Why do ebay mark items as dispatched when it hasn't been?

[grasscutter19]

Ebay appear to mark items as dispatched just because a seller purchases postage or generates a tracking number but this does not mean that the item has been dispatched.  I have an item at the moment which was marked as dispatched over a week ago but the courier is saying that they haven't received it yet.

[comics-scifi-collectibles]

@grasscutter19   Have you reached out to the seller? 

This is volunteer help on eBay.com the US site.   The way it works here is the seller prints the shipping label and the system automatically marks the item as shipped but if you click on the tracking number you can see that it's not accepted at the post office yet. 

This is the same way ALL of my online purchases work, even from other sites.  

The seller does not get credit for on time shipping here in the US until the package is scanned in at the post office.  Sellers just have to ship within their stated handling time.  

You can file a not received refund request when the item is at least one day late according to your purchase history information.  

Here's a link to the UK community:  https://community.ebay.co.uk/