How early can an 'I didn't receive it' claim be raised?

[flowmanflow]

Hi there,
The item isn't particularly late but..

Jul 09 Item purchased, £145 with delivery date of July 17th.

Jul 13 Hermes attempted click & collect delivery. No ePC code so shop rejected parcel. Hermes portal updated at 10am to say 'We need you to take action.'

Jul 15 I spot tracking entry, call Hermes and learn of ePC code problem. Contact seller explaining problem clearly.

Jul 16 I contact seller again. I'm a long ways from collection point (3+ hour return across 4 buses at cost of £9) so it'd be great if they could pass Hermes the code.

Jul 17 Seller finally responds Friday evening saying 'It must have something to do with your address. I will call them in the morning.'

Jul 18 I go to collection point as I had other items, one of which was at the end of it's 7 day hold period. Seller obviously didn't contact Hermes, site still shows they're waiting for info.

At this point, I want to walk away from this seller. I have no confidence they're going to resolve problem, I expect Hermes to return the parcel to them soon and I'm in no mood to spend another day on buses during a pandemic.

According to the terms page, I'm able to end this transaction using Money Back Guarantee (as 'the eCP code is not clearly visible...')
https://pages.ebay.co.uk/sell/click-and-collect/terms.html

The question is how soon can I do so?

Thanks,
Brian

Edit: I've just sussed what the 'ePC code' is... It's the unique 8 character identifier that's part of the address on a click & collect order (e.g. Spar, eCP:KJGWBXBH 12 North Road). The code changes for each item sent to that click & collect point. My seller must have hand written the label and saw the code as a glitch?

Edit 2: Can't find a way to reply to Tobias so I'll answer here...

Many thanks for the info. With such a long limbo window, I'll continue to work with this seller. I really need the item but buying another would potentially leave me with two of them if my seller figures it out.

> Curious as to why you want item delivered to store so far away.

I've lived in a tent behind a pub since last November. I spent the winter training for a trek only for Covid to force me to postpone. A tent's a great way to isolate so I'm staying put until next spring. Deliveries to the pub were fine during lockdown but awkward now. I'm middle of nowhere so even my 'normal' click & collect point is a mission. I have storage in the click & collect town so tried to do a bunch of errands in one trip. It would have worked except for this seller.

[tobiasd4 · Accepted solution]

You can open item not received case 1 day after estimated delivery date, escalate on day 9.

if seller can prove delivery to store, you lose, if they cant show delivered, you get refund.

Curious as to why you want item delivered to store so far away.

[tobiasd4]

OK.

That makes sense now.

Good luck with the trek.