Crazy, 19 months since my last post here - where does the time go?!?!?!?
And this one is mostly intended as a 'placeholder', to prevent my missing 2024 entirely, though hopefully, I'll fire off a few more before 2025 sees the light of day.
First, AliExpress. I'm after ordering quite a bit of stuff from them over the past 6 months, not least of which has been a computer upgrade - yeah, I finally have a computer with some horsepower again! My last significant computer purchase was way, way back in 2006, which was the stodgy old Dell XPS M1210 laptop - dual core, Pro Duo CPU 32-bit, running at 1.83Ghz. By today's standards, slow as fcuk, but back then, capable, but it wasn't cheap - if memory serves €1200 - which turns out to be four times what I've paid for the new arrival.
But wait, I'm getting off track here. The 'bee in my bonnet' at the mo, concerns the number of obviously fake Sellers that are turning up on AliExpress over the Christmas period, and why AliExpress seems to be doing nothing about them. Right now, two examples will suffice. First example involves the motherboard manufacturer Erying, coincidentally, from whom I bought my latest upgrade. I bought mine for the very good price of €142. But right now on AliExpress, a much higher spec board from the same manufacturer is purported to be selling for just €40. See pics.
This supposedly is from an EU Seller, yet is providing free postage, first red-flag. Secondly, when you hover off 'Sold by', then click on 'business info', you are treated to a 'system error' being displayed. So, ludicrously cheap price aside, these 'Sellers' don't even provide the Trader details that are required by AliExpress, yet are allowed to continue on scamming the naive & gullible. The other example involves the ridiculously cheap EV bikes with fantastic specs, again, purportedly coming from EU Sellers. There seems to be quite a few falling for this one in particular as there are a lot of reviews complaining that it's a scam.
But what is the point in this, if AliExpress is the escrow agent, and all monies are held by it until confirmation of a valid sale? And how do you define 'gullible Buyers'? I for instance bought a metal detector a few months ago on Ali, at what I thought was a good price, €92 - usual price at the time was €110-€120. What the Seller actually sent was a role of wallpaper, value, 5 Euros!!! On contacting the Seller, I was told my only recourse was to open a Dispute with AliExpress. I got stressed from sending photographic evidence and explanations of what I had received, to AliExpress, over the course of a few days. The Dispute went in my favour, but it really put me off Ali for awhile. I ended up successfully buying the same metal detector from a different Seller for €97. One would think that AliExpress would come down, hard & fast, on Sellers like this. Or maybe it's too big to realise, that these rats are out & about...
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