Alibaba issues...

[joe-jen12]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, but has anyone had any payment issues with alibaba before?
Basically, I paid for an order yesterday morning and awoke to an E-Mail from alibaba saying they had cancelled my order for "security reasons" and asking for copies of my bank statement and passport...
To be frank, I wont be doing this as this order has taken long enough already mainly due to to the timezone differences between myself and my supplier but I just wondered if anyone else who has bought through alibaba had experienced this?

 

[Cherry Lee]

Hi, Joe, Are you means paid by alibaba escrow, are you buying from Alibaba or aliexpress?

 

[Directimport]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, but has anyone had any payment issues with alibaba before?
Basically, I paid for an order yesterday morning and awoke to an E-Mail from alibaba saying they had cancelled my order for "security reasons" and asking for copies of my bank statement and passport...
To be frank, I wont be doing this as this order has taken long enough already mainly due to to the timezone differences between myself and my supplier but I just wondered if anyone else who has bought through alibaba had experienced this?

I seriously doubt that the email you received was from Alibaba. It was probably from the supplier who is listed on Alibaba, and is a scam.

You do not buy anything from Alibaba. You are buying from suppliers listed on Alibaba.

Whether buying from suppliers on Alibaba or Aliexpress there is always the risk of being scammed. Several years ago Alibaba admitted that 2,336 of their Gold Suppliers had scammed customers.

For all those members who can only think "Alibaba" when looking for suppliers in China, I suggest you do a search for Alibaba and Aliexpress on www.ripoffreport.com While you are there, may I also suggest you search for the other popular B2B sourcing sites such as DHgate.com, Tradekey.com, Globalsources.com, TTNet.net, EC21.com, Tradegate.com, Indiamart.com, Madeinchina.com, Tradegate.com, Asianproducts.com.

You will be amazed at how many complaints have been lodged against most of these B2B sites. The good news is that there are safe sites where you can source products from China and many other countries and be sure you are dealing with genuine manufcaturers.

 

[MOIC]

Is the email from the supplier you sent the payment to? (check carefully)

You should verify with the supplier if they have sent this email, as this is completely abnormal.

This is probably a 3rd party intercepting your Alibaba transaction and wanting your bank and passport details to commit fraud.

If you need any assistance please feel free to contact me directly at: [email protected]

Best fo luck.

 

[Maple Sourcing]

Most possibly it's a scam, pls verify carefully, good luck.

 

[The Resolver]

Just using any online sourcing platform is dangerous. The golden rule when buying from B2B suppliers in China is to go over and meet the supplier and generate a proper business relationship. This achieves two things- helps check you are not dealing with the small minority of bad suppliers who take advantage of the distance/language gap to cheat but also, importantly, creates a trust relationship. See this EU guidance document for more details. I have come across many horror stories from clients of stolen monies as well as inadvertently damaged business relationships with genuine suppliers.

For small scale transactions this advice is, of course, not practical but I am working with other lawyers and dispute resolution experts to set up a community shared intermediary service for smaller importers that will ensure best practice is followed, ie suppliers identity and status checked, a trust relationship generated and , importantly, terms and conditions applied that integrate low cost speedy online resolutions processes for any disputes that may arise.

 

[Directimport]

Just using any online sourcing platform is dangerous. The golden rule when buying from B2B suppliers in China is to go over and meet the supplier and generate a proper business relationship. This achieves two things- helps check you are not dealing with the small minority of bad suppliers who take advantage of the distance/language gap to cheat but also, importantly, creates a trust relationship. See this EU guidance document for more details. I have come across many horror stories from clients of stolen monies as well as inadvertently damaged business relationships with genuine suppliers.

For small scale transactions this advice is, of course, not practical but I am working with other lawyers and dispute resolution experts to set up a community shared intermediary service for smaller importers that will ensure best practice is followed, ie suppliers identity and status checked, a trust relationship generated and , importantly, terms and conditions applied that integrate low cost speedy online resolutions processes for any disputes that may arise.

Your generalisation "Just using any online sourcing platform is dangerous." needs considerable qualification. I will qualify it with my own generalisation and say "Just using most online sourcing platforms can be dangerous."

