Chapter 5 of 6 / the order has gone wrong
The vendor has stopped replying
Silence feels like the worst possible sign and is usually the least informative thing in the chapter. It only starts to mean something once a date has passed.
What it usually turns out to be
| Cause | How often | What settles it |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary silence during a window | Very common | Nothing. Message once and stop |
| A backlog after a busy period | Common | Same |
| Time zones and days off | Common | Same |
| The account being gone | Uncommon | Check whether the listings are still up |
| A taken over account | Uncommon | Watch for a change in tone or an unusual request |
How often to message
Once, and then wait. A second message adds nothing and a third one is visible later as a pattern. If it goes to a dispute, one calm message and a long gap reads considerably better than five increasingly agitated ones, and it costs you nothing to be the person who wrote the first version.
When silence starts to count
- After the delivery window closes. Then it is part of the record rather than a mood.
- When the listings have disappeared too. That is a fact about the account rather than about their inbox.
- When they were replying quickly until the moment you raised a problem. An arbitrator can see that shape as easily as you can.
It cuts both ways
Silence is weighed against whoever produced it, and that includes you. Once a dispute is open, answer everything promptly and briefly for as long as it runs. Going quiet because you are annoyed is easier to do by accident than most people expect and it costs real ground.
The version worth being careful about
A vendor who goes quiet and then comes back with a different tone and an unusual request is a pattern worth slowing down for. Accounts change hands, and history stays with the account rather than with the person, so the record you have been relying on may belong to somebody who is no longer there.
From your side those two are indistinguishable, which is exactly why the answer to an unusual request is the same in both cases.
What a reply is actually worth
Less than people think. A vendor who replies promptly and reassuringly is doing something that costs them nothing, and a vendor who says nothing for ten days may be busy. Neither behaviour predicts whether a parcel arrives, and treating responsiveness as evidence is how people end up more confident about the wrong orders.
What does carry weight is the record, and it carries it later rather than now. One calm message from you, dated, sitting in a thread with a long silence after it, is worth more in a dispute than any amount of conversation.