Claim deadlines: the money you lose by being late.
Weak evidence can be fixed. A wrong category can be refiled. An expired window cannot be anything. Here is what each clock is attached to, when it starts, and how to stop losing legitimate claims to the calendar.
- A missed window is the only claim failure that cannot be argued back. It is final.
- Windows start from the platform's trigger event — usually return receipt or settlement date, not the day you noticed.
- Deadlines differ by marketplace AND by claim type. Do not assume one number covers everything.
- The most-missed claims are the silent ones: wrong weights, duplicates, returns that never arrived.
- Robnu calculates the deadline per claim and files inside it. Free while we figure out pricing.
Every seller who has reconciled a quarter properly has had the same experience: finding several clearly wrong charges and discovering that all of them are now unclaimable. This guide is about making sure that stops happening.
Anchor to the event, not the discovery
The single most expensive misunderstanding about claim windows is assuming the clock starts when you notice the problem. It does not. It starts at the event the platform counts from — typically the date a return was received, or the date a settlement was issued.
That distinction matters enormously in practice. A seller who reconciles monthly is routinely discovering issues whose windows opened weeks earlier and have already closed. The problem is not diligence; it is that the discovery happened at the wrong end of the clock.
What each deadline is attached to
Exact durations vary by marketplace and change over time — always confirm the current window in your seller panel. What does not change is the trigger event each one hangs off.
Return condition claims
Wrong item, used item, empty box, tampered parcel. Starts from return receipt. The shortest and most frequently missed window, because it requires inspecting on the day.
Settlement disputes
Wrong weight, duplicate charge, incorrect commission. Starts from the settlement date. Missed by anyone reconciling less often than the cycle.
Lost in transit
A return billed but never delivered back. Starts from the last tracking event or the marked delivery date. Requires you to notice an absence, which is hard.
Appeals after rejection
Starts from the rejection date, not the original event. See the re-appeal playbook.
Deadlines that track themselves
Tracking claim windows manually means knowing every platform’s rules for every claim type, calculating a deadline at the moment each event occurs, and reviewing that register daily. It is exactly the kind of precise, repetitive, high-stakes work that people do badly and software does perfectly.
Robnu is an agentic OMS. It detects claimable events as they happen, calculates the correct window for that claim type on that marketplace, and files inside it with the evidence attached — a rare approval click while fully-autonomous filing rolls out. Nothing expires quietly in the background.
You sell. Robnu runs the rest — and makes sure every rupee is paid correctly.
Claim deadlines, answered
Because a missed window is the one loss that cannot be argued back. Weak evidence can be strengthened and a wrong category can be refiled, but an expired claim is final regardless of how obviously you were in the right. Deadlines convert winnable money into permanent losses more reliably than any other factor.
It varies by claim type, and getting this wrong is a common way to miss a deadline you thought you had time on. Return-related windows typically start when the return is received rather than when the order was placed or when you noticed the problem. Settlement disputes usually start from the settlement date. Always anchor to the event the platform counts from, not the day you spotted the issue.
No, and assuming they are is how multi-marketplace sellers lose money. Each platform sets its own windows for each claim type, and they differ meaningfully. If you sell on more than one marketplace you need either a per-platform reference or a system that tracks the correct deadline per claim automatically.
It is generally rejected on that basis alone, without the merits being considered. Platforms enforce windows procedurally because they have to — the alternative is unbounded liability on old orders. This is why treating claim deadlines as operational tasks rather than paperwork matters so much.
Rarely, and usually only where you can show the platform itself prevented timely filing — a portal outage, or a case where the underlying information was not available to you in time. It is worth raising in those specific circumstances, but it is not a route to rely on.
Manually, the only workable approach is a claim register: every claimable event logged the day it occurs, with its deadline calculated immediately and reviewed daily. Our claim tracking template covers the structure. Past a certain volume this stops being sustainable by hand, which is the point at which software earns its place.
The quiet ones. A wrong weight on a reverse charge, a duplicate deduction, a return marked delivered that never arrived — none of these announce themselves. Loud problems like an empty-box return get attention immediately; silent settlement errors are discovered during a monthly reconciliation, long after the window has closed.
Check returns at the moment of receipt rather than in a weekly batch. Almost every claim window is triggered by an event you can observe on the day it happens, and almost every missed window traces back to a discrepancy noticed weeks later. Same-day inspection converts most of these from lost to winnable.