Why was an item removed from my account in Fortnite?

If you received a message in Fortnite that an item or some V-Bucks were removed from your account, this could be due to one of multiple reasons:

A refund or payment reversal was completed on your account. This usually happens when a refund request is made or a chargeback is issued with your payment provider. When this happens, our system automatically removes purchased items.
A player who sent you a gift has requested a refund or payment reversal for the V-Bucks they spent on that item. If you believe this may be the case, please reach out to the player who sent you the gift to find out why they requested the refund or payment reversal.
You were a player who took advantage of an Xbox exploit that faked V-Bucks purchases, or you were gifted items by someone who did.

Epic Games Player Support cannot restore these items.

We recommend you review How can I prevent my account from being flagged for suspicious purchasing activity? to protect yourself from suspicious purchasing activity in the future.

If you believe that these items were removed in error, we recommend that you reach out to your payment provider for additional information.

Epic Games Player Support cannot assist with purchases made outside our environment. If the purchases were made with a third party such as Microsoft, Sony, etc., please refer to the links below to directly contact their support team:

Note: If there are not enough V-Bucks in your account to cover the refund or payment reversal, recent item shop purchases up to 90 days will be returned, and recent gifts sent to other players will be reversed until enough V-Bucks have been recovered. If there aren’t enough V-Bucks, items, or gifts, then this will create a negative V-Bucks balance. You can reverse a negative V-Bucks balance by purchasing V-Bucks to cover the amount owed.