When I came across the so called “AliExpress scam” complaint in one forum, I couldn’t help laughing. The angry buyer claimed that AliExpress sent him a wrong item he never ordered. Based on my knowledge about AliExpress, it is no way possible as AliExpress is only a wholesale transaction platform – it does not sell any item, not to mention ship out any item to any customer. Obviously, this buyer was either ripped off by a seller doing business on AliExpress.com or encountered an unprofessional operation carried out by the seller.
In this case, the buyer should report the problem to AliExpress for mediation or contact the seller first to solve the problem. Given such misunderstandings about AliExpress, I think I should share all of my familiar facts about AliExpress, which may help you more clearly identify whether AliExpress scam is a reality or not.
Facts about AliExpress.com
1. An express wholesale channel of Alibaba.com, which was founded in 1999;
2. Officially went live in April, 2010;
3. Mainly serving small businesses, including Chinese small suppliers and global small re-sellers.
4. Accepting PayPal, credit card, MasterCard and bank transfer (TT payment);
5. Offering Escrow service to protect payment from buyers. AliExpress will only release funds to the supplier after the buyer confirms satisfactory delivery of your order. If the buyer is unhappy about the item or purchase, he or she can submit a refund request to AliExpress to ask for a refund or a solution;
6. All orders placed on AliExpress will be processed quickly, mostly within 1 week.
7. Small quantity orders are extensively accepted while for some items, minimum order quantity starts from 1 piece only;
8. AliExpress adopts a set of strict policies to verify each supplier before they are accepted as registered members and start to list their items there. In Chinese foreign trade communities, many suppliers complain that they can’t pass the censor by AliExpress and thus are not able to successfully register with the website.
But as the number of suppliers there is huge, some may willfully escape the verification by difficult-to-spot means. Before you trade with any seller, do remember to check every detail of the supplier, including feedback score, membership tier, item specifications, etc. Besides, in case any problem occurs, make sure to save a record of all communication with the supplier, which will be used as powerful evidence in the event that a dispute between you arises.
9. Once you open a dispute against a supplier, AliExpress staff will take care of the mediation work. However, the whole process may need some time as the platform needs to collect enough evidence to make an impartial ruling. So if you happen to encounter such unpleasant experience, you’d better be patient enough before AliExpress helps you solve the problem.
I personally believe that it’s unfair to spread the “AliExpress scam” voice everywhere while the company is trying its best to help you get through the issue. Nothing is born perfect — AliExpress is still young in cross-border express wholesale business and needs time to improve itself. After all, the wholesale website belongs to the world’s biggest wholesale group and its credibility is unquestionable.
My advice: shopping at AliExpress.com should be cautious to avoid scams committed by certain suppliers – following the guidelines about how to find good sellers there may help you out; before doing enough research on the suppliers, items and services on AliExpress, never assume that the AliExpress scam complaints are 100% true, otherwise you may miss out really fantastic business opportunities; the best way to make sure you are trading with a reliable supplier and will get satisfactory item from the supplier, is to place a very small order to test all the details before you place a bigger order.
I’ve generally had good luck with aliexpress, but I’m not sure I’ll ever buy from them again – I placed an order that the seller shipped through aliexpress’s in-house logistics/shipping, which claims the item was delivered to me. Except it wasn’t. Despite their “buyer protection” they won’t refund the order because I can’t “PROVE” that I didn’t receive it.
I made my first purchase with AliExpress recently, my phone came faulty, contacted them a few days after delivery but they refused to replace, refund or even honour their one year warranty which I paid for. Had to get phone repaired. Their arbitration is a joke and their customer service, what customer service! This is my personal experience, I will never never buy from them and have deleted their app.
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After being an A4 buyer in 6 months, I would say the problem is with AE platform and not just the individul sellers. I had my account suspended then terminated 5 days ago. I contacted customer support four times to no avail. The first reason they gave me was: account temporarily suspended due to security reasons. After contacting the infamous customer support and promising to do their best, I got the second email with a new reason this time: My account is terminated due to violations of the order protection program. This happened and I’m an A4 buyer with 50 ongoing orders! Now I cannot dispute or leave feedback for any of them!! Simply thift!! Moreover, the fact that I returned the money to some of the sellers after a dispute/refund did not seem to matter at all. I did this voluntarily after receiving some of the disputed orders after some 3-4 months!! I still had respect and returned the money through another purchase and none of that mattered! I’m beginning to think that some of the highly rated/recommended sellers have close connections to AE management and are untouchable! I doubt their rating system so much after noticing that some of the most decent sellers are not highly rated at all.
Beware AliExpress is fraud and many of them also listing their product on Amazon and eBay so be careful when buying online. Most of the time review also fake. Looks like its time to start buying from store in place of online.
