eBay Appeal Case as Seller: What Counts as New Information

If you are a small eBay seller who just lost a Money Back Guarantee case, you have 30 calendar days to appeal it, and eBay's appeal page tells you plainly what to bring: "new, additional information." Then it gives four examples. Read them slowly and one phrase turns up twice: before the case was closed.

That phrase is the whole subject of this article. An appeal is not a second chance to argue. On eBay and on Amazon alike, it is a request to look again at the same decision with a piece of evidence the decision did not have. Knowing which pieces qualify, and which ones feel like evidence but sit outside the list, decides whether the appeal is worth writing at all.

Policy as of 2026-10-16. eBay's appeal help page, its Money Back Guarantee policy, its seller protections page and its defect appeal page were all read in their US English versions on 2026-10-16 (the three help pages carried an update time of 13 October 2026), as were Amazon's A-to-z claims page and its appeal page, and two Etsy help articles. Every quotation below is from those texts. Platforms revise these pages without notice, so re-read them before relying on a date.

"New" means new to the file, not new to the world

Here is eBay's list from Appeal the outcome of a case as a seller, word for word:

• "Tracking details showing the buyer received the item before the case was closed. If the order's total cost (total of item(s), shipping and tax) is $750 or more, signature confirmation is required"
• "Proof that a returned item was delivered to the wrong address or lost in the mail"
• "Documents showing the item matches the listing description"
• "Proof the buyer received a refund before the case was closed"

Every item on that list describes a fact that already existed when eBay made its call. The parcel had already been delivered. The return had already gone astray. The listing already said what it said. The refund had already been sent. What was missing was eBay seeing it.

That reading matters most for one common situation: an item-not-received case closes against you, and a week later the tracking flips to delivered. It is tempting to treat that scan as the new information. The list does not cover it. The first item asks for tracking showing receipt before the case was closed, and a delivery that happened after closure is a different fact. eBay's page does not say such an appeal will be refused. It just does not list it, and the seller should know that going in rather than discovering it in the reply.

There is a quieter version of the same mistake. Sellers often resubmit the exact tracking number eBay already had, with a longer explanation. If eBay looked at that tracking and still found against you, the reason is usually one of the elements in its own delivery test, covered in the next section, and more words do not supply a missing element. The thing that changes an outcome is a document that fills the gap. Nowhere in eBay's appeal text is persuasion described as a factor.

The five-part delivery test the appeal is plugging into

When a buyer says an item never arrived, eBay's Money Back Guarantee policy says it requires all of the following to treat delivery as proven:

1. A tracking number from an integrated carrier, uploaded to eBay, showing a shipping scan before the latest estimated delivery date
2. A delivery status of "delivered" or "attempted delivery"
3. The date of delivery or attempted delivery
4. The recipient's address, showing the ZIP code that matches the one on the Order details page (or the city or county if the ZIP is unavailable)
5. Signature confirmation, on orders with a total cost of $750 or more

An appeal on a not-received case is, in practice, an answer to the question "which of these five was missing?" Each one has a different repair.

Only the left two columns are the subject of an appeal. The right column describes things that were decided on the day you printed the label. That is not a reason for despair, just a reason not to spend an evening on an appeal that cannot meet the list. The carrier-side records that fill the left column, and the ones you can only get while the parcel is recent, are walked through in the article on what a delivered scan actually proves.

Not-as-described cases run on a different test. The policy says eBay looks at whether both parties met their return requirements, whether the seller breached eBay policies when listing the item, whether the item can be shipped back, and proof of return delivery if the item was being returned. The appeal page's third and second examples line up with this: documents showing the item matches the description, and proof that the return went to the wrong address or got lost. The listing itself is the main document. Photos you took before shipping, showing the item as it left, are the second. If you photographed nothing, the outbound record habit is the next case's fix rather than this one's.

Which date starts the 30 days, and where the button is

eBay states the window in two slightly different ways. The appeal help page says "within 30 calendar days of the case being closed." The Money Back Guarantee policy says the buyer or seller "may submit an appeal within 30 calendar days of eBay's decision." eBay does not say whether the two can differ. Usually they fall on the same day; if your case record shows two different dates, count from the earlier one. Losing an appeal over a definitional gap is a poor way to lose it.

