449: Amazon Is Silently Stealing From You And How To Get Your Money Back With Yoni Mazor

Podcast: Download (Duration: 47:53 — 55.1MB)

Amazon quietly costs FBA sellers 1% to 3% of gross revenue every year in lost inventory, damaged units, and miscalculated fees. That is Yoni Mazor’s number, and he should know.

Yoni is the co-founder of Getida, and his team has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars in FBA reimbursements for sellers doing anywhere from $500,000 to $100 million a year on Amazon. On a $1M FBA business that gap is $10,000 to $30,000 a year that Amazon owes you and will not send unless you ask.

In this episode of the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, Yoni walked me through the exact reports, documents, and audits you need to claw that money back yourself, plus the fee errors and competitor attacks that drain sellers who never look.

Here is the playbook, condensed into a step-by-step FBA reimbursement guide.

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Key takeaways

• FBA discrepancies run 1% to 3% of revenue per year across lost, damaged, destroyed, and mis-fee’d units.
• Amazon lets you claim reimbursements up to 18 months back, but you have to file the case.
• For lost or damaged units inside a fulfillment center, cross-check three reports: Inventory Adjustment, Inventory Event Detail, and Reimbursement.
• Private-label sellers with Brand Registry can substitute a signed packing slip for an invoice as proof of ownership.
• Fee-overcharge claims are limited to 90 days, so audit weight and dimensions quarterly.
• A competitor can attack you by piggybacking your ASIN and inflating the weight or size, silently spiking your fees.

How much does Amazon owe FBA sellers?

Across Getida’s data, roughly 1% to 3% of FBA revenue each year ends up as a recoverable discrepancy. On a $1M FBA business that is $10,000 to $30,000. On a $100M operation like the one Yoni ran before spinning out Getida full-time, it is $1M to $3M a year.

Yoni discovered the gap the hard way. He and co-founder Max Boran scaled an FBA business from zero to $20M and then became part of a group doing $100M in FBA sales. Their spreadsheets could not keep up with the reconciliation math, so they built software and a dedicated team to process the data at scale.

Getida launched as a service to friends in 2015, then cashed out of retail so the whole company could focus on recoveries. The business model is free to join with no subscription. They only get paid a performance fee when they recover money for you.

Where does Amazon lose or damage FBA inventory?

Amazon loses and damages inventory at every logistics friction point in the FBA network, not just at inbound receiving. Yoni’s laundry list of where units go missing or get billed wrong:

• Inbound receiving. You ship 1,000 units, Amazon scans in 990. The 10 unit gap is the entry-level issue every seller eventually spots.
• Inside a fulfillment center. Units get lost, damaged, or destroyed after they were successfully received.
• Between fulfillment centers. Amazon moves your inventory Kentucky to California to Nevada to hit one and two-day Prime windows. Units get lost in transit.
• Outbound to customers. Lost or damaged en route to the buyer.
• Customer returns back to the warehouse. Never scanned back into your available inventory.
• FBA removal orders back to you. Units disappear on the way out.
• Fee overcharges. Weight or dimension data goes wrong and Amazon starts billing you fulfillment and storage fees you do not owe.

Amazon lets you go back 18 months on the data to reconcile, but the burden is on the seller to catch it and file the claim.

What reports do you pull to find missing FBA inventory?

You cross-reference three fulfillment reports inside Seller Central to identify units eligible for reimbursement. Yoni walked through the old-school workflow that still works while Amazon migrates to a newer reporting set.

Start in Seller Central under Reports, then Fulfillment. The three reports you need to line up:

1. Inventory Adjustment Report. Filter for entries coded “lost” or “damaged.” Every category has its own code, so read the legend.
2. Inventory Event Detail Report. Check whether the same unit was later “found.” If yes, stop. You are not eligible.
3. Reimbursement Report. Check whether Amazon already auto-reimbursed you. If yes, stop. If not, you have a claim.

If the unit is lost in report one, never found in report two, and never reimbursed in report three, open a case. Amazon does not automatically issue every reimbursement you are owed. Roughly 80% of sellers are not even aware they need to audit this themselves.

How do you file an Amazon FBA reimbursement claim for a missing shipment?

For under-received inbound shipments, go to Inventory, Manage FBA Shipments, open the shipment showing under-receive counts in red, and click “please research.” Two or three years ago that alone triggered a reimbursement. Today Amazon usually asks for supporting documents before it will investigate.

There are two documents you may be asked for:

• Proof of ownership (POO). For resellers, an invoice from your supplier or distributor. For private-label sellers with Brand Registry, a signed packing slip works instead. You are the producer, so you self-declare ownership.
• Proof of delivery (POD). If you used Amazon’s partner carrier, skip it. Amazon already has tracking. If you used any outside freight forwarder or carrier, you need a signed POD, usually with Amazon’s signature and warehouse stamp.

Yoni’s field data: about 80% of Getida users ship on Amazon’s partner carrier, and the other 20% who use outside carriers periodically get burned when their freight forwarder cannot produce a POD. If you cannot prove Amazon received your container, Amazon will not reconcile the shipment even if it is worth six figures.

How do FBA fee overcharges happen?

Amazon tiers fulfillment and storage fees by weight and dimension, so any dimension error silently inflates your fees on every unit sold from that point forward. This is a financial discrepancy, not a physical one, and it can drain profit fast.

