A-to-z Guarantee Claims (open), Amazon Seller Central

Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Marketplace

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 A claim is “open” until it is withdrawn, refunded, or decided by Amazon.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

Card value shown          =  3 open claims
Triggering the alert      =  Claim A (71h open, past the 48h alert threshold)
Below the alert threshold =  Claim B (18h), Claim C (6h)

Four things to notice:

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.

If this seller responds to Claim A with valid tracking within the next few hours and refunds Claim C as a goodwill gesture, the open count drops and the alert clears. Left untouched, all three risk being decided by Amazon, and granted claims feed straight into Account Health.

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.

Why our number may legitimately differ from Seller Central:

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.

Cross-connector reconciliation against other connectors the same seller may run:

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.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Does an open claim hurt my account on its own? Not while it is open and you are responding. The damage comes when Amazon grants a claim, which then counts as an Order Defect Rate defect. The whole point of acting fast is to resolve the claim before it is granted. How long do I have to respond? Amazon’s response window is short, commonly cited as around 3 calendar days. The card’s alert is tighter still at 48 hours, deliberately, to give you a buffer before the official deadline. If I refund, does the claim go away? A timely full refund usually closes the claim and, when done before Amazon decides, normally keeps it from counting against ODR. A refund issued after Amazon has already granted the claim does not undo the defect. Why are nearly all my claims FBM? Because on FBM you own delivery and customer service, so buyers escalate to Amazon when contact stalls. On FBA, Amazon runs the returns and customer-service flow and absorbs most A-to-z claims itself, which is one of the operational advantages of FBA. A claim shows as open here but I already refunded it. That is resolution lag. Amazon needs a short window to mark the claim resolved after your refund. The count will drop on the next refresh. What is the single best way to prevent these claims? Ship on time with valid tracking and answer buyer messages within 24 hours. The majority of A-to-z claims start as “item not received” or an unanswered message; both are preventable with disciplined FBM fulfilment and fast communication. Does this count against my Account Health if I win the claim? No. A claim that is withdrawn or decided in your favour does not count as a defect. Only granted claims feed ODR, which is why a strong, evidenced response matters.

Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

A-to-z Guarantee Claims (open) is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Amazon Seller Central and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.

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A-to-z Guarantee Claims (open), Amazon Seller Central

At a glance

Calculation

Worked example

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Reconciling against Amazon Seller Central

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

​At a glance

​Calculation

​Worked example

​Sibling cards merchants should reference together

​Reconciling against Amazon Seller Central

​Known limitations / merchant FAQs

​Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

At a glance

Calculation

Worked example

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Reconciling against Amazon Seller Central

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre