eBay deadlines timezone?

[synetech]

I’m still waiting for an item I purchased 45 days ago. I went to open a dispute this morning, but eBay said that I can’t because the deadline “was September 4th”. Um, it is September 4th right now and will continue to be for 10 more hours (17 hours this morning). Moreover, I did not make the purchase at midnight, I bought it in the middle of the day, so technically it has not been 45 days yet.

What time-zone (and for that matter, what time) does eBay use for its deadline calculations? Why is eBay blocking a day early (the last day isntead of the the day after the last day)?

[femmefan1946 · Accepted solution]

eBaydotCOM uses Pacific time.Their offices are on the West Coast.

eBaydotCA uses Eastern time.Their offices are in Toronto.

And the time is counted down to the minute, perhaps the second.  When we tell people that they cannot start an Unpaid Item Dispute for four days, we often note that this means 96 hours, for example.

[ok_so_im_50]

The deadline would be exactly 45 days from when the auction ended. So if the auction ended on July 21st at 8:00 am and you file a dispute on September 4th at 8:01 am, you're too late.

[scifan57 · Accepted solution]

In order to avoid the situation you find yourself in it is recommended that you open an item not received dispute no later than day 43 to be safe. If you funded your PayPal payment with a credit card, call the 1-800 number on the back of the card as soon as possible and request a chargeback. State that you never received the item you paid for. Chargebacks have deadlines so call right away.

[synetech]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I’m glad to see that they do give 24*45 hours instead of what seems like rounding down.

The problem is that in the My Purchases page, it only shows the date and not the time, so it’s not readily obvious when the time is up.

It turns out that the auction had indeed ended moments (less than one hour) before I tried to open the dispute. 😐 (If only I had checked my emails and websites before having breakfast, etc. :^O)

Oh well; I contacted them yesterday to let them know I’m still waiting, and there’s still a couple of weeks to leave feedback, so the possibility of getting negative feedback should hopefully prompt them to resolve it themselves.

Foreign items, especially from China, (almost) always take forever to get to North America, so I give them the benefit of the doubt and wait until the last day to open a dispute. I guess from now on, I’ll do it a day or two early to be safe.

Cheers.

[femmefan1946 · Accepted solution]

Goods from Asia arrive quite quickly if the seller uses Air Mail. If the seller insists on Surface shipping, the low cost will be offset by the slow delivery.

Surface normally takes upwards of six to eight weeks, and three months is not unusual.

[synetech]

Surface normally takes upwards of six to eight weeks, and three months is not unusual.

Indeed. And that’s why it’s so frustrating that eBay puts such constrictive limtis on disputes and feedback. It would be good if they at least recognized foreign/over-seas sales and allowed for a longer period accordingly. 😐