“Is DHgate.com a scam website?”, “Is DHgate legit?”, “Is DHgate a trusted site?” — I noticed that some people were asking the same questions on the Internet. As always, safety is the biggest concern for online shopping, especially for cross-border online transactions. I hope my illustration below can help clear your doubts—if you are one of those who asked the question.
1. As an officially registered wholesale company based in Beijing, DHgate has been serving global buyers and sellers worldwide since 2004. A scam company can’t have been existing for such a long time.
2. By far, the page rank of DHgate’s website has grown to 6. As we know, Google will never credit an illegal website with such a high page rank. Also, when you search for “wholesale” or “China wholesale” in Google, you will see DHgate ranks top on the first search result page. This means Google has recognized the huge traffic and authenticity of DHgate—Google tends to place the most-matching websites with the search terms at the top of all related search results.
3. DHgate used to be the PayPal’s largest client in the Asia-Pacific region. Unfortunately, they terminated the cooperation with Paypal in 2012. Anyway, the site provides a wide range of payment options for customers from different countries or regions. Besides, they have developed a payment system of their own called DHpay, just like the famous Chinese online payment solution provider Alipay. In particular, we encourage you to consider credit card to make the payment there to best protect your interest.
4. As a transaction platform, DHgate has an Escrow buyer protection system. All payments made by buyers are not sent directly to individual sellers’ accounts. Instead, DHgate holds the payments until buyers confirm that they have received the orders and are happy with them. So you when buy items on DHgate, you can be confident that your money will not be taken without getting the order you place. Also, if you are not happy with the order received and you open a dispute against the transaction, DHgate will not release the payment to the seller until the dispute is solved between you and the seller.
5. I myself worked for DHgate as soon as I graduated with my M.A degree. My working experience there was really amazing and I met lots of friendly and hard-working people there. Even though I quit the company two years ago for personal reasons, I am always willing to tell the true stories about them for those who are interested in using the site for shopping but concerned about issues like safety. Even now I am still keeping close touch with some old colleges who are still working there. I can tell you that this company is definitely not a scammer and I would be more than happy to share every detail about them as long as it is not beyond my experience or knowledge. Nevertheless, when you decide to shop at DHgate.com, do remember to do some research on the sellers. That way you can avoid dishonest sellers or scammers and find the best suppliers to cooperate with in the long run. Checking the feedback profiles of the sellers is one of the key approaches, just to remind you.
Actually, a close look into the complaints about DHgate on the Internet shows that, the most “DHgate scam” comments came out simply because of misunderstandings. Below is a very typical example I’ve found from the discussions about DHgate:
Many buyers mistake DHgate as a seller who sells and ships purchase orders to buyers. Some complained that DHgate sent items in wrong sizes, colors or styles. It was a huge mistake. DHgate is a transaction platform, aChina wholesale site for small and medium sized merchants, bridging millions of global buyers and Chinese sellers or manufacturers. They do not send orders to buyers themselves. Instead, they provide information and transaction service to both buyers and sellers. That also explains why you are able to get the lowest prices for the items you want—when you buy a certain item, you can find the lowest price from the perfusion of sellers.
I believe that, as a rising e-commerce star in China, DHgate.com should value its credibility very much. Their services may need improvements in some aspects, but they can’t be scammers. Here I should remind you that, when you shop on DHgate, you need to check carefully the credibility of the seller from the seller’s feedback profile. Also, always remember to contact the seller to make sure the item has all the specifications or functions as described. These two actions will greatly reduce your risk shopping there.
I like my money back I never got my order and they rob me for my money
As many others have written here: DO NOT BUY FROM THEM.
Bought a vaporizer for 60 usd with “delivery on time or money back”-guarantee. I tracked the item some days before this guarantee date, status was then “sent back to seller”. I asked seller about this and he just answered that a new item is under way. The new item came 10 days later than the guarantee date…
Sent the case to dhgate mediation where an analyst looked at the case. Analyst said
“Dear friend
Thanks for your reply, but we noticed the package was arrived at your address, if you din’t want this order any more, please contact your local post office to return the package, then once your seller get the package, we will offer you the full refund, and depend on our policy, we can not give you the refund now in case the package being signed later, hope you can kindly understand.