There are some sourcing platforms that provide a considerable degree of safety for buyers, but those sites get very little publicity and I rarely if ever see them mentioned on forums. These are the sourcing platforms that I recommend to my students. For added security I also teach due diligence procedures.

A major risk factor is the deceptive practice of most B2B sourcing sites in relation to the verification processes they employ. These are designed to give a sense of security to buyers when in reality there is no added security provided as a result of those verifications.

Most B2B sourcing sites use the following verification practices:

• Standard verification involves a visit to the business premises and the sighting of business registration documents. The objective is to establish that the business actually exists. Even if the location is a shared office rented by the day that is not mentioned in any verification report. They also ignore the fact that scammers register multiple businesses and abandon them one by one as their scams become evident. They then move on to the next name.
  
• Elevation to a higher status such as Gold, Premium, Trust Verified etc., involves no further investigation. It only involves payment of a fee by the supplier who wants that badge of trust or integrity to display next to their listings. They are simply "verified" suppliers who have been willing to spend to impress.

One of the popular B2B sites publicly admitted several years ago that 2236 of their Gold Suppliers had scammed buyers. Your observation regarding horror stories and money stolen is not an exaggeration by any means.

For 22 years I operated an importing business that I franchised in four countries. With the advent of the internet I began teaching my franchisees the safe way to source online. Although millions of pounds worth of orders were placed every year, not a single one of them suffered any scams.

Since retirement I have taught hundreds of newbies safe sourcing and simple importing and only one has reported being scammed. He did everything wrong! He used a B2B site that in my book I specifically advise against using, he ordered a large quantity without going through the due diligence procedures that I advise, and what's more, he paid via Western Union. I marvel that he bothered to buy my book, because I doubt that he read it.

 

[Directimport]

I have a buyer from Alibaba who told me to open an account on AliExpress so she could pay me for her order. I've found out that my Alibaba account is already a member of AliExpress, so I opened an AliPay account. Is this the right thing to do? How could I withdraw money from AliPay to get her payment? How is she going to pay me? Is it through AliExpress or AliPay? Thanks!

She can pay you via Alipay on either Alibaba or Aliexpress, but I am sure you will prefer her to use Aliexpress because their escrow service is free. While both Alibaba and Aliexpress use Alipay as both a payment processor and as an escrow service, that service costs the vendor 5% on Alibaba, and It used to be 30% on Aliexpress. I have not received an update form Alibaba on that point.

Escrow is the default payment procedure on Aliexpress but is an option on Alibaba. Vendors can refuse to use escrow on Alibaba but not on Aliexpress.

You will need to be listed as a vendor on Aliexpress. This means you will have to list your product there. Aliexpress is the retail version of Alibaba, so if you are selling B2C, that may be the better place to have your listing.

Alipay receives payment on your behalf in RMB. When your customer is happy with the purchase, the payment will then be remitted to your bank account in your local currency. I assume GBP. I expect Alipay will make a handsome profit on the exchange rate.

I suggest you carefully read the Aliexpress rules applying to their escrow service.

 

[Directimport]

Sorry, I hope it was obvious that the 30% was a typo. It should read 3%.

 

[Lentinus]

Re
One of the popular B2B sites publicly admitted several years ago that 2236 of their Gold Suppliers had scammed buyers

Just for completeness of information can you tell me out of how many gold suppliers as the number by itself means nothing.

 

[Directimport]

I don't know how many Gold Suppliers there are on that site but it would be many many thousands.

I think the number is significant in its own right. It would certainly be significant to those who lost their money. The point is, why use sites where that happens to so many people when there are safe sites to use instead?

 

[Lentinus]

But then how does it compare with the number of suppliers on ebay that have scammed buyers -"several years ago" or Amazon for that matter.

How does it compare with the odds of being struck by lightning ?

I ask because it is offered by you as a "scary" number but without context.

