@springyzone wrote:
2 months and 7 weeks wait time is not acceptable, not from Australia, not even from China. Don't ever be fobbed off again into waiting so long. Claim fast, especially if you have been given invalid tracking info on an item supposedly in Aust. Don't put up with that rot.
A helpful way to keep track of the timelines is to add a note to an order in My Purchases. That note should include the last date on which an eBay MBG claim can be opened, as well as a reasonable date by which to expect items.
However, springyzone, I can't agree entirely with you about the original delivery date range. There are definitely factors which eBay's estimated delivery doesn't take into account. For example, if an item is coming from overseas, it doesn't factor in any industrial action, holidays, or weather events that can delay the process. It doesn't take into account the time it takes to deliver to the addressee from the moment of cargo plane touchdown. (This in particular is a huge issue.) And... I wish, I truly wish, that Australia Post were more reliable, but I know from personal experience that explicable delays can happen.
I live in a metropolitan area, well and truly within the express post delivery zone. I have sent items by express parcel, only to have them a) never reach the recipient, b) reach the recipient weeks later, or c) be returned to me. I remember one particular incident where something had to reach the recipient by a Friday at the absolute latest. I sent it on Tuesday, over the counter, express post. The recipient called me on the Friday; I called Australia Post; Australia Post couldn't track it. Some weeks later, I had a call. "Good news! We've found the missing parcel!" Ha. It wasn't good news. The recipient had left the country and it was too late now...
Admittedly, that was a few years ago. For a more recent example, I was sent an important document by mail - sender was in the same state, not in a remote area. This incident involves a third party; I was going to be acting upon the document for the third party. Third party was becoming increasingly upset... two weeks later I still hadn't received anything... I came up with an emergency plan involving time I could ill-afford, if the document had still not arrived by the Monday (which would be 13 business days after postage). Fortunately Monday's mail contained that envelope. I acted immediately to do what I needed to do on behalf of the third party, and before the end of the week express-posted the finalised document to the third party (in Japan). 4 business days later, very very very happy and relieved third party received the international express post document.
That highlights just how frustrating the mail can be.
That being said, parcels nowadays get to me in very good time - both domestic parcels and international parcels.
However, I would not worry about contacting a seller of an item on eBay until at least a week (perhaps more) past eBay's ETA.
Oh! I purchased a cezve (long-handled solid copper pot for making turkish coffee - in Romania, ibric) in April (not on eBay). It's not arrived at my US parcel forwarding address - it must have gone missing in transit, and I felt grounds of dark deprivation rise up in me! Hopefully the replacement sent by the seller will arrive within 2 weeks' time (for obvious reasons). I want to hold my Dracula dinner and it's essential that cardamom-scented Turkish coffee made in an exquisite copper ibric be served, as I hold to it that Stoker's Dracula drank this coffee rather than European coffee.
Besides, I am craving Turkish coffee. I have the "Balkan blend" beans and I want my coffee.