Calendar days, not business days. The other clocks in the same policy run in business days: 3 business days to respond to an item-not-received report, 21 business days for either side to ask eBay to step in. Sellers who have been counting business days all through the case tend to carry that habit into the appeal and arrive late.

The route, as eBay gives it:

1. Seller Dashboard (the seller standards dashboard at sellerstandards.ebay.com)
2. Expand Closed without seller resolution
3. See cases, then find the item in the list
4. See details, then send the appeal, with all of the new information you want considered

eBay says it normally comes back within 48 hours, "though occasionally it can take a little longer." The policy adds one sentence worth reading twice: "As part of reviewing an appeal, we may ask the buyer or seller to provide additional documentation." So the appeal can produce a request with its own short reply window. Watch the inbox for the days after you submit.

Note the label on step 2. The dashboard route runs through cases that were closed without seller resolution. That status is the one that costs you a defect. eBay's seller protections page describes at least one situation where stepping in does not produce it: in the protection for items returned used or damaged, where a seller deducts from the refund, the page says that "if we're asked to step in after you've issued the refund, it won't be counted as a case closed without seller resolution." Read the condition carefully before relying on it. It sits in that specific protection, which the page limits to sellers who are not Below Standard and listings that offer free returns.

What a successful appeal removes, and what eBay's ordinary defect review cannot

The defect side is spelled out on Appeal a defect or late shipment. Most defect types go through a review request from Seller Help ("Request assistance", then "Appeal a defect"), and that request has to be made within 90 days of the transaction.

Cases closed without seller resolution are carved out. The page says that because they are tied to the outcome of a Money Back Guarantee case, "you won't be able to request a review of this type of defect." The only door is the case appeal, inside 30 days. If it succeeds, "both the case closed without seller resolution and the associated defect will be automatically removed," and the performance dashboard updates.

That gives two different deadlines for two things that look the same on a dashboard. Late shipment marks and cancellation defects: 90 days from the transaction, through Seller Help. A case closed against you: 30 days from closure, through the case appeal. A seller who files the case defect into the 90-day queue loses two months of the 30-day window waiting for an answer that the page says will not come.

eBay's seller protections page confirms the feedback side: "If we close an eBay Money Back Guarantee case or appeal after having determined that you've met your obligations to the buyer, we will remove any related negative or neutral feedback and defects."

A win on eBay is open to the buyer's appeal too

The policy's appeal clause is written for both parties. "the buyer or seller may submit an appeal." Two sentences later: "eBay reserves the right to seek reimbursement from the seller for amounts refunded to the buyer, if a buyer successfully appeals."

So when a case closes in your favour, the buyer also holds a 30-day window. A seller who wins, then disposes of the evidence, has disarmed for the second round. Keep the tracking screenshots, the listing capture, the carrier records and any photos until at least 30 calendar days after closure. The policy also notes that "buyers and sellers permit us to make final decisions about all cases, including appeals," which reads as the end of the line inside eBay: there is no second appeal described anywhere in it.

Amazon: the Option to Appeal tab, and 72 hours inside it

Amazon's version has the same 30-day length and a different trigger. Its page Appeal an A-to-z Guarantee claim starts the clock "once a claim has been granted to a customer and your account has been debited," and calls the appeal "your opportunity to dispute the decision and provide new information for our investigation." The steps:

1. Performance, then A-to-z Guarantee claims
2. The Option to Appeal tab, find the claim, Appeal decision
3. Upload proof of delivery or other documentation supporting your reason
4. Submit

If you choose "Other" as the appeal reason, the page asks you to use the text box to explain why the original decision was incorrect. After submission, Amazon may ask for more by email, and "you must respond to any information request within 72 hours." That is a three-day window sitting inside a thirty-day one, and it is the easier of the two to miss.

The fuller description is on Amazon's A-to-z Guarantee claims page. Amazon "will re-investigate claim, using all available information (including new information provided)" and then decide "whether or not to reverse the initial decision, in whole or in part (this may include reversing impact to your ODR or reimbursing you for the refund amount)." The words in part matter. An appeal can come back with the defect lifted and the money still gone, or the reverse. And if you do not appeal within 30 calendar days, "the claim will be closed and any negative impact to your ODR cannot be reversed."