Yoni’s classic example is a returned handbag. The customer stuffs the strap inside the bag differently than the original packaging, and Amazon’s Cubic Scan machine measures the returned unit with the extra inches of strap. Amazon updates its stored dimensions and starts billing higher fees on every future unit.

The catch: fee-overcharge reimbursements are capped at the past 90 days. If Amazon overcharged you $100,000 in a year but only $30,000 in the last 90 days, that $30,000 is all you get. This is why fee audits belong on a quarterly calendar, not an annual one.

How do competitors trigger FBA fee overcharges on your ASINs?

A competitor can hijack your ASIN as a reseller, submit fake weight and dimension data, and let Amazon’s system silently inflate your fees on every future sale. Yoni has seen it work in the wild.

The attack is simple. Your competitor sells in the same category, takes your ASIN, and lists the product they will never actually ship.

When they list, they change the weight from three ounces to 30 pounds and dimensions from six inches to 60. Amazon absorbs the new data and recalculates your fees using the inflated numbers.

You look up one day and your margin has collapsed. Meanwhile your competitor is running clean fees and grinding you out. The only defense is a quarterly audit of your fee preview report against your factory’s real weight and dimension chart.

How do you audit your Amazon FBA fees?

Pull the fee preview report inside Seller Central and match Amazon’s stored weight and dimensions against the true specs from your factory. Yoni offered two paths.

The bare-knuckle way: go through your inventory manually. If every unit in a product family should be charged $4.12 and one is showing $7.80, that is the anomaly. Fine for a 5 or 10 ASIN catalog.

The professional way: Seller Central, Reports, Fulfillment, then Fee Preview. This lists every ASIN’s stored dimensions and the fees Amazon expects to charge.

Compare to your real spec sheet. Anything that does not match is a claim to file.

What should you know about Amazon Warehousing and Distribution (AWD)?

AWD is Amazon’s new 3PL-style program where sellers ship inventory in bulk to Amazon and Amazon holds, drips into FBA, or fulfills to other channels like wholesale to JCPenney or Macy’s. Yoni thinks it is a reasonable option but expects it to inherit the same reconciliation headaches as regular FBA.

The origin story is warehouse capacity. Amazon overbuilt during the pandemic, and now they are monetizing the empty space by renting it to sellers as a bulk-storage layer above FBA. The pitch is pool-based auto-replenishment, where AWD drips into your FBA slot the moment stock runs low.

Whether the fees actually beat a strong independent 3PL is still an open question. And any lost or damaged inventory inside AWD will need the same three-report audit and case-filing workflow that FBA already demands.

What is a healthy FBA inventory buffer heading into Q4?

Always keep an FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) backup listing with a 3PL alongside your main FBA listing, so you never lose Buy Box or rank if you stock out. Yoni called this a golden rule year-round and especially critical in Q4 when Amazon can cut your FBA storage limits in half with almost no notice.

The pattern in the field: sellers wake up one morning to discover their 200,000-unit storage cap is now 100,000, right as they are prepping for the holidays. Options are limited to opening cases, appealing, and drip-shipping smaller quantities from your 3PL into FBA as inventory sells through.

Even outside Q4, the FBM backup listing means a surprise stockout does not tank your ranking or hand sales to a competitor. Set it up once and forget it.

Amazon FBA reimbursement claims: quick-reference table

Frequently asked questions

How far back can you claim Amazon FBA reimbursements?

Amazon lets sellers reconcile inventory-related FBA discrepancies going back 18 months. Fee-overcharge reimbursements are capped at the past 90 days, which is why fee audits belong on a quarterly cadence.

Does Amazon automatically reimburse lost FBA inventory?

Amazon auto-reimburses some FBA losses but not all. The company’s own terms of service state that the seller is responsible for pulling reports and filing claims for anything Amazon missed, and roughly 80% of sellers do not know this.

What is proof of ownership for an Amazon FBA claim?

Proof of ownership is a document showing you own the units in a shipment. Resellers usually submit an invoice from their supplier. Private-label sellers with Brand Registry can submit a signed packing slip with their company info, shipment details, and signature.

What is proof of delivery for FBA shipments?

Proof of delivery is a signed document from a carrier confirming Amazon received your shipment, typically with Amazon’s warehouse stamp or signature. You do not need one if you used Amazon’s partner carrier, since Amazon already has the tracking data.

How much do Amazon FBA sellers lose to discrepancies each year?

Getida’s data across thousands of sellers puts recoverable FBA discrepancies at 1% to 3% of gross revenue per year, spanning lost, damaged, destroyed, and fee-miscalculated units.

Can competitors change your ASIN’s weight and dimensions?

Yes. A competitor in the same unrestricted category can piggyback your ASIN as a reseller, submit inflated weight and dimension data, and cause Amazon’s system to recalculate and overcharge your FBA fees. The defense is a quarterly fee-preview audit against your real factory spec sheet.

Is Getida free to use?

Getida is free to sign up for and free to run audits inside. The company only charges a performance fee when it recovers reimbursements for you, so there is no subscription cost.

What is Amazon Warehousing and Distribution (AWD)?

AWD is Amazon’s bulk-storage and 3PL-style service where sellers ship containers of inventory to Amazon, which then holds it and drips into FBA (or fulfills to other channels) on demand. It was announced at Amazon Accelerate as a way to monetize excess warehouse capacity built during the pandemic.

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