Long story short, Lan Lee from Sofirn requests that I pay them thru “their” 15211087260@163.com account on PayPal.
Is this legit?
And when I paste the number@163.com PayPal doesn’t recognize. I could proceed anyways and if no one accepts, then I would cancel the transfer.
Backstory: Had ordered a light in March ’20 and after some exchanges, it was deemed lost in transit by end of June. So they sent me another which I received July 14th. But the original unexpectedly showed up July 28th. Naturally, I wanted to stay on good terms and informed Lan of the surprise package. He requests partial payment as this shipment did not have the battery as originally ordered.
So I duly complied through Sofirnlight.com as this is their email address and is found on PayPal. A week later he advises me that they do not a have a working PayPal account to that email.
I don’t believe they have a provision for money transfers. This is not straight forward. How is a customer to know they are dealing with Sofirn with just a number? Stating that Gmail is banned in China and they would require a VPN. I find it hard to believe a company with worldwide sales doesn’t have a workaround for Google services. And how do they work with Paypal?
In the past, I would have their $1 USD coupon conversion in the former webstore. This would exchange such money return.
But these exchanges with Lan were email only, no store involvement.
P.S. Just some checking, Lan Lee is a woman. My bad, always referred to as a man. Lan never corrected me.
I know the *@163.com mail addresses from several chinese companies.
Lately I had something similar. I was given an email account PP didn’t recognize. This was the first time for me this happened. I transferred money and all went well. Still strange.
163 is, I believe, part of NetEase (NetEase - Wikipedia) and therefore among the largest digital companies in the world. they offer content, streaming, games, email, and more.
I have had several sellers with that kind of email address and it all went well (make sure the shipping is tracked and you have the payment include payment protection).
So I sorted out the jumble of the numbered PayPal account. Thanks all for the insights and your dealings.
The number is a phone number attached to a “163.com" account. It is an offshore (Cayman Islands) service provider along with "188.com” & “@126.com”- thanks for the link 2A
Sofirn has poor accounting practices. They wished that I purchase a equivalent valued light to transfer money that they would NOT ship.
They should set up a $1 USD coupon option as their previous website.
They could request a monetary transfer thru PayPal - then all is transparent and accountable.
They should set up an international store (as any Amazon address) with the Sofirnlight@gmail.com account. That store would transfer to their financial institution. I understand they cannot access Google services within China.
In the end, I sent them the money as a personal transfer to the provided number. By tomorrow I’ll see if the transfer was accepted.
BTW, PayPal doesn’t give any info to whom you are sending money till the transaction is completed and only then do I have a recepient’s name or account. It makes for blind transfers.
There are various reasons why payment acceptance for a commercial cross-border SMB is difficult, especially if you are based in China. Post 9/11 and during “difficult” economic times like today, it can be impossible for them to setup an account in the US or in a comparable Western country. I wonder where their Amazon FBA funds go to?
Why was it a personal payment and not a commercial one with PP?
edit: Is it not possible to make a commercial transfer to an “unknown” recipient? never tried.
I owed them $20 USD for the second light. Making for a commercial transfer would have imposed a transfer fee to Sofirn.
They use PayPal so they do have a method of transferring money. As I said, they should have made a money request.
As for their Amazon sales, I have no idea how they worked that out. Maybe thru the offshore NetEase platform?
Edit: When I pasted the numbered account, there is no information given. It just accepts (most probably it has in the database) and after I completed the transaction it gives me the account info. Very untrustworthy.
Sounds reasonable, maybe there is a business niche for cross-border acceptance. It is very niche, very political and requires cultural & legal knowledge of various countries.
I have been to China many times and I was blown away how everyone pays with WeChat or something similar (for online and offline payments). In all places I went to they didn’t accept my visa or AmEx, which was both expected and shocking.
Either way, thanks for raising this interesting bit for the flashlight community. I think it makes for a good use case where additional payments can’t be transferred easily.
There must be a way sanctioned by the government to have money sent to a Chinese institution. They are the the most economically active country and they also spend much overseas.
I think I had the misfortune of working with a unexperienced front end manager. Or Sofirn hasn’t worked out a transfer method.
As was noted, Sofirn doesn’t have a working method for money transfer and the front end manager was using the Chinese method of email as a PayPal account. Lan Lee did manage to request a payment thru PP.
The poor thing is her scrambling to meet expectations from her employer without the knowledge or tools we are accustomed to in the west.
