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.
my first experience with AliExpress and a pretty bad one.
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/330354 Milo Zhang
First time at AliExpress i bougth 10 Power Banks oke.. Afterwards there are a lot of flaws with the accessories i forgave him and completed the order. Later on i discovered that the power banks are not 2600mah as discribed but far lower than 1000 mah and he fucking admits like he is proud and told me not to contact him!! How can a seller behave like that? i mean don’t you want to build up trust and reputation as a company? Some sellers are trustworty, but trust me thats like 1 in 30 sellers or so
I have contrary opinion about Aliexpress. I buy things from the site every month since 2012.
I did not receive my order once which was my fault being my first time of transacting.
As far as I’m concerned, AE is trying. I have gotten refund twice.
Customers monies are protected.
Please stop tarnishing the site’s image. We do biz with them and enjoy them as well.
What I though I was purchasing (according to the title) of the product was not what I received. I attempted a refund but the poor communication from the vendor made it impossible. I will never do business with this company again.
I do not understand all those complaints.
I have ordered several times on aliexpress. first samples then larger amounts. Then resold those items in my country and yes, I did have problems like a broken umbrella or faulty products from time to time but all I did was opening a dispute and send pictures or film of faulty products and in no time I received a full or partial refund.
It is not a SCAM! Some companies there try really hard to be professional despite their poor english.
If you’re careful and thorough, you have a lower chance of being scammed, and can get ridiculously good deals. But if you are scammed, beware, Alliexpress will always favor the seller. That’s all there is to it.
I have ordered shoes from alliexpress suppliers and many times they do not give me what I order. Just to let everyone know. Something needs to be done about that. It wont stop if nothing is done.
Well, I started using Aliexpress for almost 1 year, because apparantly I found the goods for a very reasonable price. However, also I found that Aliexpress help you almost nothing if the seller cheat you. My suggestion, do not start business at Aliexpress otherwise you have a risk to loose your money..
what site should i buy a pair of shoes?a reliable site?thanks.email me at franzceasardomingo@yahoo.com
As far I can see this place is filled with humble idiots that don’t follow rules and lack common sense and then cry when they are scammed, I been buying from dealextreme, tinydeal, alliexpress, and other’s (including ebay, and I don’t know why some of you think that ebay is safer when the people selling at alliexpress most of the time is also selling at ebay… I guess placebos taste good), if the sellers has less than 200 transactions then don’t waste your time, go for the sellers with with at least 1000 transactions if you’re buying something expensive, and 200+ for cheap shit, if a seller with 1000+ transactions sells the product you want and a new user with 20 transactions sells the same product for 20% less, then you better go with the 1000+ transactions seller if you don’t want to be scammed.
If it sounds too good to be real, then it’s fake, simple as that.
Completed transactions from china = Hundreds
Times being scammed = Zero.
USING ALIEXPRESS YOU ARE TAKING HUGE RISKS.
The transaction date of my order was 03/12/2013. Got order confirmation same day and seller processed the order in 2 days. With seller promised Delivery Time:15-26 Days, the item should arrive within 04/10/2013. With no Item received till 04/29/2013, and tracking# trail lost, emailed the seller asking him for a full refund if not delivered within60 days.. Sellers advised me ,” please be more patient. please do not worry about it, if it is lost on the way, we can resend you a new one.now just let’s wait and see, ok?”. The seller objective was to keep me inactive for an INDEFINITE period of time, while less than 2 weeks left, to dispute my credit card. With no order received and unsuccessful negotiation with seller to get a refund tried to open dispute with aliexpress and received Error Message. Aliexpress does not cooperate. Only a dispute with my credit Card solved the PROBLEM.
Seller has Contractual Obligation with Aliexpress. Aliexpress has Contractual Obligation with the Credit Card Bank. Credit Card Bank has Contractual Obligations with consumer, based on Credit Card Consumer protection ACT.
If anything goes wrong and consumer stays inactive beyond 60 days, then everybody will be off the hook, and the Consumer WILL RUN OUT OF LUCK. While the seller will get the money, the Consumer will Get Nothing, or a Different Inferior Product, or a Fake Product.
