Research
When an order does not arrive, or arrives wrong
Two separate systems answer this. One governs the shipping promise, the other governs the charge on your statement. They run on different clocks, they need different paperwork, and neither one starts by itself.
The shipping promise has a published default
A federal trade regulation rule covers sales in which the buyer ordered merchandise by mail, over the internet or by telephone. It applies regardless of the method of payment and regardless of how the order was solicited.
Under that rule a seller may not solicit an order without a reasonable basis for expecting it can ship in time. That basis has to exist at the time of the solicitation, and the time is the one clearly and conspicuously stated there.
Where no time is stated, the rule supplies one. The expectation has to be shipment within thirty days after receipt of a properly completed order.
One exception changes the number. Where you applied to the seller for credit to pay for the merchandise at the time you ordered, the seller has fifty days rather than thirty.
Shipment has its own definition, and it is narrower than delivery. It means the act by which the merchandise is physically placed in the possession of the carrier.
What has to happen when the seller cannot ship in time
Silence is the thing the rule specifically forbids. A seller unable to ship within the applicable time may not simply wait.
It has to offer you an option, clearly and conspicuously and without prior demand, either to consent to a delay or to cancel the order and receive a prompt refund. That offer has to be made within a reasonable time after the seller first learns it cannot ship, and no later than the shipping time itself.
The offer has to carry a definite revised shipping date. Where the seller has no reasonable basis for naming one, the notice has to say that it is unable to make any representation about the length of the delay.
The size of the delay changes what your silence means. Where the revised date is thirty days or less beyond the original time, silence is treated as consent to the new date. Where it is more than thirty days out, or where no date can be given, the order is automatically deemed cancelled. The exceptions are that the seller ships within thirty days of the original time, or that you specifically consent.
And the way out cannot be made hard to use. Wherever you have the right to exercise an option or to cancel before shipment, the seller has to furnish adequate means to do so at its own expense.
Prompt refund is a defined term with a clock on it
The rule does not leave the word prompt to interpretation. It defines it.
Where you paid in cash, by check or by money order, a prompt refund goes out within seven working days of the date your right to a refund vests. It has to be sent by a means at least as fast and reliable as first class mail.
Where the sale was a credit sale and the seller is itself the creditor, the period is one billing cycle from that same date rather than seven working days.
A separate branch covers the case where the seller cannot refund by the method you paid with. There the seven working days run from the date the seller discovers that, and the refund goes out as cash, check or money order.
The five situations where the order is cancelled without you asking
The rule lists the circumstances in which a seller has to deem the order cancelled and make a prompt refund. There are five of them.
You gave notice canceling before shipment, under any option the rule provides.
The seller gave a revised date more than thirty days out, or could not give one, and then neither shipped within thirty days nor obtained your consent.
The seller missed a further revised date without your consent to another delay.
The seller told you it could not ship, and indicated its decision not to.
The seller never offered the option at all and has not shipped within the applicable time.
The last of those is the one worth remembering. A seller that says nothing and ships nothing is in the position where cancellation and a prompt refund are what the rule requires, without any demand from you.
The short list of what the rule does not reach
The part carries its own limited applicability section, and it is four items long.
The rule does not apply to subscriptions, such as magazine sales, ordered for serial delivery, after the initial shipment is made in compliance with the rule. It does not apply to orders of seeds and growing plants. It does not apply to orders made on a collect-on-delivery basis. And it does not apply to transactions governed by the trade regulation rule on prenotification negative option plans.
Read the first exclusion closely. It carves out later shipments in a serial arrangement, and it expressly leaves the initial shipment inside the rule.
The section also addresses state law directly. The rule does not annul or diminish rights or remedies given to consumers by state law, municipal ordinance or local regulation where those are equal to or greater than the ones the rule provides.
The charge on your statement is a separate instrument
A shipping rule tells a seller what to do. It does not by itself take a charge off a credit card statement. A different federal statute does that, and it has its own procedure.
The trigger is a written notice from you, received within sixty days after the creditor transmitted the statement showing the disputed item. The notice has to let the creditor identify you and the account, state your belief that the statement contains a billing error and the amount, and set out your reasons.
The creditor then has to acknowledge in writing within thirty days, unless it has already resolved the matter. It has to resolve within two complete billing cycles, and in no event later than ninety days, before taking any action to collect the disputed amount.
A billing error is defined by a list, and goods or services not accepted by you or not delivered in accordance with the agreement made at the time of the transaction is on it.
One clause in that statute does more work than the rest. Where you allege that the statement reflects goods not delivered in accordance with the agreement, the creditor may not simply treat the amount as correctly shown. It has to determine that the goods were actually delivered, mailed or otherwise sent to you, and give you a statement of that determination.
While the dispute is open, the creditor may not restrict or close the account solely because you did not pay the amount you said was in error.
