I'll preface this by saying that I'm possibly being too cautious, so I'm not going to use the vendor's name unless it becomes clear that there's a problem.
I ordered from a vendor on AlphaBay for the second time, a significantly bigger purchase than the last (but not quite bulk either). They started requesting FE, but they said in their ad that you could pay more and do escrow. I placed my order and let them know that they should tell me how to handle giving them extra, because I don't FE. (Normally I wouldn't have bothered, but the product was stellar last time.)
Before they responded to my message, it was marked as shipped. Then, they wrote me back asking for my order number and saying they'd have to check with the vendor (I'm guessing I was talking to an employee?). I sent that info but mentioned to them that it had already been marked shipped.
Meanwhile, I am starting to see a few people complain about what seems like selective scamming. It's a small percentage, but yeah. I'm definitely not FE'ing.
So maybe they really shipped it, or maybe they're just setting the auto finalize countdown. It's been a few days and I've sent a follow up message, but no response. I still have over a week until it auto finalizes, and I don't want to dispute too soon in case it actually did ship. (I don't want trouble for anyone, I just want to give people money and get things sent to me. I'm a chill customer, I finalize quickly.)
What do I do, here? Wait until more time has passed? Try to message them again? At what point do I start a dispute? I already ordered another shipment from someone else so I'm not super stressed about the product, but I definitely don't want to lose my btc.
I'd send a follow up message in a day or two, and if they don't answer, dispute like 24 hours before it autofinalizes.