 

[Lentinus]

Ok this seems to have been an instance of internal fraud 5 years ago Time magazine:

The company said it uncovered fraudulent transactions by 1,219 of the "gold suppliers" registered in 2009 and 1,107 of those in 2010, accounting for about 1% of the total number of gold suppliers during those years. It further said that "the vast majority of these storefronts were set up to intentionally defraud global buyers" by advertising consumer electronics at cheap prices with low minimum-order requirements. The average claim against fraudulent suppliers was less than $1,200.

The COO and CEO resigned over the scandal. article here and here

 

[Directimport]

Ok this seems to have been an instance of internal fraud 5 years ago Time magazine:

The company said it uncovered fraudulent transactions by 1,219 of the "gold suppliers" registered in 2009 and 1,107 of those in 2010, accounting for about 1% of the total number of gold suppliers during those years. It further said that "the vast majority of these storefronts were set up to intentionally defraud global buyers" by advertising consumer electronics at cheap prices with low minimum-order requirements. The average claim against fraudulent suppliers was less than $1,200.

The COO and CEO resigned over the scandal. article here and here

The announcement of the scams was made in 2011. Here is an extract from the Economist of 24th Feb 2011: "On February 21st, in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Alibaba admitted that it had granted “gold” status (a mark of supposed integrity) to 2,236 dealers who it says subsequently defrauded buyers". and the article went on to say: "The company set up a compensation fund, which has so far paid out $1.7m to 2,249 buyers. More claims are inevitable, and Alibaba has not yet offered an estimate as to how much it will have to pay out." You will note that 2336 was not the final number, and it seems we will never know unless some investigative reporter does some hard work.

You refer to this as an instance of internal fraud , as if it did not affect the people who innocently trusted Alibaba's Gold Supplier scheme and were ripped off. The amount they each lost may not be significant to you, but I deal with newbies every day whose chance of financial survival would be devastated at such a loss.

Regardless of the date of these thefts from people who trusted the system, the system remains unchanged. The Gold Supplier status badge remains something bought not earned. It gives a false sense of security to those (almost everyone) who don't read the fine print and wrongly assume that vendors displaying the Gold Supplier badge have been subjected to a greater degree of scrutiny than ordinary verified suppliers.

I would also point out that the scrutiny of both verified and Gold Supplier members is this:

They are visited at their premises and their business registration papers are viewed. In other words the process proves that they exist.

P.S. I know how it works because I am registered as a vendor on Alibaba even though I have never sold anything there. I get all the news direct, including the constant offers of a 90% discount on the Gold Supplier fee. This offer has vastly increased the number of unscrutinised vendors giving the impression that they have been found to be trustworthy.

 

[Lentinus]

The articles referred to it as internal fraud. Your quote is from the article I linked too.

You are holding it out to be the current state of affairs - partly to reinforce the need for the "inside information" that you sell in a book- as you mention in almost every single post!
I just felt that your post needed a little balance to the FUD. This article sums it up nicely : Alibaba is a scam
There is also some good info to go with the advice you and others provide on here.

 

[Directimport]

The articles referred to it as internal fraud. Your quote is from the article I linked too.

You are holding it out to be the current state of affairs - partly to reinforce the need for the "inside information" that you sell in a book- as you mention in almost every single post!
I just felt that your post needed a little balance to the FUD. This article sums it up nicely : Alibaba is a scam
There is also some good info to go with the advice you and others provide on here.

You cannot escape from the fact that thousands of Gold Suppliers defrauded unsuspecting buyers. Thousands of buyers lost money which in many cases they could not afford to lose. The system of Gold Supplier accreditation remains unchanged. Read Alibaba's own website carefully and see for yourself how the inadequate accreditation system works.

The article you now provide a link to is not a news report. You have provided a link to a commercial site where the owner is an online marketer. The site is an affiliate sales site where he promotes numerous businesses on a commission basis.

This is what he says himself in his Affiliate Disclaimer page: "This website contains endorsements for products and services, which means when you click on a link that we recommend, we may receive a commission."

You seem to object to anyone making comments when they have something to sell, yet you happily link to a person who among other things charges US$67 to talk to him for an hour and is recommending and endorsing businesses entirely in order to receive a commission from them.

 

[brandy11112]

i think it is a scam.you can ask customer service for help to uncover the truth of "security reasons"