I bought a wheelset on 9/20 and paid for it immediately (Friday, 9/21). After waiting the weekend with no communication from the seller, I sent a message on Tuesday 9/25 to the seller thru ebay's system asking for a shipping update. Within a few hours, I got a Updates for you purchase response from ebay (not from the seller directly) with a USPS tracking number.

Since then, the tracking info only shows that the seller took out a label electronically and nothing else. In my experience, this means that the item has not been dropped off at the post office. Ebay shows an estimated delivery of 09/26/12 - 10/02/12. I sent another message to the seller on Friday 9/28 stating that it appears the item has not been dropped off at USPS, and asking for an update, but no response yet.

My fear is this auction went for under value, based on a couple of other similar auctions I was watching and had in a bid group (auctionsniper). Its not my fault the seller is a) clueless and b) can't write and put up an effective ebay ad. The 2 other auctions had multiple bidders/watchers, while this one only had 1 person watching it and I beat out a single bidder.

Any thoughts as to next steps if I don't get a response and the item doesn't show up? I thought I would wait until the end of the coming week before I did anything else.