Thank you both for your replies but neither solved my problem.
The reason I am concerned about feedback is that I use it as a way to keep track of what has arrived and what has not. I usually order a lot of inexpensive items in quantities of 5 or more at this time of year for stocking stuffers and I try to order supplies for my shop early enough that they can travel half way around the world before I need them, which can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. Using My Purchase History and leaving feedback when the item arrives has always been a convenient way to keep track when I have made a lot of purchases (more than 50 in transit at one point this fall).
30 days from last estimated delivery date? When did eBay change that? In the past they would not allow claims more than 60 days after placing the order.
And as for keeping an eye on the deadlines and not letting deadlines pass, how can you do that when the items are missing from the list?
I generally try to get in touch with the seller a week after the last expected arrival date but sometimes that is perilously close to the 60 day limit (I wish eBay would get their act together and realize that it often takes more than 60 days for small parcels to travel halfway around the world in the Xmas rush) but again, if you have a lot of items coming and some are missing from the list it becomes a time consuming chore to figure out which are late, if you can at all because My Purchase History is the only place those delivery dates are listed.
I was finally able to contact eBay tech support to report this as a site issue on Friday. I first tried using the potion to have them call me. It said the average wait time was 2 minutes. When they hadn't called 3 hours later I tried again (average wait 1 minute) and 20 minutes later I called them. They never did call me.
I was basically told that this happens occasionally and the items would probably re-appear in a day or two. She then showed me how to find the item number in my PayPal account and use the advanced search on eBay to find them, which opens the same page you get if you click Leave Feedback beside an item in Purchase History (of course, that doesn't work for items purchased more than 60 days ago).
I ended up having to go through my PayPal account and listing all of the items I had purchased during the period that I knew was missing and then starting PayPal claims for the couple that had slipped past eBay's 60 day limit. All in all this has cost me several hours of time that could have been better spent.
I have been checking My Purchase History frequently through all of this to see if the items returned. As of 2 days ago several more items were missing. As of yesterday the items I first noticed missing have returned but some different ones are now missing.
I shouldn't have to but I think in the future I will have to keep a written list of my purchases and their estimated delivery dates.
I got an email from eBay community this morning asking me to mark one of your replies as an Accepted Solution. Sorry, but I can't. The only acceptable solution would be for eBay to take people more seriously when this sort of problem occurs and to make greater efforts to prevent it from happening in the first place.
