There is no doubt, not all Chinese people are dishonest, there is no doubt that not all Chinese businesses are dishonest. It would be foolish to think that. What is true however is that China DOES NOT have consumer protection laws in place that the US has. It also does not have fair labor practices . Please take a moment to read about it. Check the pictures below and tell me where in the rest of the civilized world would this be allowed to happen. Its a sad situation. BTW, if you have an iPhone, this is where its made (and its not in California.)
Hey, in springtime when the weather is definitely warming and temperatures are definitely climbing, I hold my breath and exhale into a big hole in the ground to sequester all that bad ol’ CO2. And it works! By September or October the latest, the weather starts cooling down!
But then once I get complacent and stop doing that, a few months later the temperatures start climbing again! Unbelievable…
People keep telling me that it’s a “natural cycle” with a period of about 1 year, rather than nasty man-made warming (hey, I’m a man), but I know better. They’re just Warming Deniers.
And here we are, bashing other countries and people, and feeding a thread where OP that didn’t show any proof of fraud of dishonesty by the seller.
Some folks really have an heavy finger on a light trigger… and really like to reify their own countries as if nothing bad happens and as if all people have great working conditions there…
Saying Chinese/Asians don’t have business ethics is not necessarily derogatory or a slur or insult. I’m sorry but it’s true, they simply don’t have business ethics. Business ethics is a western concept and judging Asians by western standards and values just doesn’t work. I mean no offense to anyone but people here who feel they have to defend Chinese businessmen or businesses do not at all understand the cultural differences. For example, definitions or perceptions of of honesty and dishonesty are more fluid and most often depend on the situation or circumstances and there are many contradictions. There are many shades of grey vs the more black and white perceptions/definitions in our societies.
Things are changing now but traditionally if you lost in a business deal in China it meant the other party was a more clever business person and not necessarily dishonest by their standards. I used to love Ebay until the Chinese sellers came and started taking advantage of any loopholes or weakly enforced rules they could find. To a westerner that is sleazy and dishonest, to them it was just good business. Now when we buy online we are dealing for the most part with Chinese companies or sellers that have adopted western business practices (sometimes imperfectly) not because they have business ethics but in order to do business with the west.
This morning I went to the town market to buy vegetables. The price fixing and gouging and the crooked scales I deal with there amounts to small
money but would be illegal most places in the west and this is from little old asian ladies who go to Mass twice a day and consider themselves devout Christians. If you told them they were dishonest they’d be astonished and offended. It’s their way of doing business.
So are there more crooks in China then in the US?. By our standards, yes absolutely.
BTW in doing business here it’s the religious little old ladies you have to really watch out for. And lawyers.
Edit: Reading over this it looks like I’m implying that not having the ethics makes all Asian sellers less then honest by our standards. I don’t mean it that way, I deal with great ones several times a week that are not driven by ethics but a desire to avoid conflict and keep your business, pride in how they conduct business, and something I see in the best sellers like Hank Wang and Simon Mao and that is a genuine empathy for their customers that used to be common in the US but is getting rare it think.
The only ethic in the economy is profits.
Its pretty clever of the sellers to pull this off, I already stumble upon these items and they sell quite a lot of them while clearing stating its only an image on a metal sign, if you are clever enough to read the description. Its also obvious that this kind of item is banned in many countries.
Like many scams the buyer is also partly guilty but its much easier to blame the seller.
I also recently found turkish sellers on aliexpress selling drugs (officially just legal medical herbs) hidden inside books and magazines for passing customs, fake money and others suspicious items. People buying drugs from an open website with their real names and address must be very dumb.
I remember that guy's article and a couple of those pics. Most of the pics are over a decade old at this point (here's one UK article about it from 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-life-death-forbidden-city-longhua-suicide-apple-iphone-brian-merchant-one-device-extract). If you followed any of it later, Apple forced some changes with all of its factories (Foxconn and Pegatron notably but everyone they do business with). Most of these actual large factories and operations followed suit over time, but sure there are still a lot of places where working conditions would bother many people. It's the small shops and metal fab industries and textile industries where it's often still pretty bad. From what I've seen many of the more modernized machine shops (like where our flashlights are made) are pretty good in most aspects. To be fair, even with OSHA changes over the last 70 years in America, a pretty fair amount of US manufacturing operations (while we had them) weren't so comfortable and pleasant either - probably not a bunch of people around today that can recall this since we now have three decades of incredibly drastic decline of factory work in this country, but it wasn't all rosy either...depends on the product/industry though.
The "new" Foxconn factory in Wisconsin would still upset some people although it's more modern and has some US-specific changes. And if you happened to see it in the news not too long ago (this year, I think) Apple's contracting factory in India had full scale riots as the employees revolted over terrible conditions and admin practices (I think that was in Hyderabad). Apple stepped in a bit late but threatened to cancel all orders immediately and change contractors, so the company implemented big changes quickly. But basically, pick a country and choose a more basic industrial production factory and you'll find a lot of this stuff everywhere, just hopefully with more widespread attention to NIOSH type worker protections and environmental safeguards for chem waste and emissions.
In some ways it's difficult to compare free private enterprise in the US with the standards/controls/and lack of sometimes in such a different world as a Communist-led country like China. There are some vast differences at the root and those affect everything. Still, many companies over there in recent years have stepped up to do the right thing/better things whether they have to or not. That includes workplace conditions as well as customer service (true for wholesale/large scale as well as end retail in many cases).
To me the most shocking thing is the "mining town" and "company store" aspect that is still common (and it happens here in the US, too, just in "nicer" ways). That's still very prevalent in China and around the world and something that's hard to swallow from this US perspective where we have more worker protections and freedoms. Doesn't make us all ethical in practice, though.
That’s SOP with the big Chinese sellers, I don’t think they want it to be too easy. They start with a low offer hoping you’ll take it. You have to refuse every offer until they get up to the full refund. Then they act like they’re doing you a big favor and you’re getting the refund because you’re such a treasured customer.
Go for the dispute with Paypal or a chargeback on your credit card (this can also happen with debit cards via your bank). Specifically state that it's a defective electronics product that does not meet standards for safety and will create a potentially dangerous overcharge and/or destruction of the products it is used for. Attach a page from a cell whitepaper if you can showing correct/safe termination voltage. Offer to return the defective product to them at a location of their choice using a prepaid mailing label from them.
Yeah but it’s a word salad.
All the ads are a word salad.
I messed up, but it was pretty easy to do.
The ad is purposely fraudulent, you have to admit.
Also, the ad you are seeing now is modified since I bought it.
CMON !!! a tiny little tin sign at the end !!!
It was late and I had some drinks.
It’s still a fraudulent ad.
As a person that normally buys mostly in AliExpress I can tell some stuff:
1) never buy from a store that has 44.7% of positive feedback
2) avoid buying items that have less than 4 stars as positive feedback (preferently pick the ones above 4.5)
3) if you want to buy something specific, search it well, with the appropriate terms, read the “product name” and the “item description” well, and try to check the products with buyers feedback (including photos)
4) if the price is very low (specially considering the type of product you want to buy), re-check again, because that may mean that the product you want to buy is not what they are selling
5) if you have doubts, contact the sellers, they normally reply within some minutes up to 2-3 days
6) Bear in mind that a) sellers are not native english speakers and b) some synonyms and related words can be used, and not the ones we are used to.
