Presale item hasn't been shipped and I am being ignored by the seller. How can I get my money back?

[faz_1986]

Hi,

On the 19th August, I placed an order for presale items, originally to be released on September 26th 2025. The order was therefore placed 38 days before release. The listing clearly indicated this was a presale and that the item would be posted on release day. It order total was over £400.

Due to UK delivery challenges, an announcement that the presale products were delayed was issued on on August 27th, 2025, pushing the UK release date back by 13 days to October 10th, 2025. I retained my order with the eBay seller as I still wanted the items.

On release day, I contacted the seller who confirmed that the items had been dispatched to them and they were awaiting delivery shortly. Since then, I have attempted to contact the seller multiple times, on the 14th, 16th and 18th and 22nd of October for an update on my order but have not received any reply, all the while the seller continues to list new products for sale. It has now been 12 days since these products were released and I just want my money back at this stage. 

I raised an 'item not received' request with eBay on Sunday at around 9am and still haven't heard anything back from eBay. An eBay help article states "Once you've requested a return or reported that an item hasn't arrived, the seller should respond within 3 business days. After that, you can ask us to step in and help.". I don't seem to have the option to do that. In the request details page, I only see 2 options; "Message the seller" and "Close request".  Because of this, on the same help page, I clicked on 'Contact us' and went through the wizard to check the case status. It responded with "After reviewing your request, we determined you're ineligible for a refund because the estimated delivery date was 57 calendar days ago and the item is no longer covered by eBay Money Back Guarantee. "

I'm really not sure what to do now. Any advice would be most welcome.

Thanks in advance

[sml192]

You only have 30 days from estimated date of delivery for a claim under eBay's Money Back Guarantee.   It would appear that you are now  over the 30 days and whilst you can still open a claim you won't be able to ask eBay to step in and help.  As a result, you will now need to contact your payment provider (PayPal or Card Issuer) for help.  You have 120 days from date of purchase for a chargeback with your Card Issuer and 180 days from date of purchase for a dispute with PayPal.

[faz_1986]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. The original estimated delivery date before the pre sale items were delayed was 26th September. That's 26 days ago, so well within the 30 days estimated delivery, unless I am missing something?

[sml192]

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@faz_1986 wrote:

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. The original estimated delivery date before the pre sale items were delayed was 26th September. That's 26 days ago, so well within the 30 days estimated delivery, unless I am missing something?

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In that case you should get the option to 'Ask eBay to step in and help' after 3 full business days have elapsed.  If you opened the claim on Sunday then that option won't appear until Thursday/Friday.

[lucy_farmer]

'180 days from date of purchase for a dispute with PayPal.'

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I have a nasty idea that's also now 30 days.  😟

[sml192]

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@lucy_farmer wrote:

'180 days from date of purchase for a dispute with PayPal.'

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I have a nasty idea that's also now 30 days.  😟

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It is now 30 days from date of delivery for an 'Item not as described' claim but still 180 days from date of purchase for an 'Item not received' claim.

[lucy_farmer]

Thank you sml !

[porte2425]

As a buyer of collectibles, I have witnessed that this issue with pre-orders on eBay has been going on for some time; and it is quite bad! Quite a number have release dates that are months in advance anyway.

Even though eBay’s presale policy is quite clear, and it should protect in these cases, it doesn’t work in reality. Sellers either don’t know it, or are just ignoring it. I reported one before – a worse case, where the payment in eBay was only actually a deposit, and you were required to pay the rest outside of eBay (another violation) – but was just told there was no problem found.

There is no real solution. Short of someone contacting customer services and manually reporting every one of these listings, which is obviously unfeasible, then it appears unknowing buyers will continue to be caught out by this.

I honestly don’t know why eBay allows pre-orders, as the site isn’t really designed for them. And often it results in Delboy private sellers, who end up breaking the law, as well as eBay’s policies.

[jckl1957]

You need to check the email you received from Ebay when you paid, at the time of purchase.

What is the estimated delivery date IN THAT EMAIL?

Disregard any details that were in the listing, the date from the email will be the date that Ebay take note of.

The seller has 3 business days to respond to your case so the option to ask Ebay to step in won't appear until late today in any case.

