Thirty days. Unless a seller promised you a specific shipping window when you placed the order, that is how long federal law gives an online, mail or phone merchant to get your purchase out the door. Miss that deadline, and a set of rules originally written for mail-order catalogs starts working in your favor.
Plenty of shoppers assume a missing package is just bad luck, something to grumble about and absorb. It is not. Between a Federal Trade Commission shipping rule, credit card billing rights and the carrier’s own claims process, you have several distinct ways to get your money back. Here is how each one works and when to use it.
The 30-day rule, in plain English
The FTC’s Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule covers most goods you order online, by mail or over the phone. It requires sellers to have a reasonable basis for any shipping promise they advertise. If a site says “ships in two business days,” the company needs to be able to back that up.
When no shipping time is stated, the default kicks in: the seller must ship within 30 days of receiving a properly completed order. There is one wrinkle worth knowing. If you are also applying to the seller for credit to pay for the purchase, the seller gets 50 days instead of 30.
When shipping slips, the seller owes you a choice
A seller that cannot meet the deadline is not allowed to go quiet. Under the rule, it must notify you of the delay, give you a revised shipping date and offer you the chance to cancel for a full refund. The FTC’s business guide to the rule spells out how the consent process works: for a first delay with a definite new date within 30 days, your silence can count as agreement, but if the delay is open ended, the company must cancel and refund your money unless you say, affirmatively, that you are willing to keep waiting.
That distinction matters in practice. A vague “your order has been delayed” email with no new date does not park your money indefinitely. If you do not agree to the delay, the refund obligation is triggered.
The refund clock: seven working days
Once you cancel, or once the seller fails to get your consent for a delay, the money has to move quickly. If you paid by cash, check, money order or a credit card issued by a third party, the seller must send your refund within seven working days. If you bought on credit the seller itself extended, such as a store’s own charge account, the seller must credit your account within one billing cycle. The full text sits in 16 CFR Part 435, and it does not permit store credit or a voucher in place of a real refund when you are owed one.
Paid by card? The dispute window is 60 days
Your second lever is the Fair Credit Billing Act. A charge for merchandise that was never delivered as agreed counts as a billing error, and the FTC’s guide to disputing credit card charges lays out the procedure: send a written dispute to your card issuer’s billing-error address within 60 days after the first statement showing the charge. The issuer must acknowledge your letter within 30 days and resolve the dispute within two billing cycles, and never more than 90 days. While the dispute is open, you do not have to pay the disputed amount, and the issuer cannot report it as delinquent.
Many card issuers also accept disputes by phone or through their apps, which is fine as a first step. Follow up in writing if the amount is significant, because the written route is what formally preserves your rights under the law.
“Delivered” but nothing on the porch
A tracking page that says delivered while your doorstep sits empty is a different problem, and it is worth splitting into two cases. Sometimes the package is genuinely nearby: left with a neighbor, at a side door, or scanned a day early. Give it 24 to 48 hours, check with household members and look around the property. If it truly never arrived, start a missing-mail search or claim with the carrier, and put the seller on notice in writing that the item was not received. Reputable retailers generally reship or refund, because the sale is not complete until you have the goods you paid for. If the seller refuses and you paid by card, the billing-dispute route above is available to you.
Where to report sellers that stall
A company that takes orders it cannot fill, strings customers along past its deadlines or sits on refunds is breaking a federal rule, not just providing bad service. Report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and consider a complaint to your state attorney general as well. Individual reports feed the databases that regulators use to spot patterns, and the FTC has brought enforcement cases against sellers over exactly this conduct.
The practical takeaway is simple. Keep the order confirmation, note any promised shipping date, and mark 30 days on the calendar if there was none. If the package does not show and the seller cannot give you a firm, acceptable new date, ask for your money back and cite the rule by name. Sellers who know that you know the refund clock exists tend to find your package, or your refund, much faster.
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