1 of the reasons I bought many budgetlights is the annotance I felt with the fact that there is so much rubbish being sold.
As a newbie I must confess that if I had not become an active member here and just had left it to my first order (a baseball bat shaped torch and the G700 lookalike with 18650 cell and charger) I probably was using that very satisfied and happy with the lights that both are brighter then anyting we had before it.
Needless to say, using a cheap flimsy charger with a Ultrafire 18650 poses some dangers and therefore I am very glad I found this forum and got a warm welcome here.
However, now there is a problem, many consumers wil buy crappy sh# and use it being happy with it. And I see a tendency where a lot of forum members just warn and accept that cr
p is being sold.
I think it is up to us to do something and I know that doing something will help.
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Recently a seller on AliExpress told me a lot of sellers have notes about me and that I was blacklisted from buying flashlights from them.
I received this the day after a seller cancelled an order stating the flashlight is no longer available, while the product page says otherwise.
I feel honored by this.
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What did I do to earn this honorable place on this blacklist used by some cheating/lying/scamming flashlight vendors?
Simple, I bought flashlights that had certain specs and information on their product pages, checked the received product and compared it. When it did not match I contated the seller and asked for the advertised product.
In all cases I had to open a dispute, and most of them are finished with me getting a refund and not having to send the items back. Some of them are now escalated, meaning AliExpress will decide (and give seller and me several options to provide evidence.)
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Results I had:
When I looked for Convoy C8 there were 16 pages of inferior results, maening **fire or other brands with a Convoy C8 like model.
I bought 1 and well it just did not match and I got a refund.
The same day all the cheaper C8s were pulled and when searching for Convoy C8 only gave seemingly real results.
I was happy, but well there were still Ultrafire C8 or other fake brands being sold, for me tha is less of a problem, at least these seller did try to lift on the Convoy brand name.
Unfortunately, they are slowly returning now, with 2 to 4 shady results.
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Sky Ray Kings
Refunded for 3, 3 disputes in progress.
I looked for the ones with signs of quality, there were about 21 when I started.
As soon as my first refund was decided 16 were pulled and I ordered the remaining 5.
I talked to sellers and a few hanged the product page, or talked to the manufacterer.
I love the SRK and we want to mod them, so free hosts is a nice win for us.
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Right now there are 4 flashlights underway advertised with XM-L leds, 2 different ones, and we will scrutinize them when they arrive.
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We have the information to make sellers of conterfeit goods lose money on selling crap.
WE ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN DO THIS, normal consumers are impressed by poor quality stuff because most of them are used to even worse or older ones. See the reviews of the G700from normal onsumers to prove this point.
We can warn others by giving reviews on the product pages.
We get our money back, have free hosts or parts ( for example the reflector of the fake C8 gave a little better beam so I use it in a genuine C8)
It is great fun starting a dispute and provide evdence and get refunded, satisfying!
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So why not order 1 shady looking light every month?
In this win win situation, either it is decent and you have a decent flashlight or parts. Or it is fake and you get a host/parts or present for the little kid next door for free (I now go only for lights that also accept 3xAAA cells just for this reason)
The big win is that in communication with the sellers we can ask them to simply use the correct specs.
Let them put down LatticeBright as LED brand when it is in there. So even uninformed consumers can make the correct choice or clearly see why flashlight A is cheaper then flashlight B.
If BLF manages to get several hunderds of orders for expensive flashlights surely we can send earthquakes throught the lights (pun intended :laughing: of deceitfull sellers.
And while we are at it, when you receive the message you are put on a blacklist you know you have done something right, right?