Small Parcel FBA Inbound Shipment Issues

With the advent of the new shipment performance metrics we are encountering issues with the metric “inaccurate product quantities in box.” Essentially we are shipping in X amount of units and Amazon is saying they aren’t in the carton or the carton is only half full despite the fact that this would be impossible based on the weight of the shipment. We ship each and every carton from our own warehouse in California. I personally have taken to counting and recounting each carton to ensure accuracy. One of two things is likely going on, incompetence or F.C. theft. We have been in business with Amazon for years so we have reluctantly accepted they are going to steal a base amount of our inventory and income with little to no recourse. That said, this new metric seems to affect the ability of certain or all ASIN’s to be suppressed when they say the numbers don’t add up. Our latest appeal was denied and I received no response after the failed appeal when telling them there must have been some extra heavy air in the carton when 25% of the units went missing. Again, from a carton I had verified myself.

So, moving forward we are photographing every carton that goes in with both the label and the FC barcode label as well as taking a short video explaining the number of units in each carton.

Am I missing something here? Photographing and making a video of each carton is incredibly tedious and I’m unsure if they would even take that as evidence. I know Amazon is a bureaucratic wackadoo company but again is there anything else we can do to not run afoul of this new fake metric? Is anyone else encountering issues with this metric? Outside of incompetence and theft is something else going on?

Would love to hear your thoughts.