Sorry to hear this. Please read through the thread and I would suggest you speak to your credit card issuer as quickly as possible.
Aliexpress/Alipay may be the culprit of this scenario, but the funny thing is that they will never get these additional fees. Cash advance fee, interest, lack of grace period, any other finance charges, et all will remain with your CC issuer.
I can see mistakes happening but it sure shouldn’t be so hard to convince them to fix it. It is fraud.
They get 3%, plus they don’t have to wait until your order is ready to ship to get their money and you can’t do a charge back if they never ship your order.
This is really important and I don’t know if I highlighted the concern very well earlier.
When your card is charged with a cash advance it seems to me that you have zero recourse or ability to dispute the transaction if something goes wrong with the purchase. I think the only way to actually dispute it would be to submit a fraud claim, which leads to a lot more complication.
Why this type of transaction is allowed without inputting a security PIN (like any debit card transaction) is beyond me.
It wasn’t Aliexpress on my card after all. As detailed 2 pages back: EDIT: Turns out that I got screwed by Venmo. A pizza shop was only doing Venmo/Takeout pay and order in advance. The $10 charge hit 5 days after the pizza purchase and there was no reference to why it was charged. Arguing with my CC company got me nowhere but they did put a “no more cash advances allowed” on the card.
CC should have a provision to alert you of a cash advance charge as they are not everyday occurrences. Banks screw up. I know of one instance where an employee cashed their pay check and a cash advance charge showed up on the employers CC merchant account. Simple phone call fixed it. I don’t know why they are playing hardball with these charges except maybe because it is with a Chinese merchant. Probably because a currency exchange charge might have been involved in the mess?
*apparently this issue has been resolved effective today (December 3rd).*
Whodat?
well, since apparently it has been resolved - who is up for ordering stuff via PP on credit card? Let us know whether you get hit with the charge or not…
i been buying from AE recently, havent seen any cash advance charges, i dont even know what it looks like…of course i havent got this months statement yet, but just checking on mobile app, it doesnt look like it
Yeh. I got hit with a <1buk “international something” charges, but no 10buk sock in the face.
All of them additional and second charges, not authorised by me or anything, but don’t think it’s worth the ag to fight it. I just won’t be using pp much anymore.
This problem has been the subject of discussion throughout many different forums throughout the web, including PayPal’s own “community forum! They’re very much aware of the problem, but their concern for their customers seems non-existent. Probably the worst ”customer service” I’ve ever encountered.
My credit card company is Chase. I had two unrelated Aliexpress transactions in late November that were both charged “cash advance” fees. Chase insists the problem is with PayPal’s coding the transaction as a }cash advance.} However, when I spoke to PayPal, they insist that they did not treat the transactions as a cash advance and that they would not have authorized a cash advance for the purchase of goods from a merchant.
However, Chase tells me that only the merchant can designate the purchase as a cash advance. In this case, all the Aliexpress merchants I patronized both used the same company: “Alipay Singapore” to process their transactions.
The problem MAY be with PayPal, however, I suspect it’s Alipay Singapore. I have literally used my Chase credit card and several others linked through my PayPal account for hundreds of transactions with dozens of merchants around the world for over 20 years and have NEVER been charged a cash advance fee by any of my credit card companies until I crossed paths with “Alipay Singapore.”
No doubt a class-action lawyer would be chomping at the bit to take on a case like this with such deep pockets as “Aliexpress, Alipay, PayPal, and the credit card companies.
If I can find a lawyer interested in taking this on, is anyone here interested in joining a class action lawsuit?
Their customer is AE not the people getting scammed.
Good luck with that.
I used a direct credit card for my last AliExpress order. Just checked my statement and no cash advance charge . Seems strange that Ali purchases only get reported wrong through PayPal credit card charges, not direct CC charges.
same, i been using cc direct, no weird charges, i think the problem lies with paypal, maybe when used via paypal, AE charges them advance fees
When you gentleman paid directly with your CC, what’s the name listed on your account statement as the “merchant”? Alipay Singapore, or the name of the specific merchant who actually sold you the goods, or someone else?
It says Aliexpress
Department store
i think they meant using CC through paypal, in which case you can choose to have it charge in the original USD, and then your CC will do the exchange.
Mine is credit card linked to paypal. Not debit. I didn’t use paypal though on last purchase.