Here is the link where I suffered with fraud :
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/LG-V10-H901-Original-Unlocked-GSM-4G-LTE-T-mobile-Android-Hexa-Core-RAM-4GB-ROM/32728894513.html?spm=2114.13010608.0.0.WPJCbb
-Bill
I bought a 9” tablet as a Christmas gift for my 8yr old gran-daughter, it arrived early in December and I gave it to her on Christmas day. I realised about a month later she was not using it and she told me the battery when fully charged would die after about an hour so she couldnt use it, I contacted Aliexpress and they said sent it back and they would replace it. The tablet cost me 52euro plus duty and charges of 19euro, to send it back registered post would cost me 29 euro, and no guarantee that the replacement would be any better. I have since read that the battery are of a poor quality. I feel very annoyed that this can happen and people should be aware, they know people will not be prepared to pay the cost of returning a faulty item !
Dear prospective buyers please go to any other site an aliexpress to buy stuff. The guy at the top was reffering to me. I was sent a sub par almost entirely different item that was sub par to the listing i paid for. Getting back to the guy at top, if your not specialized in selling specific things and you know nothing about them than you shouldnt be selling them. key example cars a lamborgini is much better than a gocart. So if you understand quality cars then that will help you to sell thing better. If you purchased something that said exact as in pictures to get sold or sent a sub par item than what you paid for you would be pissed.17 hours ive been lied to ripped off and have talked to 12 different employees that play games and will flat out lie to you. Then because they only let there disputes run out of time in 2 days unless you upload eveidence. They have my evidence they know for a fact it was not my fault they dont care about there customers. I spend 1000s on there site every year, and they are still ripping me off ive already given them the evidence they dont want it and the way its set up is to reward there shitty dealer and helping them to screw the buyer bc the system is broken and they know it. Aliexpress is knowingly ripping there customers off and not even the shitty ones but me who spends 1000s on there site everuday. Ive been a good shopper with them for years before this happened. ive reported them to BBB. Nothings gonna happen i was ripped of but please go some where else so you dont get lied to and cheated. They have my evidence they just dont want to give the rightly deserved refund.
AliExpress is a scam, they do NOT protect buyers at all,
here is how the scam works,
Seller sends an item to you overseas,
The item goes beyond the expected date of arrival,
Buyer is given a date to report any problems,
Buyer never gets item and has no choice but to raise a dispute,
Seller requests buyer drops the dispute,
A) If buyer drops the dispute they can not re open dispute again,
B) if the item arrives and it broken they can not get a refund etc,
Buyer has no choice but to leave open dispute,
Seller can extend buyer protection date until item arrives but instead according to guideline options will choose only a week (IF THEY ARE SCAMMING YOU)
Buyer has to have proof if item is still at customs or accept the sellers offer of extended date which expires and from there….well..buyer is out of luck!
Fake please people dont buy it there .im from Holland. Never recieved the package they only give me 1 euro where is the other money.!!
And when you chatting the same anwser im here to help you bla bla . Im really sure is robots!!! Not real people. Never again eBay is better.
This is not justice..There is no any fault for my side. I liked product as described published picture on page and paid.Dishonest seller send me different cheaper product ..Seller has no explanation or apology or make restitution and Aliexpress says send back but you pay cargo . That is 45 usd cargo cost from my country to China..Many countries very highly cargo cost for china and Tricky seller’s knows that ,why they are so easyly cheating buyers.I understand Aliexpress protect cheaters not buyers…That way only me panished..Where is buyer protection or what is..What is the panishment of tricky seller ??
İf I agree to pay 45 usd for cargo fee and back to product to seller. I am not sure he can disclaim of cargo quantity or type, Already seller has not honesty… Hereby I gonna lost 161 usd purchased cheap undesired pruduct + 45 usd cargo fee for noting.? There is no warranty for tricky seller or Aliexpress.There must be some solution for cheaters….
I never and ever buy anything from Aliexpress anymore .. You are all trickster….
I buy online a lot. After seeing that AliExpress promoted international shipping – I ordered about 30 items (from different sellers) in August 2016 to be delivered to me in Berlin, Germany. Only 3 items arrived! I was told to wait long after delivery times posted came / went – giving the missing items until December to show up. In December, I complained and started asking for refunds – with proof in the tracking showing the items never were even allowed in Germany and were returned to the sellers. So does AliExpress return the money for the all items I never received? No. Instead, they terminated my account so that I could no longer even be able to make a claim for refunds. They sited a policy that said nothing specifically other than accounts can be terminated on their whim / will. I did nothing but ask for refunds for items never received – which was backed up by the tracking info on the site itself. AliExpress and its sellers may not have customs issues elsewhere – but the site and sellers certainly should never falsely claim they can ship to (thus sell to) German buyers. I have never experienced such a scam website before. Never buy from AliExpress – they are a scam.
i have ordered many things including mobile phones, no problems for me.
