I ordered a few items such as insole boot heaters and some clothing items from a seller on Dec 2. Since that order, I made 3 other Ali Express orders that have already arrived in Canada, whereas this one still does not show up as making it to Canada. Jan 9 was day 39, and if I read the rules correctly, that is your last chance to file a dispute, so that’s what I did. That started a flurry of emails from the seller asking me to close the dispute, and all the standard excuses we’re all familiar with were used, including the admission he uses a crappy freight forwarding company that he says is responsible. He said ALi Express will punish his store, etc., etc. if I do not close the dispute. I told him to relax, that ALi will not do anything for 24 days at which point it apparently auto escalates to a claim. I also told him if he wanted to make a full refund I would close the dispute immediately and then pay him when the goods actually arrived. He said he would refund the cheapest of all the 4 items, and ‘that was his final decision’. Well, I’m actually glad he made a ‘final decision’, so now I can ignore him for a couple of weeks and wait.
What I’m starting to see is that Ali Express sellers have a whole range of shipping options. The seller that shipped via ePacket for an order I placed on Dec 9, arrived Canada on Dec 23. The worst is when they use these freight forwarders. When they do the tracking becomes totally bizarre. For example, have a look at the capture the seller sent me. It says that the item left China on Dec 13. However, further down, it says it was handed over to the airline on Dec 18 further down. From this I get the impression the Freight Forwarders can ‘shape’ the tracking info any way they please.
So yesterday I got some hand warmers from an Ali Express seller and they in fact are better than the Zippo’s. So I emailed them and asked if I bought more, would they ship ePacket. They responded with, ‘no problem, we will ship via CN AIrmail’. To that I resonded CN Airmail and CN ePacket are not the same thing. I also asked Simon to use ePacket and he told me it is not available, but I have got ePacket from Shanghai and Shenzen so not sure where he got his info from. As Simon’s shipping also uses a forwarding company, it is very slow, and if Simon does not step up to the plate with ePacket I will probably stop dealing with him as well. Anyway, from now on I am emailing every seller on Ali and asking specifically if they will send the goods via ePacket. As Fasttech charges an extra $2.00 now for ePacket, I also volunteer to pay the extra $2.00 to cover it. I encourage everyone to start trying that method and sellers may start to ‘get it’. I wonder if the hurdle for sellers with ePacket is that maybe they will have to start going to the Post Office themselves on a daily basis and quit using the Freight Forwarders.
So while I wait, I thought I’d see if anyone else has used the Ali Dispute system And below is a copy of the weird tracking information that is not very encouraging.
I used the aliexpress dispute system once. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was for about 20$. I never received the package and when I opened the dispute nothing happened for 2 months, the status was that aliexpress staff need to check the package situation. So in the end the seller refund me and I cancelled the dispute.
I don’t really know if there is enough staff to handle all the dispute but at least opening a dispute will halt the countdown.
Lately I had a surprise, I ordered something on aliexpress on Jan 3rd. I received it in France on Jan 10th. It was sent by hk airmail and most amazing it was sent on Jan 6th…
Thanks for sharing. Who was the seller? Sellers like that deserve more business. For example in my case for optics I had very good results twice so far with Eyeskey
The dispute system works slow and you have to provide useless videos or pictures.
If the postal tracking shows that the goods have arrived in your country then you will run out of luck and you shouldn’t even start a dispute. No chance.
All the other disputes I have won or reached an agreement with the seller.
I have filed a few most of the time you simply get a refund from the seller and that is it. However, on the Cyber Monday sale I ordered a 6x T6 big head flashlight for $35 it was supposed to come with three 26650’s and a charger. I didn’t really care about the batteries. Anyway I ended up with a small 6xR5 Three crapfire batteries and a two dollar charger. Ali-express found in my favor and is refunding the money. The guy refused to pay for shipping back, so I ended up with the stuff and the refund.
Thanks for all the updates, that is good information to know.
In the meantime on my dispute the seller is going crazy, sending me numerous notes pleading with me to cancel the dispute, saying he will become homeless if I do not because Ali Express will punish his store and he will be unemployed, and that he is praying for my and my family. He also sent me some certificate from a freight forwarding company he he seems to think should prove he sent it, and has offered an $8.00 refund (about 17% of the order total). Of course now all that has me suspicious as to the state of the goods he actually did send if he’s so keen to make it so I loose my claim eligibility, so I will be sure to make that unpacking video that was suggested when the package arrives.
Also, another seller I was previously happy with, had told me that ePacket was not available when I asked. So I sent them a note back with a picture of my last package from Ali with the ePacket label on it to prove to them it does exist. Their reply was:
So it would appear my campaign to get sellers to use ePacket will become a ‘cause’. Next I am going to send Simon the proof he can use it and see what he says. The saga to be continued…
I love the e-packet. In fact when I order from e-bay if it’s from China that is all I will use.
Did you know that the e-packet was originally set up for e-bay? It started as a trade deal between China and the US and spread from there. In the US our post office eats some of the cost for it, I don’t know about Canada. It actually ticked me off when I used to be a seller on e-bay. (that’s how I made a living for a long time) It made it next to impossible to compete with China. They get charged by the total pounds shipped not the individual package. So if they have five hundred packages that are all very light it only costs them as much as one heavy package.
In the US our post office actually has the power to make trade agreements without it passing by law in the congress. So at least hear they really stuck it to the US sellers when they did this.