If it doesn't and the case is closed, and the latest EDD from the email is less than 30 days ago, then appeal the case citing the email and the estimated delivery date given by Ebay at the time of purchase, to prove that you were in time to open an item not received case.

[faz_1986]

Because I placed the order on the 19th of August, the estimated delivery listed in the email I received from Ebay when I paid stated Estimated delivery: Thu, 21 Aug - Tue, 26 Aug

The listing itself clearly stated "presale" in the title and description, and also stated to guarantee postage within 40 business days of purchase. The listing description states:

Guarantee delivery of the item within 40 of purchase. This item is for pre-sale and will be delivered within 40 of purchase.
Trusted Seller ✅

This is a presale. My order has been confirmed and I will ship this as soon as I receive it. Releases 26th September.
Pre-sale: releases on the 26th of September, and will dispatch once in-hand.

Prior to placing this order, I was unfamiliar with eBay selling processes as I'm mostly a buyer and only sold a handful of items many many years ago. I didn't realise that sellers could increase the handling time in listing until this issue happened to me and I started researching deeper into eBays presale policies. 

Will eBay really not look into this, because of the estimated delivery technicality as the seller failed to increase the handling time by 40 days? The listing description clearly states that this is a presale item and the actual estimated delivery date. I also clearly don't have the items and I clearly don't have any updates from the seller after chasing multiple times. If eBay do decide to let this seller get away with this robbery, is my only option a credit card chargeback? It all just seems crazy eBay would allow someone to get away with this type of fraud.

Thanks

[porte2425 · Accepted solution]

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It sounds like the seller didn’t know what they were doing when they set it up, or knew exactly what they were doing!

You need to speak with a human to possibly get anywhere now with eBay.

Contact eBay Customer Services: (for a Call Back option) https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/eua?id=5275&mkevt=1&mkpid (Lines open 8 a.m. - 10 p.m. on weekdays, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. on weekends).

Explain to them the situation, including getting them to check the messages between you and the seller, and they should realise the seller swindled you.

But no one knows what they will decide. And depending on who you get, you will probably have a different outcome that anyone else reporting the exact same issue would get!

[moonlight-rhapsody]

"Contact eBay Customer Services: (for a Call Back option) https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/eua?id=5275&mkevt=1&mkpid

(Lines open 8 a.m. - 10 p.m. on weekdays, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. on weekends)."

Best to contact them as soon as poss after 8am when you're more likely to get somebody sensible in Dublin.  

[jckl1957]

Ebay are unaware of what sellers put in their listings.

Sellers can opt for a posting date of up to 40 days from the sale - your seller didn't so Ebay were 'right' to deny your item not received case.

I mean right within the terms of the Money Back Guarantee.

Really, as soon as the latest EDD passed, you needed to open a case.

You can ask Ebay for help  - use the link from message 11 - if they won't do anything, then the next step would be your payment provider.

[faz_1986]

Hi all,

Just a quick update, I used the eBay call back feature and spoke to an absolutely amazing customer service agent this morning around 8:45am.

The agent took the time to take a look at the details outlined in my claim request, as well as the details in the listing and the conversation history I had with the seller. The agent sympathized with me that I waited almost 2 months for an item that never arrived and although the agent stated they were unable to flip a switch and issue a refund, due to not being covered by the eBay money back guarantee, I was assured that this would be thoroughly investigated and that I should allow for upto 5 working days for a resolution. There was concern from the agent that the seller made no effort to converse after 4 seperate requests, spanning almost 2 weeks for updates, including making no effort to respond to the claim request.

The agent noted that eBay take these cases very seriously and that the seller's entire selling history will be investigated to determine if they've been doing this with other buyers or are trying to game the system in any way.

Moments ago, at 4:30pm, I was issued with a full refund from eBay. Exceptional customer service by eBay!

The only issue now is that it appears I am still unable to leave feedback on the transaction. For the past few days, whenever I click on the 'leave feedback' button, I get a message saying "We can't find this transaction. Please check your transactions to give Feedback."

Regardless, I want to thank you all for your assistance in getting this resolved. Much appreciated 🙂

[roger_roger_over_and_nowt]

You only have 60 days from date of purchase to leave feedback but i'm pleased to hear you got it sorted in the end.All the best.