At a glance
A live count of open A-to-z Guarantee claims, the buyer-escalated disputes that bypass your normal returns flow and put Amazon in the role of adjudicator. Every open claim is a direct threat to your Order Defect Rate (ODR), because a claim that Amazon grants counts against ODR even if you eventually refund. The alert fires when any claim sits unresolved beyond the response window, which on Amazon is short and unforgiving.
| What it counts | The number of A-to-z Guarantee claims currently in an open / awaiting-seller-action state across the connected selling account, surfaced from the claims feed in Seller Central. A claim is “open” until it is withdrawn, refunded, or decided by Amazon. |
| Fulfilment scope | Primarily FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) orders, where the seller is responsible for delivery and customer service. FBA orders are largely shielded, Amazon handles A-to-z claims on FBA shipments itself and does not normally charge them against your ODR, but FBA claims tied to a defective or wrong item can still surface. |
| Why it matters | A granted A-to-z claim is one of the heaviest defects in Amazon’s Account Health scoring. A cluster of granted claims can push ODR above the 1% threshold and trigger a deactivation review. |
| Buyer triggers | Item not received within the expected window, item materially different from the listing, return requested but not resolved, or refund promised but not issued. Most claims start as a failed buyer-seller message thread. |
| Response window | Amazon gives the seller a fixed, short window (commonly cited as around 3 calendar days) to respond before it can decide the claim in the buyer’s favour. This is why the alert is real-time and the threshold is tight. |
| Refunds | Issuing a full refund before Amazon decides usually closes the claim and, when done in time, can keep it from counting against ODR. A refund after Amazon has already granted the claim does not reverse the defect. |
| Time window | RT (real time, a live count rather than a period total) |
| Alert trigger | >0 unresolved >48h. Any claim left without a seller action for more than 48 hours flips the card and notifies the owner and operations roles. |
| Roles | owner, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Amazon Seller Central data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A UK home-fragrance seller fulfilling a mix of FBM and FBA on amazon.co.uk. Snapshot taken 14 Mar 26 at 09:00.| Claim | Order date | Fulfilment | Buyer reason | Age (open) | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim A | 06 Mar 26 | FBM | Item not received | 71h | Awaiting seller response |
| Claim B | 09 Mar 26 | FBM | Not as described | 18h | Awaiting seller response |
| Claim C | 11 Mar 26 | FBM | Refund not issued | 6h | Awaiting seller response |
| Open claims (this card) | 3 |
- One aged claim is enough to fire the alert. The alert is
>0 unresolved >48h, so Claim A alone flips the card amber even though the headline count is 3. The card exists to stop a single forgotten claim from quietly converting into a granted defect. - All three claims are FBM. That is the common pattern, the seller owns delivery and customer service on these orders, so the buyer escalates to Amazon when contact stalls. An equivalent FBA order would usually have gone through Amazon’s own returns flow instead.
- Claim A is the dangerous one. “Item not received” claims are frequently decided for the buyer when the seller cannot show valid, on-time tracking. If this claim is granted, it lands as an ODR defect, see Order Defect Rate.
- Fast refunds can still save Claim B and C. Both are inside the response window. A prompt refund or a clear, evidenced response now usually closes them without a defect. The window is the whole point of the real-time framing.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
An open-claims count is an early-warning trigger. Pair it with the cards that show the downstream account-health damage:| Card | Why pair it with A-to-z Guarantee Claims (open) |
|---|---|
| Order Defect Rate | Granted A-to-z claims are a primary ODR defect. This card is the leading indicator; ODR is the lagging score that decides account health. |
| Account Health Status | The composite that A-to-z claims can drag down. A burst of granted claims is one of the fastest routes from “Healthy” to “At Risk”. |
| Late Shipment Rate | Late shipments are a leading cause of “item not received” claims. If LSR is climbing, expect this card to follow. |
| Pre-Fulfilment Cancel Rate | Cancellations after a buyer pays are another claim trigger. Both cards track FBM operational hygiene. |
| Negative Feedback (30d) | Buyers who file a claim often leave negative feedback too. Correlated movement points at a single root cause. |
| Account Health Creep | The slow-drift alert. Use it to catch the gradual ODR rise that a steady trickle of claims produces. |
Reconciling against Amazon Seller Central
Where to look in Seller Central:Performance → A-to-z Guarantee Claims Also surfaced under Account Health → Customer Service Performance, where granted claims feed the Order Defect Rate panel.Filter the claims view to the open / action-required state and the count should match this card closely. The Account Health page shows the ODR consequence rather than the raw open count, so use the dedicated claims page for a like-for-like reconciliation. Timing and reporting-lag table:
| Topic | Detail |
|---|---|
| Timezone | Seller Central displays times in your marketplace’s local timezone; Vortex IQ evaluates the 48-hour age threshold in UTC. A claim near a day boundary can read a few hours apart between the two views. |
| Refresh cadence | The claims feed is polled on a frequent cycle so the live count stays close to real time. A claim you have just refunded may show as open for a short window until Amazon marks it resolved. |
| State transitions | ”Open” covers awaiting-seller-response and under-Amazon-review. Once a claim is withdrawn, refunded, or decided, it leaves this count. The ODR impact of a granted claim then appears on the Account Health page on Amazon’s own schedule. |
| FBA shielding | Amazon handles most FBA A-to-z claims itself and typically does not charge them to your ODR. The card focuses on the FBM claims you must action; FBA claims may appear but are usually informational. |
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution lag | Ours briefly higher | A claim you just refunded can still read as open until Amazon’s system marks it resolved. The gap closes on the next refresh. |
| State definition | Either direction | If you filter the Seller Central view to a narrower state (for example, “action required” only), it can read lower than our broader open count. |
| Timezone on the age threshold | Affects the alert, not the count | The 48-hour alert is computed in UTC; a claim shown as “2 days old” in local time may or may not have crossed 48h in UTC. |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
ebay.open-inr-cases | Marketplace peer. eBay’s “Item Not Received” cases are the closest analogue to Amazon’s “item not received” A-to-z claims. Independent populations, used for cross-marketplace operational comparison. | Different escalation rules and response windows. eBay cases and Amazon claims never share the same order. |
shopify.return-rate | Independent channel. A seller’s own-site disputes (chargebacks, refunds) are separate from Amazon claims. | A shared fulfilment problem (a courier failure, a defective batch) can drive claims on Amazon and returns on Shopify at the same time. Same cause, separate counts. |