Amazon's fulfillment centers process billions of units a year, and a measurable fraction of them get lost, damaged, destroyed, or mis-received. When that happens to your inventory, Amazon owes you money. The catch: the rules for getting paid changed dramatically between late 2024 and 2025, and most guides online still describe the old system. This guide covers how FBA reimbursements actually work now — and how to make sure you collect everything you're owed.
The three policy changes that rewrote the rules
First, on October 23, 2024, Amazon cut the claim window for fulfillment-center claims to 60 days. Under the old policy you could sweep up to 18 months of history and file a big batch of back-claims — an entire reimbursement-service industry was built on that sweep. That era is over. If you don't catch a discrepancy within roughly two months, the money is gone permanently.
Second, starting November 1, 2024 (US), Amazon began automatically reimbursing many lost-inventory cases itself, without a claim. That sounds great — until you ask how Amazon decides how much to pay you.
Third, effective March 31, 2025, Amazon switched reimbursement valuation from your sale price to your manufacturing/sourcing cost. Amazon now estimates what the unit cost you — excluding your margin and fees — and pays that. If Amazon's estimate of your cost is lower than your true landed cost, you get underpaid on every single automated reimbursement, and most sellers never check.
What this means in practice
- •Speed wins. Discrepancies must be detected and claimed inside 60 days — monitoring has to be continuous, not quarterly.
- •Auto-reimbursements need auditing. Amazon pays its own estimate of your cost; you should verify it against your actual landed cost (supplier price + freight + duty + prep).
- •Cost documentation is money. You can provide your sourcing cost to Amazon. Sellers who can prove true landed cost get paid correctly; sellers who can't, get Amazon's guess.
- •Commission-based recovery services lost their edge. Their model fed on 18 months of backlog; with a 60-day window, the value is in always-on monitoring, not bulk filing.
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Every claim type you should be watching
- •Lost inbound — units that left your warehouse but were never checked in at the fulfillment center (compare units shipped vs units received per SKU, per shipment).
- •Warehouse lost & damaged — units lost or damaged inside the FC after check-in (FBA inventory ledger events).
- •Customer return discrepancies — refunds issued where the item never came back, or came back damaged, without reimbursement.
- •Disposal/removal errors — units destroyed or removed that you didn't authorize.
- •Fee errors — wrong weight or dimensions inflating fulfillment fees on every unit you ship.
- •Underpaid reimbursements — Amazon paid, but below your documented cost basis. This is the newest and least-watched category.
How BeanHawk automates the whole loop
BeanHawk watches every inbound shipment (units shipped vs received per SKU), the FBA inventory ledger, and every reimbursement Amazon issues. It flags discrepancies the day they appear, counts down each 60-day window, estimates recovery at your true landed cost from your purchase orders, drafts the claim, and — uniquely — audits Amazon's auto-reimbursements against your cost basis to catch underpayments. Then it posts everything to your books correctly: write-downs, receivables, and recovered cash.