.
Step 2: Reconcile the Inventory Ledger
The Inventory Ledger replaced the older inventory adjustments reports. The detailed view lists every event for a unit: receipts, customer shipments, returns, removals, and adjustments such as lost, found or damaged. A simple monthly routine:
- Filter the detailed view for lost and damaged adjustment events.
- Net them against found events for the same FNSKU. Lost units are often found again within a few weeks, so give it time before you claim.
- For anything still lost or damaged after that, look for a matching line in the Reimbursements report.
- Units with no found event and no reimbursement are your claim list.
A spreadsheet with FNSKU, event date, quantity, status and case ID is enough. It stops you claiming twice and gives you dates when Amazon asks for evidence.
Step 3: Check every closed inbound shipment
When a shipment closes, compare units shipped with units received for each SKU. If Amazon received fewer than you sent, Amazon usually investigates first. If the shortfall is not resolved, you can open a case from the shipment itself. Have your proof ready: supplier invoice or proof of ownership, the packing list, carrier proof of delivery and box count. Accurate box contents information and correct labelling make these cases far easier to win.
Step 4: Match refunds to returns
Download the FBA customer returns report and your transaction data for the same period. For each refunded order, check that a return was received. If a buyer was refunded and the unit never came back after Amazon's return window, or it came back and was not reimbursed or returned to stock, that order is worth a case. This is also where partial refund rules matter: see our guide to FBA partial refunds by return reason.
Step 5: Open the case properly
- Open it from the relevant shipment, order or inventory event where Seller Central offers that option, rather than a general case.
- One issue per case: one shipment, or one FNSKU with its event dates.
- State the quantity, the dates, the report line you are relying on and what you are asking for.
- Attach proof of ownership (invoices) when asked. Invoices should match the product and quantities.
- If a reimbursement looks too low, you can query the valuation. Amazon generally values units on its own estimate of the sale price, not what you paid.
Time limits matter more than anything
Amazon sets a different claim window for each situation and has shortened several of them in recent policy updates. We are not quoting specific day counts here because they change and the policy page sits behind a Seller Central login. Before you start, open Seller Central Help › FBA inventory reimbursement policy and note the current window for each row in the table above. The practical rule: reconcile monthly, not annually, so nothing ages out.
DIY or a reimbursement service?
A small catalogue with a few shipments a month can be reconciled by hand in an hour or two. Larger accounts, or sellers who have never checked, often use a service that charges a percentage of what it recovers. We compare the options in best Amazon FBA reimbursement tool UK and GETIDA vs SellerLocker. Either way, knowing how to read the reports yourself means you can check the service's work.
The reconciliation routine is part of the admin system in the £29 Amazon FBA Playbook. If you are just starting, the free UK FBA Starter Framework covers the set-up steps.
Sources
Amazon Seller Central UK Help: “FBA inventory reimbursement policy”, “Inventory Ledger report” and “FBA customer returns report” (login required). Reviewed 27 October 2026. This article is general guidance, not a statement of Amazon's policy; Amazon's current policy wording always takes precedence.