Two practical consequences come from Amazon's separate order defect rate page rather than the claims page, and are covered in more depth in the article on A-to-z claim deadlines: a claim pending a decision on appeal still counts against your order defect rate while it waits, and refunding after a claim is filed does not keep it out of ODR. Neither changes the appeal itself, but both change how much the wait costs a small account.

Amazon lists the circumstances in which it grants claims automatically, without an investigation, on the same claims page. Several of them are not things new information can contradict: not shipping by the expected ship date, not delivering by the maximum estimated delivery date, failing to refund within 5 days of receiving a prepaid-label return. If your claim was granted for one of those reasons and the underlying fact is accurate, the appeal has nothing to argue with. If the fact is wrong (the return was refunded on day 3, the order did arrive inside the window), that is exactly what the appeal exists for.

The reversal that is not an appeal

There is a second Amazon route that sellers sometimes confuse with an appeal. On the same claims page, under "Requesting reversal of refunds to customers": if a delayed order gets delivered and the customer accepts it, you ask the customer, through Buyer-Seller Messages, to start the reversal from the Problem with order page or through Amazon customer service. The page is unambiguous that "Amazon cannot reverse a customer refund for seller-fulfilled orders, without the customer's affirmative consent."

That is the closest Amazon comes to the eBay situation where tracking flips to delivered after the case closes. It runs through the buyer, not through the appeal tab, and it depends entirely on the buyer agreeing. It is worth one polite message. It is not worth building the appeal around.

SAFE-T claims, Amazon's reimbursement route for returns, have their own appeal with its own timestamp printed on each claim, and the clocks around them changed twice in 2026. Those are laid out in the SAFE-T claim windows article rather than repeated here.

Etsy: a dispute route for two case types, and none for the third

Etsy's main seller help article, How to Resolve a Case from a Buyer, describes how Etsy reviews a case, says that for an eligible order Etsy "will cover up to $250" of the refund with the rest charged to the seller, and states that Etsy "will decide, in its sole discretion, if a transaction is granted protection." It does not mention an appeal. The step lives on a different page.

What is Etsy's Purchase Protection for Sellers? says: "If you still have questions about a closed case for an item that arrived damaged or different than described, you can reach out to us to dispute the outcome." You describe what happened, a specialist reviews the case against Etsy's policies and the Purchase Protection program, and "You'll get a final decision via email within 1-3 business days."

The same page closes the door on the third case type. If the case was about an item the buyer never received, or one that arrived 7 or more days after the estimated delivery window shown at checkout, "we can't review your outcome further since we already have all the info we need." So the situation this article opened with, a not-received case where the tracking later flips to delivered, has no review route on Etsy at all.

Two gaps are worth naming. The page gives no deadline for asking, unlike eBay's and Amazon's 30 days, so ask promptly rather than assume the door stays open. And Etsy's Cases Policy, which the help article links for "what is required from you during a case," returned a CAPTCHA screen to a text proxy on 2026-10-16 and could not be read; it may say more about reviews than the help pages do.

What the help pages do make clear: every comment and attachment is supposed to live in the case log on the Cases page in Shop Manager, and if Etsy asks you for more information on an open case, "you must respond." For a non-delivery case, that log is the only place your evidence will ever be weighed, so it belongs there before the case closes.

The two-line test before writing an appeal

Before drafting anything, answer two questions in writing:

1. Which element of the platform's own test did the decision find missing? On eBay, name the item from the five-part delivery list, or the item from the not-as-described list. On Amazon, name the automatic-grant circumstance or the investigation finding in the claim notice.
2. What document, dated before the decision, supplies that element? Not an explanation. A document: a carrier proof-of-delivery record with the ZIP, a signature record, the listing as it read on the sale date, a refund confirmation with a timestamp.

If the second line is blank, the appeal is an argument without an exhibit. The platforms' pages do not promise those will be refused, but none of them list argument as the thing they review. If the second line has an answer, attach it, say in one sentence which requirement it satisfies, and submit well inside the window.

Then do the date arithmetic now, while the case notice is open. Write the closure date on the calendar, count 30 calendar days, and put the deadline a week earlier than that, so that a request for more documentation landing in the final days does not push you past the edge. On Amazon, also note that any information request during the appeal carries its own 72-hour reply window. On eBay, mark the same 30-day date even if you won, because the buyer's window runs to the same day and the evidence has to still be in your folder if they use it.