The platform initiated a large number of refunds, and one category of Amazon was in turmoil!

Recently, sellers in the Amazon tabletop stove category have been in a panic.

A large number of sellers were automatically refunded by the platform

Not long ago, an Amazon seller shared his bad experience on the forum. It turned out that the platform had a retroactive refund for the tabletop stove he sold more than 9 months ago. "They removed my listing and refunded all the sales to the customers, which now directly caused me to bear a refund of several thousand dollars."

Amazon's reason was that the seller's product did not comply with the platform's terms of service and posed a safety hazard. However, the seller received feedback from Amazon's support department that he had fully complied with the platform's terms of service when selling the product.

The seller felt aggrieved and confused: "My product complied with Amazon's terms of service during the sales phase, but it no longer complied nine months later. I can understand why they removed the product listing, but is it legal to refund orders placed nine months ago?"

Yien found that the same thing happened to a large number of Amazon sellers with the same product.

One seller said that Amazon refunded every order in the past, even those from a few years ago. " After receiving the first email notification, Amazon quickly initiated the refund process without even giving me 24 hours. "

Another seller's time interval was even shorter. He said that within 12 hours of receiving the notification that the relevant products had safety risks, Amazon took action. When he called the platform to request relevant documents to determine that there were problems with the products, he was repeatedly rejected. In desperation, he shouted: "I must file for bankruptcy."

The seller's cry is not an exaggeration. One seller revealed that his total revenue from all SKUs exceeded $400,000, and so far, the refund amount has reached $10,000. If this situation continues, he will be forced to close the company and file for bankruptcy.

The sellers did not agree with the platform's handling method, so they opened a case to communicate with the seller support team. However, they were told that since the refund code showed that it was due to "damaged items during shipment", it was a defect in the goods, not damage caused by the carrier, so the responsibility lies with the seller.

However, the seller thought this reason was ridiculous: "Amazon knew that what they were doing was illegal, so they made up this reason."

So, what exactly is the reason that causes Amazon to issue large-scale refunds without any warning?

Tabletop stove kills two

Recently, problems with tabletop stoves have occurred frequently, even causing casualties, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission ( CPSC) has also issued recall orders for the two brands that caused the accidents.

On December 19, 2024, the CPSC issued a product safety warning urging consumers to stop using FLIKRFIRE's tabletop stove because of the risk of flame spray and fire.

According to the CPSC, in June this year , an elderly couple was severely burned by the flames when others added alcohol fuel to a seemingly extinguished FLIKRFIRE tabletop stove, and died of their injuries a week after being sent to the hospital. In addition, in at least three other incidents, FLIKRFIRE caused consumers to suffer large third- or fourth-degree burns on their bodies.

The FLIKRFIRE tabletop fire is a small decorative bowl or open container that requires consumers to pour alcohol into the bowl and then ignite the alcohol in the same location where it was poured. The CPSC said requiring consumers to take these two steps to use the product violates voluntary safety standard ASTM F3363-19. Note: This standard is designed to prevent pool fires and jet flames from fireplace products that burn liquids.

From 2018 to 2024, FLIKRFIRE's tabletop stoves have been sold online, including third-party platforms such as Amazon, BespokePost, Faire, and its official independent website. The price ranges from US$35 to US$105.

However, the product's manufacturer, FLIKR LLC, has gone out of business and has not agreed to provide consumers with recall remedies. To make matters worse, its former manufacturer, Seera Creative LLC, has also gone out of business.

Two months before the CPSC issued a safety warning for FLIKRFIRE, it had already issued a recall order for another brand, Colson, with nearly 90,000 products recalled .

The product was sold on Amazon, Colsen's official website, Walmart, Wayfair, TikTok and other platforms from January 2020 to July 2024. The price ranged from US$40 to US$90.

The CPSC said it had received 31 reports of fire and flames from the brand's products, with 19 people injured in these incidents. Two of the incidents resulted in third-degree burns over 40% of the victim's body, and at least six incidents required surgery, long-term treatment, admission to a burn facility, short-term disability, loss of function, physical therapy or permanent disfigurement.

Unfortunately, the manufacturer of the product was not able to take responsibility for these accidents, as the company stopped selling Colsen-branded tabletop stoves less than a year after acquiring the Colsen product business and did not have the financial resources to provide consumers with remedies.

From a legal perspective, Amazon has a responsibility to oversee the recall process of unsafe FLIKRFIRE and Colsen products and provide consumers with appropriate remedies, such as refunds or exchanges. But what sellers don’t understand is that Amazon has expanded the refund scope to other brands selling similar products. Although they followed Amazon’s terms of service and relevant safety standards when listing their products, the platform still deleted their listings and refunded them, and the refund time frame was extended.

Refunds can be made up to two years ago

Amazon’s refund tracing time is quite long. According to information obtained by the seller’s support team, the platform will refund orders placed in the past 24 months (2 years).

At the same time, feedback from sellers also confirmed the accuracy of the news. One seller revealed that his refund time had been traced back to two years ago, and the cumulative refund amount had reached 22,000 US dollars. Today, although the seller's account has a negative balance, the refund amount is still increasing.

In this case, the longer the sales time is and the more orders are sold, the greater the loss will be.

Sellers believe that Amazon's responsibility is to manage the recall process for specific recalled products and provide appropriate remedies to affected consumers, but it has no right to refund other brands that have sold the product in the past two years. Now, it is incorrect and even illegal for Amazon to preemptively resolve this issue.

And even for products recalled by the CPSC, buyers need to take the initiative to apply for a refund or exchange. "I have never woken up one morning in my life to receive an email saying 'There is a safety issue with this product, I refund it'," complained a seller.

One seller revealed that in view of the current predicament, he intends to resolve the problem through appeal. However, most sellers hold a different view, believing that appeals may play a role in restoring listings or helping to continue sales, but may not be ideal in dealing with the current refund problem.

Some sellers learned from the Amazon support team that the platform can refund the money to consumers after 60 days, and Amazon will process the application within 120 days, but if the consumer returns the product to the seller, the money will be recovered by Amazon. However, most sellers are skeptical about this, and even if the platform will refund, it is a challenge for them to bear the loss of funds for 120 days.

As of press time, there are still a large number of tabletop stoves on sale on Amazon, but sellers of these products are always worried. One seller said with concern: "I really don't know whether Amazon's action is only aimed at some sellers or all sellers." Another seller also echoed: "Amazon launched a round of sweeps at the end of December, and no one knows whether there will be another round next."

In this uncertain environment, some sellers have chosen to withdraw. A seller who has experienced a round of impact revealed that he originally had four other ASINs in the tabletop stove category, but now he has deleted all their listings and cleared out the inventory in FBA, hoping to avoid being marked by Amazon in this way.

Amazon automatic refunds