A debit card is not a credit card here
The billing error procedure above belongs to consumer credit. Money moving out of a checking account runs under the electronic transfer rules instead, and those define error by a closed list.
That list has seven items. They are an unauthorized transfer, an incorrect transfer to or from your account, a transfer left off a periodic statement, and a computational or bookkeeping error by the institution. The remaining three are receiving an incorrect amount of cash from a terminal, a transfer not identified as the rules require, and a request for documentation or clarification about a transfer.
A dispute about merchandise that was paid for and never arrived is not on that list. The transfer itself was authorized and was for the right amount, which is what the rules are asking about.
That is a description of the rule, not a claim about what any bank or card network will do in practice. Networks operate their own dispute processes with their own timeframes and their own rules, and those sit outside federal consumer law.
The practical consequence is about sequence. Which payment method you used decides which procedure is available to you, and that is settled at checkout rather than after a package fails to arrive.
What to keep while the order is still open
The order confirmation, including any shipping time it stated. That sentence is what the thirty-day default replaces when it is missing.
Any notice offering you a delay or a revised shipping date, with the date it arrived.
The date and channel of every cancellation or refund request you made, in writing wherever the seller allows it.
The statement on which the charge first appeared, because the sixty-day window for a billing error notice runs from when that statement was sent.
What the seller published about shipping and refunds at the time you ordered, rather than what the page says later.
Key takeaways
- Where a seller stated no shipping time, the federal default is a reasonable basis to expect shipment within thirty days of a properly completed order.
- A seller that cannot ship in time has to offer a delay or a cancellation with a prompt refund, without waiting to be asked.
- Prompt refund is defined: seven working days, or one billing cycle where the seller is the creditor on a credit sale.
- Failing to make that offer and failing to ship puts the order in the category the rule says must be deemed cancelled and refunded.
- The rule excludes serial-delivery subscriptions after the initial shipment, seeds and plants, collect-on-delivery orders, and prenotification negative option transactions.
- A credit card billing error notice has a sixty-day window, while the electronic transfer rules define error by a closed list a merchandise dispute is not on.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a seller have to ship?
Whatever time it clearly and conspicuously stated when it solicited the order. Where no time was stated, the federal rule for mail, internet and telephone order sales requires a reasonable basis to expect shipment within thirty days after receipt of a properly completed order. Where you applied for credit to pay at the time you ordered, the period is fifty days. Shipment means placing the merchandise in the possession of the carrier, which is earlier than the day it reaches you.
What if the seller just goes quiet?
The rule treats silence as the failure. A seller that cannot ship in time has to offer you, without waiting for you to ask, the choice between consenting to a delay and canceling for a prompt refund. Where it never makes that offer and has not shipped within the applicable time, the rule requires the order to be deemed cancelled and a prompt refund made. It also has to give you adequate means to cancel, at its own expense.
How fast does a refund have to be?
Where you paid by cash, check or money order, a prompt refund is defined as one sent within seven working days of the date your right to it vests. The means has to be at least as fast and reliable as first class mail. Where the sale was a credit sale and the seller is the creditor, the period is one billing cycle instead. Those are definitions inside the rule rather than general expectations.
Does the rule cover a monthly refill?
The rule carries a short exclusion list, and the first item is subscriptions ordered for serial delivery, after the initial shipment is made in compliance with the rule. The initial shipment is expressly inside. Whether a particular recurring medication plan is a subscription ordered for serial delivery is a legal question that turns on the arrangement. Read the exclusion and your own terms together rather than assuming either answer.
I paid with a debit card. Is that the same?
No. The billing error procedure with the sixty-day notice and the ninety-day outer limit belongs to consumer credit. Transfers from a bank account run under the electronic transfer rules instead. Those define error by a closed list of seven items, covering unauthorized transfers, incorrect transfers, omissions, institutional errors, wrong cash amounts, unidentified transfers and requests for documentation. A merchandise dispute is not among them. Card networks run their own separate processes.
What does the seller have to prove if I say a package never came?
Under the billing error statute, an allegation that the statement reflects goods not delivered in accordance with the agreement changes what the creditor may do. It may not treat the charge as correctly shown unless it determines the goods were actually delivered, mailed or otherwise sent to you. It also has to provide you with a statement of that determination. So the response has to be a determination that is communicated to you, rather than a closed file.
Sources
Each document below is named as it names itself, with the date printed on that document rather than the day it was read.
- Title 16 Code of Federal Regulations Part 435, Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise, read in full including sections 435.1, 435.2 and 435.3 — Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Office of the Federal Register, September 2014
- United States Code Title 15, Section 1666, Correction of billing errors, 2024 Main Edition — Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, January 2025
- Title 12 Code of Federal Regulations Section 1005.11, Procedures for resolving errors, Regulation E, including the definition of error at paragraph (a) — Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Office of the Federal Register, February 2018