Any other problem, please reply us in 2 days, or we will close the dispute and offer you a partial refund of 20$ that including your 10$ coupon.”
This meant that i had to spend 30-40 usd to ship the item from Norway. The total item cost was 60 usd….So wheres my guarantee guys? I responded to analyst saying that sure i can do this if you prepay my shipping. No answer back, no nothing. Some days later i recieved mail saying that my partial refund of 20 usd was now complete. Tried like 5-10 different customer reps, some of them ignored me, some of them told me to contact the seller and get him to pay for shipping. Yeah right guys, lesson learned, never buying here again.
Also its a problem to close the account as they say I have some orders that are not completed.
Hi people. Please do not buy from this site they are a set of rogues. I paid usd 400 for a cnc machine via Western union .they never delivered the item. Despite contacting them and making a complaint about the supplierThey are professional thieves. Please don’t risk your money with these scammed. Ali Express is genuine they never rob people of their hard earned money. They are hand in glove with their suppliers,overall a set of rogues from China.
Bought a Black Samsung Note 5 turned out to be Black but in a torn up GOLD box. Phone was used and not real.
Could not even install Pokemon GO on it then the screen turned white.
BEWARE!! These are NOT real Samsung phones. Knockoffs!!!!
DO NOT BUY from DHGate. They are Chinese scam artists who fraudulently sell real items that are NOT real. I turned them in to the US Attorney General for fraud!
SCAMMER ALERT!! SCAMMER ALERT!!!
I ordered a dress in March. Finally after contacting BestDeals over and over I received it in May. The jacket was extremely too small and no way could I wear it – could not get my arms in in and it was too narrow.
I was denied a refund but later asked to return it and was informed by “Alana” once they received the return I would receive a full refund. Cost me $53 to send it back. Was told once they receive it back I would refunded the full amt + return shipping.
Once BestDeals (through DHGate) received the dress they stopped responding to me – even after NUMEROUS times I tried to contact them. I will NEVER purchase from DHGate again and will be posting bad reviews. Dealing with them and BestDeals was a total nightmare and very disappointing. I just threw away $180 and don’t even have the dress now since it has been returned. The jacket was unwearable.
VERY disappointing!!!
If DHgate is a credible website like you said it is, then why do we have tens of thousands of consumers complaining them about being a scam? A misunderstanding or taking advantage of the broken system that DHgate is actually supporting these sellers? Of course DHgate will always side with the seller/scammer because they make money when they do and they don’t make money when they refund you. DHgate has a responsibility to make buyers feel sale.
Dhgate.com is a rip off firm. I lost $106. They advertise one thing through their web site and mail you a completely different item from china, which is worth one tenth of its price. They are a bunch of robbers in USA, trying to sell very cheap stuff from China. So stay away, don’t get hurt. Once you give your credit card, that is it. You cannot cancel it afterwards, even though their site talks about all sort of nonsense. So please stay away, don’t get hurt. Let us join together to hand over these guys to law enforcement authorities. These are robbers.
I purchased an item from DHGate.com, item wasn’t available, vendor couldn’t simply tell me that, he had to string me along for almost two months, hoping he could get the textile in time to meet their “deadline” for shipping, which holds them accountable for their Buyer Guarantee program, where if they can’t meet the deadline, you will be compensated $20.
Vendor couldn’t get the textile in time, but he decides to print a label the day the shipping deadline is due, and ends up sending me a pair of disposable women’s socks, the kind department stores have on hand to try on shoes.
You can’t get anybody on the phone, being that it’s a Chinese company, so all communication is done via Chat, which is actually not so bad. However, after months of discussion and agreement, I have been awaiting my compensation, and can not get anywhere. The last straw came today when a DHGate employee stood up for his vendor and refused to compensate me, based on a technicality in the verbiage of the Buyer Guarantee program. It states that as long as a Tracking Number is uploaded in the system prior to the deadline, I am not due compensation.