Aliexpress works great .. untill you meet the scam artist.
From this moment on its a 6 month on going battle to try get money back.
Aliexpress has left the dispute sitting for 3 months without a single change
they clearly have no intent on sorting out this refund, its stuck in there escrow service
theres no phone email or address to place complaints into.
the only option i have is to spam the seller with emails none stop….. and this is not making a change.
I think this is how they make the most of there money. Dispute arrives .. they just keep it
I don’t know aliexpress but some idiot is posting over 950 spam comments for an aliexpress store on my blog a day. I can’t complain on their site because they require me to have a product code which I don’t have or his member ID which I don’t have. All I have is the aliexpress url that I see over and over and over.
Thanks, I just had to vent. I will never ever buy anything from anyone there.
Hi there! Please remember – this web-site are scammers:
PAGANI INDUSTRIAL LTD
Store No.117732
i bought 10 pcs of Watches – they send me really ugly quality watches, all of them are broken now.
I bought. A receiver from sell ray-shun and. All is see on my order is funds processing then I see finished, I am lost as to what this means. I have sent numerous emails and none was replied to. I wanted to buy 60 xc403p receivers good thing I ordered one first to see how things work. I am in the dark as to what is happening to my order the order details stated funds processing then it went to finished can any one tell me what that means
AVOID this fraud seller on AliExpress:
the best supplier wholesale co., ltd
China (Mainland)
Paid several hundred dollars for item. Package arrived was very small in a hand woven sack. Item received was nothing like what was pictured. Return postage was way too high — about $75. So submitted complaint. They just run you through a long process and then state not enough evidence and disperse funds to the seller. In other words, if you dispute you give up your right to a refund. So realize it is cost prohibitive to return the merchandise, which is not always what is pictured. And furthermore, the seller rating is fraudulent. Even if you give all 1’s — they add the three 1st together, so that all sellers get above three stars, even if you gave the poorest rating on all three measures. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SITE IS FRAUDULENT. Also note: YAHOO Is owned in part by Alibaba — the Chinese Fraud Company that owns AliExpress.
STAY AWAY FROM YAHOO (discontinue use of Y mail and yahoo mail) , Alibaba and AliExpress.
just been ripped off of $600 from Aliexpress, seller lied about an item. on the product desciption it says it ia a genuine Samsung Note 2 phone with all the photos from Samsung website …. what I received was a cheap chinese replica … now I cannot even open a dispute on Aliexpress as there is no such option anywhere on their website. and there is no complaint/trouble ticket system in place.
and there simply are no human beings behind this website, no one to contact, noone to complain to … nothing, nada, niet
morality … DO NOT BUY CHINESE
Ah yes Ali Express what a joke. I am a small business owner and have been burned once, and that will neve happen again because I will never purchase from them again. There is no recourse if you have a problem and they suggest you communicate with the seller to resolve the issue. You can see the seller online and try to communicate and they say is I will contact the company in my case Canon and I will get back to you. Every time I try to contact them they say “haven’t heard anything will get back with you”. I’m still waiting. Don’t do it stick to American made products and buld our economy.
definitely a scam…. i ordered a cellphone last month and paid it accordingly…. unfortunately i did not received the cellphone and the refund that i requested…. so please avoid ordering in aliexpress.com it is not reliable online business……
in november 2012 i have bought products from aliexpress seller — her name is jiaai li
her email is 2604570090@qq.com
her paypal is 846813319@qq.com
she has already closed the shop after she ribbed me
the seller ignores completly my emails
THE SELLER ASKED ME TO PAY DIRECTLY IN HER PAYPAL ACCOUNT – AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE DONE
I AM VERY DISSAPOINTED WITH THIS TRANSACTION
AFTER I HAVE PAYED HER THE MONEY SHE HAS SENT ONLY A SMALL PACKAGE WITH 4 LOCKS ( WORTH 1.20$) FROM THE WHOLE LIST OF PRODUCTS – WORTH 29$
I AM VERY DISSAPOINTED WITH THIS TRANSACTION –
i really made a transaction with a thief
PLEASE HELP ME TO RECEIVE MY MONEY BACK