Amazon US announced today a new process for responding to chargebacks (the cardholder-initiated reversal of a credit-card transaction when, for example, the order was placed fraudulently or the product was not received).

In the past merchants simply replied to a chargeback notification email with the date the item was shipped, the shipping method used and any tracking information for the shipment. If the consumer claims that the item is different then from the one ordered on Amazon, then the merchant may also be asked to provide detailed product information to investigate the dispute.

Merchants can now manage chargebacks directly within Seller Central under Reports > Seller Performance > Chargebacks:

Through this new functionality you can now view chargebacks that you need to respond to, resolved chargebacks and those in process (under review) at Amazon.

While both methods, email and management in the Seller Central dashboard, are supported today, I anticipate that Amazon will be retiring email chargeback replies to streamline to this new, more structured approach.

Of course it may simply be wiser to issue a full refund to the consumer so that Amazon will not record the chargeback as “granted” and your seller account performance will not be negatively impacted.

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