I highly recommend you do business elsewhere. These past five months have been a complete waste of my time and energy, and I thought I was saving a few dollars. Fortunately, I have taken screenshots of all my correspondence with this dreadful organization, should I need to use it for any consumer advocacy watch group.
This site sells many counterfeit items. Most, if not all, sellers are located in China. Many sellers even state on their page that the items they are selling is NOT THE ORIGINAL. For example, you can find thousands of fake NuFace facial toning device on this site, for as low as $26, while the genuine product is selling for $300+ on the official website. One seller of this item states the item is not original but “1:1 clone”, whatever that means.
I wonder why this website is allowed to have business here in the U.S. We cannot tolerate this type of dishonesty.
Please report to cyber crime of Hong Kong
Hi EVERYONE, I am one of the person that have been scam from dhgate, please report your incident to the Hong Kong police at this link https://secure1.info.gov.hk/police/eforms/report_cyber_crime_en.php
Dhgate have scam my money close to $1000 USD. I am a Hong Kong resident and I am able to connect to the HK police and they have launch the investigation, if enough people to report this company, we can help shut this FRADULENT company, please do so and we can combine our force to stop this. I am sending this same email out to as much people as possible on Sitejabber.com
Good Luck.
All of these people who are complaining about the site and ordered products from the sellers who doesn’t even have many costumers and transactions are the ones who are at fault. Those people who won’t even bother to see the feedbacks and profile of the seller should not complain and blame themselves. Do not be lazy. It’s not that hard to look for the feedbacks. -.- Be wise when ordering online.
Must have been a DHgate person who wrote this piece. Just because you rank high on google doesn’t mean anything other then the site gets lots of hits because of all the different things it says it sells. But apparently they don’t. Eeven though its listed. Even if they are “transaction platform”, they are who Consumers deal with, DHgate takes Consumers money. Its DHgates web site we go too. And DHgates is making money from consumers. So yes they are responsible to ensure the orders are right and refunds are issued. And if something is wrong they should be charging the seller not the consumer. So YES THIS COMPANY IS A SCAM I guess since there in China they don’t have to abide by consumers standards. This is why consumers should only do business with countries were consumers are supported. And I dough DHgate dropped PayPal its probably the other way around since PayPal stand behind what is sold through them.
The problem I found with DHgate is that when they give you a refund, you don not actually get a credit back, instead you get a coupon. Furthermore this coupon can only be used one a single item purchase for an item which is equal too or more than the value of your coupon. I bought an item it was the wrong colour I got a refund in the form of a coupon, my item was worth $26, the coupon was for $27, therefore I could not buy the same item again, this is a joke of a system!
I’m sorry to hear about everyone’s bad experiences with DHGate, but I have made many purchases through the site and had absolutely no issues. I will say that my purchases have all been sports related clothing products, so as far as cell phones and other items I cannot speak to those.
i have made an order 33063992,33063994,3306987 for my shoes and shirt after i paid they told me there are investigating. why didn’t they investigate after confirming my payments from my bank .my email is biolamudashir53@gmail.com
ur all fags lol
I just purchase Iphone from DHGate,
The shipping is fast, When I open the package found There is no box with accesary with no phone, I contact Seller Meetstory, He told me contact DHL Shipping.
I did contact DHL Shipping They did investigation found no phone.
I mail to the seller He did offer me refund only I paid for shipping.
I try dispute with all evidence to DHGate, They reply that it was shipped to my place.
closed the dispute. Now still try figure out dispute.
I recommend no one should purchased there, They not helping the buyer only help seller.
I so glad I read the reviews here about dhgate. I was intending to purchase a phone. People power had definitely saved an unfortunate buyer from a potential scam.
Dhgate is fraud please dont buy anything from them …
My dhgate purchase came postage due. The post office said that THIS HAPPENS MOST OF THE TIME with DHgate. They ship with only a small portion of the actually postage and cheat you out of the money. They lied and say its a customs fee. Very WRONG.