Site Etiquette - how long should you wait for someone to claim a giveaway?

they have 7 days to activate and mark as received.

What should I do if the winner of my giveaway has not redeemed their gift, and I'm unable to get into contact with them?

• If you've been unable to reach the winner of your giveaway using email and Steam after one week of your giveaway ending, and they have not yet activated or redeemed any keys or gifts you attempted to send, please contact support to request a new winner. When creating a ticket, we ask you to include data that suggests you made an adequate attempt to contact the winner, such as screenshots of emails, friend requests, or gifts pending on Steam. If the request is approved, a new winner will be generated by the site.

and they might not be here all the time. it's well known people keep using scripts to enter giveaways. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Winners have 7 days to claim a gift. After that you can report to support.

Also, check his profile to see if it's in his library.

You can contact them through their steam profile or send email (appears on winner page).

i'm pretty sure that in a handful of minutes the greatest players here will have already answered to you, so I'm adding just what I do:

given the fact that the 7 days limit can not by any means be avoided or eliminated (and to me it's perfect), if I see that some days have passed and a winner has not yet claimed his gift, I privately write him an e-mail telling him to activate and mark the key in order not to get suspended; this anyways happens only if 4-5 days have passed, I think it's a correct thing to do (I remark: a -private- mail, nothing else, no spam or calling out or whatever, and in the friendliest way possible! ^^) since I'm happy if my keys get redeemed and maybe in doing this I also help the winner to get used to steamgifts' mechanics and, why not?, to reward him of his first victory - maybe they get annoyed if they don't win anything and I often make lots of giveaways open to everyone, so it's good to remind them not to forget the website, and that they have won a key =P

on the other side, if 7 days have passed I always open a support ticket and ask for a reroll giving all the information needed, the screenshot with the key sent hidden and so on.. of course, 1-2 days before doing this I always notice the winner, always in the idea of getting no suspensions at all and doing something good to the community =)
the only negative thing happens when the winner has already seen and activated the key but doesn't want to communicate, nor mark as received the key.. so that I can't ask for a reroll, being the key already used, and we both don't get anything.. but this thing has in more than 3-4000 giveaways actually never happened to me, I had to deal with 50 or 60 rerolls due to 8+ inactivity days and nothing else!

As I said, I think the 7 days limit is awesome since often I can't log in every single day, but as soon as I can I rush to activate and mark the key as received, we must on one hand live this website in a sane and positive way but on the other hand we don't have to harm other users or ruin the whole experience by misbehaving =P I mean, I 100% agree to the terms of the site, so if I know that I'll be away from my home for days and days I remove all my entries in the open giveaways so I don't risk to win and not be able to activate the game in a few days ;)

for all the rest, follow the faqs and guidelines and all the comments =P They have 7 days to mark as received the gift, and this is not linked to the redeeming moment - one (even if this is quite counter-intuitive..) can activate a key and mark it as received only days later.. the most important thing is that within 7 days he activates the game AND marks it as received on the website.

If he hasn't seen the key, you must ask for a reroll while if he has already activated it.. he'll get a suspension ;)

They have 7 days to accept like everyone else said, but have you checked his profile to see if he activated it and maybe forgot to mark it? (Sorry, I just took my meds and Im a little foggy lol). Its happened to me before with someone just forgetting to mark it. I usually try to leave a comment on a previous giveaway of theirs if they have any, or leave a comment on their Steam profile to catch their attention. It usually works for me. Only ever had 1 person completely ignore me

Thanks Guys you've been a big help
Just to answer, yep i have been checking his/her profile to see if its claimed
Embarrassingly although i saw the email address on the winners page it never occurred to me to send an email, i have now sent an email

Again thanks

If you can see your win being redeemed by your winner, you can request received feedback from the support after a week pass since you revealed key for him, if the winner won't mark it by then of course.

Five days then two more right after those five are over

You have 7 days to send the game (during which the winner shouldn't harass or be rude to you in any way) and the winner has 7 days after the game was sent to claim it (during which you shouldn't harass or be rude to them, but it's fine to nudge them through e-mail or Steam, and staff may in fact require you to do such [with screenshot proof] before agreeing to a reroll, especially if the user hasn't been online during the duration).

For less formal considerations, a minimum of 3 days should be given on either end before either party starts making any assumptions, since that seems to be the typical range of delay for users with outside considerations (and certainly matches to my own typical RL delays). So, to bring those two elements together, sending the game, then waiting 3 days, then contacting through e-mail or Steam and taking a screenshot of the process, would be the sure way to get yourself an approved reroll when day 7 rolls around.

Of course, before pursuing a reroll, you should make sure the key hasn't been revealed, since then you'll want to put in a Request Received Feedback ticket, instead [else the new winner after a reroll may end up with an unusuable key]. All that's required there is that the winner revealed the key and didn't leave a comment in the giveaway or [in the case of you having them blacklisted] send a ticket to support stating that the key was defective in some way, so you don't need to worry about whether they claimed it to their SG-associated account or not.