Delivery questions
The questions that come up once something has been dispatched, answered briefly.
How long before I worry
Add payment confirmation, handling time and the transit range, then use the slow end of each. Below that total nothing is wrong. Past it with no communication is the point to message.
There is no tracking number
Common and often deliberate, because a tracking record is a record. Fall back on the interval arithmetic and the release timer, which is the only thing tracking would have informed anyway.
Tracking has not updated in a week
Scans happen at handover points rather than continuously, so silence between them is normal. A stalled record is far more often a parcel between checkpoints than a lost one.
It arrived short
Photograph everything as opened, quote the listing, and ask for the proportionate amount rather than the whole order. Proportionate requests succeed considerably more often.
Should I accept a reship
Reasonable when the first attempt failed in transit and the seller has a record of getting it right. Establish first whether the dispute clock is paused and what happens if the reship also fails.
Can I ask the carrier to investigate
No. It attaches a name and a query to a parcel that had neither. The dispute process exists so that this never has to happen.
Where does the address go
Into an encrypted message, using the key from the vendor profile, once. Never in plain text and never through another channel.
It arrived after I opened a dispute
Say so and withdraw it. It costs nothing and it is how you stay somebody a good seller wants to deal with again.
The three rules underneath all of these answers
Add all three intervals before deciding anything is wrong. Never confirm receipt for a parcel you have not opened. Watch the release timer rather than the vendor conversation, because only one of those two has a deadline attached to it.
Where to go next
The delivery windows page covers the arithmetic in full, the nothing arrived page covers the order of steps, and the glossary defines anything on these pages that reads as jargon.