The buyer can also initiate this investigation though.This is not true. With USPS, the seller can initiate a lost package investigation once it has gone 14 days without a scan by a human or a machine. Due to how the days are counted the official waiting period to initiate a lost package claim is 15 days. Once USPS does an investigation, and the package is deemed as lost, it is the seller who needs to provide documentation to get reimbursed. During that time seller can ship a replacement or refund the buyer.
Here, if the package has been delayed for 17 days the seller should not just be sitting around telling the customer to go talk to USPS. Seller should actually try to help.
This is not a situation where the package has been delayed only 1-2 days. The packaged is delayed for two and a half weeks. It is not unreasonable for the customer to expect some basic amount of help and customer service other than “hey it’s not our fault, go talk to USPS and leave us alone.”