AliExpress is just like Ebay and Amazon. You have to 1) Do your research. Meaning Check sellers ratings, read sellers reviews and 2) and I know this ones hard but use common sense. I have been ordering from AliExpress for over a year and in all that time I have had only two issues. I have had more issues with product quality and being scammed on Ebay than I have with AliExpress. I’m not saying AliExpress is perfect, it isn’t but blaming AliExpress for every issue is nonsense. Just like ebay you are buying from sellers, stores etc. When you have an issue it’s with the seller, not Ebay (for the most part).
And I know for a FACT, that many ebay and amazon sellers who are threatened by the AliExpress competition both reward and employ people to post negative reviews to distract sales and potential buyers.
There are plenty of stories about buyers being scammed by the merchants listed various Chinese online directories. AliExpress.com does not turn a blind eye to such scams, but there are limitations to what they can do in order to help victims of fraud
Scam #1 Delivery of damaged or defective items;
Must say that the most difficult issue I personally had and have with Aliexpress.com is Quality Control and Refunds/Returns. Before buying anything I usually look at the Seller Rating and read Feedback about the seller and the product, but most of the time it’s impossible to tell if it’s accurate. In my situation the merchant (Battery #1 Shop (Shenzhen Herculesi Co., Ltd) has been in business for a long time changing the old store to the new one, after getting a low percentage of the Positive Feedback at the old store. All together, by me estimation, they have changed 3 (three) stores. The store manager Mrs. Tina Zhang of the (Battery #1 Shop (Shenzhen Herculesi Co., Ltd) lying and misleading person. Gives you a run around, no technical support, no answers for days. What I am trying to say THIS IS A SCUM but there are limitations to what Aliexpress.com can do against it.
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Absolutely fake site. I never received my package. my order : Huawei mobile battery::
Free shipping high quality mobile phone battery HB474284RBC for Huawei Ascend G521 G615 G620 Y550 C8816D C8817E Honor 3C..order no: 76709139298738 on 10th July 2016. On 2nd of august i receive a mail asking to confirm the delivery of package, which i never received. I waited for few days, but still the delivery was not made. I opened dispute and asked them to refund the amount since i have not received the item. seller produces fake delivery receipt..showing POS Malaysia ships and delivers at Mumbai Airport. the last transaction is delivered at my address.. No mention of delivery receipt, or signed receipt by me while accepting the courier. not telling the name of courier or carrier who picks up the package from Mumbai and delivers to me at Hyderabad. The tracking number, POS Malaysia transaction number, the delivery receipt all FAKE!!!. The best way of earning money, by duping customer online. Customer is helpless since the money is paid which will never be refunded nor the package will ever arrive at your place. FRAUDS, CHEATERS, FAKE..hand in hand will seller around the world.!!
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Totally not agree with the original statement. Aliexpress is a channel but there is no customer service phone number or email but robot chat window. There is no way to stay protected once make a purchase through Aliexpress. Evil sellers doesn’t take responsibility of the fact that they always ship defective items to US customers and there is only one way to ask for help, which is open a dispute and let Aliexpress disputer management team steps in. Yet all the team does is to protect the seller and nobody will help buyer resolve issues.
I have been buying from Aliexpress for about two years and am happy with my purchase s
LONGWAY SELLER ON ALIEXPRESS A SCAM, I ORDERED BRACELETS THEY SENT EARRINGS AND THE INCOMPETENT CUSTOMER SERVICE IS TELLING ME PACKAGE DELIVERED, SO THEY COULD HAVE SENT AN EMPTY BOX FOR ALL ALIEXPRESS CARES, I LOST $153 FOR WHAT LOOKS LIKE $5 EARRINGS I DID NOT PURCHASE
Till now I too thought aliexpress.com is reliable. 3years and about 500 orders later, aliexpress has screwed me.
My account has been terminated based on unsubstantiated, baseless claims of fraud on my part. I have not violated any trade rules. Their online help is a joke, with chat being the only option. Three different agents, agreed that what happened to me is unfair and informed me that this happens to many people. They did try to help me and but failed to get this glitch fixed.
When I have received a product I have always confirmed receipt. But no one has bothered to pay attention to that, before alleging that there are too many non delivery disputes I have opened, so obviously I am a fraud. Yes, I have opened many cases of non delivery, but only because they have not been delivered. It’s not my fault the postal service between China and India is slow and unreliable. If I had to cheat sellers I would not be raising claims for low value items ($1-3h and confirming receipt of higher value items, like the led dog light costing almost $15, or vamo vape set for 25$.
Buyer protection is a complete joke, unless being arbitrary is anyone’s idea of being fair. I have not been given a chance even to defend myself. Three of my non delivery disputes have been decided against me already, and I still haven’t recieved any of them. Aliexpress.com has taken a baseless arbitrary decision, and scammed me of $8.44, already. My repeated requests to look into the matter have been ignored, despite tracking details proving my point. My appeals too have been cursorily handled and ignored. As a buyer I placed my faith in the portal, and have even recommended the site to ALL my friends, but now I regret it as aliexpress has made a mockery of my faith. Aliexpress.com is the scam! Beware!