(Huge) Seller in the US has not sent my item, paid 17 days ago ...

[whitelinens]

After sending them a message asking for my tracking number, their reply back was: "Thank you for emailing us. Your order is currently processing and will be shipping as soon as possible....... " 

It's still within the delivery timeframe, but still, 17 days seems a bit much, yes? Especially when it says on their listing for international shipping that: "Shipments are processed once payment clears, and shipped within 4 business days."

[twyngwyn]

Poor form....but....you have 2 options

1) wait it out & get your item late

2) as soon as expected date of delivery has passed, lodge an INR claim so that you have already set the wheels in motion, in case it never turms up

[imastawka]

If it's the one with the initials, they have over 800 negs for the past 12 months.

I would've hit the back button, not the buy button.

[whitelinens]

twyngwyn, Thanks for that. Yes, that was my intended plan. Shall do. Never had to wait so long for an item to be sent from anywhere on Ebay before. 

[whitelinens]

Yes, assuming we are talking about the same seller, imastawka, I have purchased from this seller before. However, it has been a long time. They have over 2.5M sales though and retain a 99.5% positive feedback.

[kopenhagen5]

They may have sent it but not marked it sent in eBay.

[digital*ghost]

Such a large seller would field a lot of queries daily, and might have form responses that are automatically provided depending on the type of question asked - the first contact might not actually result in anyone looking at anything specifically pertaining to the order being queried, but rather it will be glanced at, categorised as a "when will my item ship?" question, and the "apply-all" reply given. From their perspective, it will "weed out" the people who don't need genuine assistance, and / or buys a little time for them to progress the order, but obviously just frustrates those who do require assistance and information.

If this is the case, you might have better luck replying again and highlighting the shipment is more than 2 weeks overdue,  (the listing I looked at didn't have anything about 4 days - I found one US seller who had those exact words in their description, but they only have 6k FB, plus the large seller in question has set their handling time to 1 day).

[whitelinens]

As I said, kopenhagen5, they said they have not sent the item yet and it is still "processing". When it is sent they send tracking info to the buyer as well apparently, which I do not yet have.

[whitelinens]

Yes, I guessed as much being such a large volume Seller, digital*ghost. I have sent them a 2nd message, almost immediately upon their reply to me. I queried why it has taken so long and when are they likely to post to me - no answer to that as yet. I copied their shipping info directly from a link which says "view full shipping terms" on the item listing.

[whitelinens]

So this has been the outcome with this sale since last post (for anyone who is interested or has such an issue in the future).

I messaged the Seller asking them why the item has not been sent yet and when they will be sending it.

No reply.

So I contacted eBay through the Chat service. eBay understood my concerns and opened a case even though the timeframe for delivery was still open.

The Seller NOW replies to me (surprise surprise). Seller says the item was not in stock so that's why the item was not sent (which is a little different to the first reply of something like:  "...when we send you the item you will then get a tracking number..."). However, Seller does not even mention when they are refunding me. 

After waiting a little longer, I again message Seller asking when they will be refunding my money that they have had for almost 3 weeks now.

No reply.

I message Seller yet again asking the same. 

Finally, I get a reply saying that they will refund my money, which they then do and the case is closed.

I reported the Seller (for what good that will do I don't know, but it made me feel a bit better anyway).

So it seems you can open a case even if the time has not lapsed for delivery in cases like this. 

Wondering if this is common practice with this Seller, but realise since cases like this are closed, it's likely that no negative feedback is left on the Seller's profile to judge.