Amazon will compensate customers up to $1,000 for property damage or personal injury caused by defective products sold by third-party merchants on Amazon.com.
The threshold will cover more than 80% of cases, Amazon says, adding that it “may step in to pay claims for higher amounts if the seller is unresponsive or rejects a claim we believe to be valid.”
Amazon’s expanded policy comes as a series of court rulings threaten to subject the company to greater legal liability for products sold on its platform.
“Beginning September 1, for products sold through Amazon.com, Amazon will facilitate resolution of property damage and personal injury claims between the customer, the seller, and their insurance provider,” the company says in a blog post.
It adds, “Customers can contact Amazon Customer Service, and we will notify the seller and help them address the claim. If a seller does not respond to a claim, Amazon will step in to directly address the immediate customer concern, bear the cost ourselves, and separately pursue the seller.”
Amazon says it won’t seek reimbursement of costs of less than $1,000 from sellers who follow its policies and have valid insurance. The company offers a program to help sellers find insurance.
It’s an expansion of the “A-to-z Guarantee” that covers the return of products sold by third-parties on Amazon.com.
Consumer advocates have been calling for the company to go further to identify and crack down on questionable products sold on its platform.
Amazon has a series of programs and technologies in place to identify counterfeit and fraudulent goods, and it says it will extend those systems and expand the work of its teams as part of the new policy.
“When a customer files a claim, Amazon will combine our advanced fraud and abuse detection systems with external, independent insurance fraud experts to analyze the claim,” the company says. “We will present valid claims to sellers and deny unsubstantiated, frivolous, or abusive claims. By doing this work on behalf of sellers, we save them from having to investigate these claims on their own.”
