AliExpress orders - credit card problem

Since the beginning, I’ve never been able to use my visa card successfully with AliExpress. I used MoneyBookers while they were partnered, but now that they have ended I see that payments still won’t work with credit card :confused:

Has anyone had this problem, and dealt with it successfully?

[edit] It’s possible they individually verify some cards

I would want to be careful sending them personal info like this, I will try to contact them.

I don’t know how they verify payment. It took some days to verify my Visa card. I did not have to send them any further information and would be concerned if asked for such things. I guess the first thing is to check there was no discrepancy between information given to Aliexpress and who the card registered to.

Yes. I even switched banks over it and starting having the same problems with my new bank. And then I sat down with a branch manager who explained it. Some of these overseas (China, etc.) web sites use semi-shady payment processors, which have a high fraud rate and it makes the banks extremely nervous, to the point where they don’t like processing payments from entire countries from certain processors. What’s worse is that my bank required me to basically call them every time I ordered from a site like DX and have them pre-authorize it so it wouldn’t fail. The best the branch could come up with would be a 15 day authorization that I would have to call them every 15 days to extend. No thank you.

Hours on the phone with their IT department. They wouldn’t budge. I was ready to stop buying from overseas sites. Then I figured it out. I do all my transactions with my credit card via PayPal and everything is rosy. Because my bank sees PayPal as a USA transaction and lets it through. And PayPal adds protection for me the customer, so now I can’t understand why someone would want to do a direct credit card transaction with a vendor so far away, when they can be protected with PayPal. Since then I’ve had zero payment issues.

Yeah, but they’re most likely complaining about it because the particular vendor doesn’t take paypal.

I’ve only done 3 transactions with sellers on ali. 2 of them took my cc with no problems and the 3rd took paypal.

Hmm… but AliExpress doesn’t PP. Are you fine with not ordering from them?

Not really, but the way my bank works, if a place can’t take PP then it’s an hour on the phone, having them lecture me about security, and there’s still no guarantee. That’s not an acceptable alternative. If a place doesn’t take PP or have a US-based payment processor, I don’t really have a choice. They don’t get my business.

Maybe there’s better and worse banks for this. I wonder what banks let you order from those kind of sites and what banks like mine don’t.

Wow, that’s pretty strange in my opinion.

Is it possible to register an account with a bigger bank?

I would never make an on line purchase using a credit card, there is nothing that I need that I can’t find somewhere else that offers a safer payment method.

I didn’t used to think that way, but I do now. I love a good deal, but it’s nice knowing that it’s very hard as a customer to get screwed with PP. Price is the biggest factor, but not the only factor.

I have no problem with visa and Aliexpress.
The vendors on Aliexpress never see your credit card number. It’s set up the same way as PayPal. Aliexpress holds the payment, and does not release it to the vendor until you confirm delivery of the merchandise.

Depending on your issuing bank, you may need to call and manually whitelist the merchant. I had to do this for my Citibank credit cards and they were more than happy to do so.

You may, however, have an issue with smaller banks. I tried to repeat this process with my local bank credit card and they refused, saying the chargeback rate for Aliexpress/Alipay/Alibaba was too high.

Also, as an aside, NEVER use your debit card in places such as this. Credit cards generally offer greater protection from fraud or other unauthorized activity.

I just had some issues using a Visa awards card. After two hours on the phone, I learned the problem was the card was limited to domestic orders. Even though this vendor fulfilled orders within my country, their paypal account was registered overseas, so the order kept getting rejected by the bank. I don't see how it would help you, but I got around the problem by using the card to paypal my brother the balance of the card, and then having him send it back.

Leaftye, doesn’t paypal tack on fees?

+10
Debit card “protection” is poor.

Yep, but I figured the last few dollars or more on the awards card would go to waste since it's hard to find a micro purchase that will eat up the last amount, and there was also a fee every month after activation...$10 a month iirc. In all likelihood, accepting the paypal fee got me the most money out of the card.

Didn’t realize it was a kind of prepaid or stored value card.
$10 fee… Wow. Evil.

I sometime use prepaid visa gift cards. I will only touch “no fees after purchase”, “funds do not expire” cards.

An awards card is points for using a credit card. The options for using mine are all bad, with the awards card being the least awful. The other options are to convert the points into products I don't want that aren't even good deals.

Okay, the fee wasn't as bad as I said. It's $5 a month after the 13th month from issuance. $10 to cash out to a check with no option to transfer balance to your checking/savings account. $5 to replace a lost card or $10 to replace it quickly.

Cassandra— you should strongly consider reading the guidelines for
Commercial Sellers……

http://budgetlightforum.com/forum/misc/commercial

I once ordered something and got an overseas transaction fee from Chase, guess I won’t be using that card then… Would like to hear alternatives to paypal that are secure and offer buyer protection…

I ordered stuff once from AilExpress, and the payment process was pretty complicated :stuck_out_tongue:
Unlike from IOS, BG, DX, FT in which payment is so simply done.
AliExpress have some nice stuff on their website, but I’m not gonna order from them again because of this.

So is SPAM

Marked as such. Link removed from quote.