This paper focuses on the location of the non-asymptotic zeros of Whittaker and Kummer confluent hypergeometric functions. Based on a technique by E. Hille for the analysis of solutions of some second-order ordinary differential equations, we characterize the sign of the real part of zeros of Whittaker and Kummer functions and provide estimates on the regions of the complex plane where those zeros can be located. Our main result is a slight correction of a previous statement by G. E. Tsvetkov.