Just when you posted it, I was opening an ePacket from an Ali seller for some Merino Wool long john’s that I ordered on Dec 30. Bit of a story behind those. I spouse bought me some micro fleece long john’s for skiing for Xmas. As they did not fit, I thought I may as well trade up for some $150.00 merino wool IceBreaker John’s. The store had none left, so I just got a refund and went to Ali Express. I found similar looking one’s there for $67.00. The seller was very helpful to make sure I got the right size, and kept insisting I was ordering the wrong size. Finally I went with their recommendation, and turns out they fit perfect. They are also a heavy weight merino wool, quality seems equally as good as the Icebreaker’s to me (which is very high quality), and the fit is good. I’m wondering if maybe these actually come out of the same factory as Icebreaker.
So there’s another good seller (who only has feedback from 3 buyers!), and ePacket is certainly proving to be the way to go.
I won’t shop on AliExpress entirely because they won’t accept PayPal (some sellers may). If you don’t get what you ordered, you’re in for a hassle, period. Fortunately, I’ve found nothing offered on AliExpress that isn’t offered on another site that does accept PayPal.
Once I found a light on aliexpres that had a price that seemed too good to be true. I talked RaceR86 into buying one as well. We knew it was probably a scam, but I said “at this price, it’s worth a try. We can always test aliexpres’ guarantee policy”.
It was only three days, not even long enough to give the store time to ship, and we both got an email from aliexpres saying they were investigating this seller. A day or so later, aliexpres, not the store itself, refunded our money.
I thought that was great consumer vigilance by aliexpres. We didn’t even have time to know we were being ripped off.
That’s quite cool. I imagine Ali(baba)Express didn’t get huge by forking over customers as a modus operandi, but I know that if you have an allegedly “trustworthy” seller who thinks he did nothing wrong, getting one’s money back will be a hassle.
Over the past few years Ali has been my main supplier and has taken over almost completely from Fasttech. It takes some homework and trial and error to get good with travelling in the Ali Landscape. I’m now at the stage where I give some of my trusted sellers that I have a transaction history with large orders. I’ve also now had three or four opportunities to use the dispute system and it has worked for me with no problems. When I had an item that did not arrive, they gave me a full refund as soon as the period expired. When I had a seller ship the wrong box of stainless steel screws, they sent me another and I was able to keep the first at no charge. When I got a CO2 regulator that didn’t end up to have the PSI I needed for my particular tank, I settled on a 50% refund because I had not communicated with the seller first to clarify exactly what I was expecting from his regulator. You just have to follow a few ground rules such as:
Make an unboxing video of each order when it arrives, especially from a new seller (that’s what got me the free box of SS screws).
When considering a new seller, unless you speak Chinese, always correspond with them first to make sure they reply to messages in a way that indicates they have a workable knowledge of English. (Could have avoided the CO2 regulator problem if I had)
Don’t get impatient and file a dispute just because shipping is slow, save the dispute process for actual problems. (Worked best for my missing order, for which I got a full refund)
If a shipment does not arrive in time, give the seller one extension before you file a dispute
If you live outside USA and do a lot of shopping online, get a real US Bank account that has a Mastercard Debit card associated with it, and fund that account with $$ you buy at wholesale from a proper currency dealer.
Create an ALiPay account and link your card to it.
Just deal with sellers that have the ‘Trusted Sellers’ Icon
Try to get them to send via ePacket if the goods are less than 2Kg (most have still not heard of it, and in some areas it’s still not available).
Do not use it for items you want in a hurry. I recently had to wait 6 weeks for an order of CPC300 dual wall heat shrink from a trusted supplier that had shipped it within 24 hrs because the postal system somehow must have mislaid it.
Don’t be too quick to discount Ali, apparently they are becoming a huge force on a par with Amazon. I’m in the opposite camp, I avoid Paypal unless it’s absolutely necessary even though I receive and make payments using it on a regular basis. Paypal is a payment tool that works for casual shopping. It may feel comfortable to some, but it’s not the only way to do business by a long shot.
I use PayPal because the tools for dealing with not received and “(S)NAD” [(significantly) not as described] products is so easy for customers. Credit card chargebacks are far more difficult and tedious, and often they insist you send back a NAD item via a “trackable method,” which then could incur shipping costs sometimes greatly exceeding the value of the item.
I understand PayPal has routinely forked over sellers since crooked customers lie, but I’m not one of those. I’m also an eBay seller.
I had a nasty experience. Purchased an electronic item and paid the extra $2 for faster shipping. Item still took 43 days to arrive, so firstly it wasn’t sent by the method I paid for. The power adapter had the prongs for AU power set incorrectly so it didn’t fit in the power point, part missing and a snowball of other problems. I opened a dispute and asked to return faulty goods for my money back. The seller mucked me around for a few weeks offering $10 off my next purchase, to send a new adapter (which didn’t fix all the other problems) and continually asked me to close the dispute before they did anything. Well, not that stupid. Kept the dispute open and continued to demand return/full refund.
I uploaded plenty of proof by way of photo’s and Aliexpress said they would make judgement by the end of December. Well, that was almost 2 weeks ago. I have contacted online chat twice and was given promises it will be sorted within 3 days both times but nothing was done. Now I’m stuck with an item I can’t use and no buyer protection as advertised. That was my first and last experience with Aliexpress. Wish now I had have used paypal and taken that route, at least they stand by their buyer protection policy.
