Topic

Shopping and returns

What to do when a parcel never arrives, or a return is received and the refund never follows: who is actually responsible, what to capture while the record still exists, and the order to escalate in.

Whichever direction the parcel was travelling, your money has gone and the goods sit inside somebody else's logistics system. In most consumer purchases the contract that matters is the one with the seller, and the carrier is the seller's subcontractor rather than anyone you agreed terms with, which is why time in a delivery company's queue produces sympathy and little else. That is not universal: if you paid for the postage yourself, the carrier contract is yours, and so is any claim on it. Those windows are short, so make that claim early, and alongside the seller request rather than instead of it.

Which label the return went back on decides much of what follows. On the seller's prepaid label the seller chose the carrier and the parcel sits in its own chain; on your own postage you are the shipper, so proof of postage and the carrier's scan into the warehouse are the artefacts to capture at the counter. Sellers argue that whoever chose and paid the carrier carries the transit risk; whether that works depends on the rules where you bought, so check it rather than concede it. If the goods went back and the credit never posted, that is a card billing-error question rather than a delivery one.

General information about how these processes usually work in the United States, not legal advice: rules, deadlines and outcomes vary by seller, marketplace, card scheme and where you are. Card windows run from an event, often the expected delivery date or the date a promised refund was due rather than the day you noticed, so ask your issuer what date yours starts. Debit follows a different and shorter regime than credit.