Ridiculously long delivery window

[exotictreazuresonline]

I just ordered an item from a Chinese seller, as I've done many, many times before on a different account. I know from experiance that sometimes an order never shows up and you have to take further action through ebay to get a resolution. The problem is you can't start any action until the end of the 'delivery estimate' is up. I have noticed these delivery estimates getting wider and wider, but I've just noticed that my delivery estimate for this sale is between 22nd March and the 10th of May - that is nearly 8 weeks! How are sellers able to list something with such a wide date range. Basically if the item hasn't arrived within 4 weeks it's never going to arrive, but I'll have to either wait another 4 weeks to get ebay to do anything about it or lodge a paypal dispute instead. 

Is there an actual policy on this practice or do I just have to wear it?

[lyndal1838]

The policy is exactly what you have stated....you have to wait to open an ebay dispute for item not received.

And yes, you do have to wear it if you want to open an ebay dispute.

Why would you want to do an ebay dispute and waste all that time when you can do a paypal dispute any time you like?

Ebay is the way to go for a dispute for Not As Described as the seller has to pay for the return postage but paypal is the only way that is effective for a missing item.