Lia W.

I made my first purchase on Alibaba. I was very nervous about getting ripped off, so I stayed in constant communication with Alibaba customer service throughout the transaction. The transaction started to go south, I felt like I was protecting myself by staying in communication with them and keeping them in the loop of what was happening so I would not get ripped off. What a joke, it almost seemed like they had no idea how their own company operated nor how to instruct me. I ended up having to open a dispute with the company because the product they were manufacturing for me arrived and was not made to correct specs, the way they were made was totally useless to me and admitted by the company that they were made wrong. The company was harassing me to close my dispute and I wasn't sure why, their communication was very poor so I was trying to figure out, why they would expect me to do that when I had no replacement product in hand? Maybe they couldn't ship my items until I closed the dispute? I wasn't sure, so I contacted Alibaba and asked them what to do, they told me to go ahead and close the dispute, I explained the whole situation... and asked, "If I close the dispute, can I reopen it if I don't receive the product?" the customer service lady, Joyce tells me..."yes". So I closed it, at this point I just wanted to do whatever they told me to do so I could get my product, as it was holding up the entire launch of my company. I was losing thousands of dollars. I'm expecting my product to ship any day and a week later I contact the company to see if my items have shipped... NOPE... not only that but they were leaving on holiday (which they never mentioned before, even though a rush was requested as I had already waited over a month) they said they expected my items to ship in about 2-3 weeks, plus ship time. The entire transaction with this company Aosters was terrible, one things after the other including making me pay additional charges for their mistakes and requesting additional money from me again and again. I finally requested to cancel the order and told them I no longer wanted to do business with them and wanted a refund. I simply could not wait any longer and honestly kind of doubted my product would ever show up, if it did, it would likely be wrong. I needed to take my business elsewhere, fast. Well you probably guessed it, customer service was totally WRONG, my money that Alibaba was holding was released to the seller when I cancelled the dispute and I was no longer able to get my money back. SO here I am with no product and out about $180 USD. My advice, steer clear or ALIBABA all together. If you absolutely must use them for manufacturing needs, do no use a China based business and pay with a credit card so you can dispute the charges. Another bad piece of advice customer service gave me was that it was perfectly fine to send money via western union. Now I know the only reason the seller asked for that was so that there would be no course of action for me to get my money back. I could have easily paid with a credit card and would have been willing to pay the fees as well to utilize that option. I am currently still fighting to get a refund because I am so outraged that Alibaba gave me such poor customer service advice and now I'm out my money! Steer clear of... Guangzhou Aosters Garment Accessories and Alibaba.