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What you learned:
Never trust any tracking information from “free shipping”-orders.

Refund and blacklist… Sad to see this practice becoming common for respectable sellers.

Do you already close the dispute on Aliexpress? May be can add explanation about faulty on their system while closing it.

But look at it from Simon’s side. Disputes carry consequences for sellers, one way or another. Simon sees a buyer just open a dispute with no messages sent first. While the buyer might explain it was a mistake, Simon doesn’t speak perfect english, and also the damage is done. He might not want to take the risk that it could happen again or have other problems come up. Simon is trying to earn a living on aliexpress. We are just buying flashlights for fun, as a hobby.

Always send messages before opening a dispute
funny thing is, sometimes vendors surprise you and I have ordered things from somebody during the dispute when they gave a strong feeling the fault was not theirs
Still have some communication with sellers

This blocking is new for me, there was a seller who threatened me, and at the same time an order was cancelled, so I thought it actually happened.

On AliExpress it is easiest of all, order and forget, really forget, the system will notify when purhase protection is about to end, then send a message.
Never check shipping status before that, its just too frustrating :wink:

If Simon is feeling insulted he might just have blocked all from you (DK if that is possible but can imagine it can) and is not reading your emails or messages on the system.
J-Dub74 seem to have a good relationship with Simon, you could PM him to get this sorted.

He did reach out to me and I just reached out to Simon. Yes, certainly the best route is to contact the seller first but there’s no sense dwelling on what should have been done. I respect that 264 is going out of his way to send an apology through a third party. We all make our mistakes. How we handle those mistakes is much more important in my opinion. :+1:

I was in business for 35 years and let me tell you that the buying public, in general, has 2 moral standards. One for the businesses and one for themselves. The same customer that would scream bloody murder if they were shorted would also think nothing of it were there an error in their favor.
I would imagine that online vendors are very susceptible to “customers” trying to scam THEM.
They need to protect themselves just as we need to protect ourselves.
Their “blacklist” is the same as our “AVOID”

That’s all too true. Simon has been scammed plenty and he has a blacklist for “liars and curmudgeons” LOL His words. I spoke with Simon about this situation and he said that it’s what happened is not a big deal, just a simple misunderstanding. He’s not a petty man.

@264 He said just to contact him directly and he will take care of it and make sure you’re not blocked. I’m sending you a PM with the details.

Glad it worked out and glad I could help. The Aliexpress system is pretty rough. That’s why Simon has so many work-arounds to make things usable in his own store. Half of his listings used to have a big note saying “Please ignore above. It is written by Aliexpress system”. They are enforcing a lot of rules now so they probably made him remove that note. :person_facepalming: Fortunately for us he actually cares about his friends on BLF. :+1:

In my own view, I think we should think about the problem if we are the sellers. The right of the buyer and seller are protected by the retail platform. We can contact the seller when the shipping meet the issue. As a buyer , we should give a chance to each other to discuss it. The seller is not easy to start a store. If they don’t help you solve the problem, we can ask the system to step in after all we have gave the chance to them firstly. :wink:

264 i am sorry to hear that

Yeah their tracking sucks o ordered 3 phone screen protectors and all but 2 got lost amd never recived after 21/2 months Only the 3rd showed up on New York on Monday well i went my mail box and it was i my po box that day .

One time i ordered from bodybuilding.com in the USA and my package went to Austria not Australia close enough i guess lol!

Just see M4D M4Xs profile pic! :smiley:

Why the remorse? At least it sounds that way.

Crap happens. We learn and we move on. It is/was an easy remedy due to a misunderstanding and the actions by both sides are easily understood. You are decent people and Simon is decent people and he will fix it so there should be no worries there.

The bigger issue at hand is the Amex mentality. At one time Amex advertised they would do a chargeback for any reason that made you unhappy. Someone got a flat tire two weeks after getting a major tune up and filed a claim blaming us. After being burned a couple times I only accepted Amex from certain customers because Amex was perpetuating fraud. All others were told that we did not accept it any longer because of that policy.

Internet commerce has become the wild west whereas people are too willing to lose their civility, self-respect and common sense and quickly pulling the trigger in hopes of getting things for free. That has become commonplace now. People get buyer's remorse thinking they are getting a Rolls for the cost of a Yugo and then file PP claims over BS so vendors are starting to do what they can to protect themselves and good people such as yourself get caught in the cross-fire.

Great it worked out
But please use the messaging system of AliExpress since you’ll have correspondence right with the order, vendors cannot delete them and in case a dispute is eminent it is easy copy paste and even without that in the dispute overview for AliExpress to see.
A lot of shady vendors will give their email address in attempts to get the communication outside of the system just for this reason.

Sorry for the slight off topic that is not referring to Simon, Simon is an outstanding vendor who deserves our trust and business!

Truer words were never spoken.

I worked in Retail long enough to know this man has BTDT, its a horrid profession I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Worked in Real Estate too, only difference is people threaten to call a lawyer versus your district manager as in retail. Over stupid, petty, minor stuff that could be easily solved, all because they think they might get a little something extra or something for free.

Small business owner? Same story.

eBay seller? Same thing.

What’s the commonality between these professions? Crooked people.

The common practice for many is to file a dispute regardless of the quality of goods of whether the item was received or not, they know that at that point they have the seller over a barrel so to speak. The seller’s goods are in the “customers” hands, the admins are most likely going to side with the buyer, and at that point it’s easier for the seller just to refund versus fighting it and receiving negative feedback or blog post and lose out anyway.

The wild west analogy is spot on. We’re at a point in time now where you have crooked sellers, crooked buyers, and a few good people from both sides stuck in the middle. And the middle ground grows smaller with each passing week it seems. It’s getting harder and harder to do business on either side without substantial losses.

264 none of this is directed towards you, you’re obviously a good guy who wants to do the right thing. And Simon as well. I simply wanted to present both sides of this in hopes that people understand the reason behind the seemingly knee jerk reactions from people, everyone, both buyers and sellers, are so used to getting getting burned the we’re all a little gun shy. Stories like this actually Help IMO, here you have an honest buyer and honest seller, both parties worked to remedy the situation.

Very glad it worked out positively for both sides! :+1:

-Michael