A-to-z Guarantee claims in India the 48-hour clock, and how to appeal

What an A-to-z claim is

The Amazon A-to-z Guarantee is a promise to customers: if an order does not arrive, or is not what they expected, they can ask Amazon to step in. Amazon describes it for self-fulfilled orders, meaning orders you fulfil yourself, and says it covers both timely delivery and the condition of the item once received.

When a customer files an A-to-z Guarantee claim, Amazon investigates and decides whether to grant it. If it is granted, your account is debited the claim amount and, if Amazon decides you were at fault, it counts toward your order defect rate.

Source: Amazon Seller Central, Amazon's A-to-z Guarantee claims (amazon.in, read October 2026).

What happens before a claim is filed

A customer must usually contact you first and give you a chance to fix the problem. What counts depends on the issue:

• Item not received. Amazon directs the customer to Buyer-Seller Messages. For a delivery issue the customer must also wait 3 days past the maximum estimated delivery date before they can file.
• Item not as expected. Amazon directs the customer to the Manage seller fulfilled returns page to raise a return request.

That starts your clock. Amazon expects two things:

• For a delivery issue, reply in Buyer-Seller Messages and try to resolve it within 48 hours of the customer's first message.
• For a return request, authorise it or respond within 48 hours, with a valid domestic return address or a prepaid return label. Amazon calls a reply within 24 hours best practice.

Source: Amazon Seller Central, Amazon's A-to-z Guarantee claims (amazon.in, read October 2026).

Miss the first 48 hours and Amazon can grant the claim automatically.

How a claim ends

After a claim is filed, Amazon lists four outcomes:

• You refund the customer in full. The claim closes. This counts toward your order defect rate. Amazon says you may ask the customer to return the item before you process the refund.
• Amazon investigates. It weighs your Buyer-Seller Messages and whether you authorised the return request, and may ask you for more. If you do not respond to an information request in time, Amazon may grant the claim in the customer's favour.
• The claim is granted automatically and your account is debited. See the list below.
• The customer withdraws the claim. It closes with no effect on your order defect rate.

Amazon says it grants a claim automatically when:

• you did not reply to a delivery complaint within 48 hours;
• you did not authorise a return request within 48 hours (Amazon says closing or rejecting it does not count as authorising);
• you did not ship the order by the expected ship date;
• you did not use a trackable shipping method and did not give a valid tracking ID on the Manage orders page when the order was placed;
• you did not deliver the order by the maximum estimated delivery date;
• the tracking you gave shows the order is undeliverable;
• you did not deliver to the address the customer provided.

Source: Amazon Seller Central, Amazon's A-to-z Guarantee claims (amazon.in, read October 2026).

A few cases skip the conversation entirely. Amazon can refund the customer without them contacting you when tracking shows the package is returning to you, when you had not shipped the order or confirmed shipment when the claim was filed, or when your seller account was closed or deactivated with orders open. Amazon says the first of these does not affect your account health or order defect rate; the second does.

Source: Amazon Seller Central, Amazon's A-to-z Guarantee claims (amazon.in, read October 2026).

Responding to a claim

You get an email when a customer files a claim, and Amazon says you are responsible for monitoring and resolving your claims. In Seller Central the claims are under Orders, then Resolve claims, on the Manage A-to-z claims tab. That page has four tabs: Action Required, Under Review, Option to Appeal and All, and you can search by order ID. Each claim card shows the customer's issue and comments, the product amount and the claim date, with a short message history. Amazon has redesigned Seller Central, so its help text may not match what you see.

Source: Amazon Seller Central, Respond to an A-to-z Guarantee claim (amazon.in, read October 2026).

Source: Amazon Seller Central, Respond to an A-to-z Guarantee claim (amazon.in, read October 2026).

Appealing a granted claim

If Amazon grants a claim in the customer's favour, whether automatically or after investigating, you have 30 calendar days to appeal and give new information. Amazon re-investigates with everything available, may ask you for more, and then decides whether to reverse the decision in whole or in part. If you do not appeal within 30 calendar days, the claim is closed and any negative effect on your order defect rate cannot be reversed.

Claims that have this option sit on the Option to Appeal tab. Amazon's appeal page says to upload proof of delivery or other documents that support your reason, and that if Amazon needs more it will email you and you must reply within 72 hours. Given the 48-hour limit we saw on live claims, answer sooner.

A successful appeal can reverse the cost of the refund, the effect on your order defect rate, or both. Amazon says the order defect rate reversal or the refund to your account can take up to 7 calendar days to show.

Source: Amazon Seller Central, Appeal an A-to-z Guarantee claim (amazon.in, read October 2026).

Source: Amazon Seller Central, Amazon's A-to-z Guarantee claims (amazon.in, read October 2026).

Source: Amazon Seller Central, Amazon's A-to-z Guarantee claims (amazon.in, read October 2026).

What it does to your order defect rate

The order defect rate is the share of orders with one or more signs of poor service in a 60-day period. It has three parts: negative feedback, A-to-z Guarantee claims and credit card chargebacks. Amazon requires it to stay under 1%, and above that it may restrict your selling privileges, including suspending your seller-fulfilled offers.

These claims count toward it:

• claims granted to the buyer where Amazon decides you were at fault;
• claims where you refunded the buyer after the claim was filed;
• claims where you or Amazon cancelled the order;
• claims that are pending a decision on appeal.

These do not:

• claims where Amazon decides you were not at fault;
• claims denied to the buyer;
• claims withdrawn by the buyer.

If a decision is reversed on appeal and you are found not at fault, the claim is removed from your order defect rate. Notice that refunding after a claim is filed still counts, so a quick refund ends the claim but does not clear the mark.

Source: Amazon Seller Central, Order defect rate (amazon.in, read October 2026).

To download the order defect rate report, go to Account health, then Manage account health, then Order defect rate, then Download report. The account health page shows the order defect rate and splits it into its three parts, under Customer Service Performance.

Keeping claims from being granted

This section is our reading of Amazon's list of automatic grants above, not an Amazon rule. Nearly every item on that list is something you control:

• Ship by the expected ship date, and confirm the shipment.
• Use a trackable shipping method and add a valid tracking ID when the order is placed.
• Reply to every delivery complaint inside 48 hours.
• Authorise or answer every return request inside 48 hours, with a valid domestic return address or a prepaid label. Amazon calls 24 hours best practice.
• Keep proof of delivery for every order you ship yourself.
• Answer Amazon's information requests the day they arrive, not on the deadline.

The returns evidence checklist covers what to photograph on a returned unit. Photographs of the unit and the packing help here too, if a customer claims something arrived damaged or different.

Where Unilytic fits

Unilytic does not file, track or appeal A-to-z claims, and it does not read your claims page. Respond and appeal in Seller Central, and keep the 48-hour and 30-day clocks in your own calendar.

What it does help with is the returns side of seller-fulfilled (FBM) orders: it reads the seller-fulfilled returns report and puts each return next to its refund and SAFE-T claim status, so a return that arrived damaged or never came back does not slip past you. It shows nothing from the A-to-z column of that report. See the SAFE-T claims guide.

Questions sellers ask