AlibabaReviews 13,313

Trade assurance only seems there to pacify customers concerned with importing, but it proved to be completely useless for me. The seller knew what words to say to throw the Alibaba representatives off the trail of facts. My particular item was not damaged in transit and this was admitted to by the seller in the Alibaba chat where I kept all of my messages due to the constant warnings from alibaba to do so. I went around in circles with alibaba and they continued to ask for more and more proof no matter what I supplied. Needless to say it was an exercise in futility.

I feel really bad for the people that buy container loads of stuff and get screwed.

"Zhenglong sports utinsel company" and their sister company / broker "Wuyi smart vehicle company" are the company I purchased a sample electric ATV from. There were so many things wrong with it, from broken and sloppy manufacturing, to parts that appeared to have been laying around a warehouse and then thrown together (they were scuffed, dented, chipped, and rusting). That said I would have a useless pile of junk if I did not happen to be very handy with everything from welding, to rewiring electronic circuits, and generally able to fix all of the issues that the item shipped with. I also had to be able to source bad parts from other places. This "sample" is completely useless as a sample product for which I intended to resell on a volume basis.

Sourcing from Chinese suppliers and manufacturers via Alibaba is useless due to the extremely poor communications and/or translation software. China will not be a viable country to source products directly from as long as there is this poor communication and poor quality control. At this point anything I source for resell has to come from a third party (if it comes from China) that does their own quality control and has easy to understand fluent English-speaking representatives.

We purchased bathtubs through Alibaba using the trade assurance Programme as with an overseas purchase you have to pay up front to an overseas supplier. The supplier provided bathtubs which were structurally unsound with loose bases (we provided video) and taps that turned the wrong way according to international standards. The bathtubs will all crack within a few years and have to be replaced. Plus we look like idiots as all the taps turn the wrong way in our hotel. We were refused any sort of refund. I wish I had known trade assurance is not worth anything as I would not have purchased our tubs this way.

There are a lot of sellers who claim to be selling game consoles such as ps4 and Xbox one. Their common method of scam seems to be directing customers to communicate outside Alibaba. They will send a message asking you to contact their "sales manager" on WhatsApp or email. Once they have your attention to their method of communication they will then persuade you to make an order by offering unheard of deals via WhatsApp or email. Once you give the number of items and shipping address

They will then attempt to finalize their final stage of the scam. THE PAYMENT.

They will ask you to either send bitcoin or use money transfer agencies such as a western union. If you ask to keep all transaction via Alibaba they will simply reply Alibaba only allows Chinese suppliers to accept payments from customers.

I've even had a few of the scammers act like they are located in America or Japan whilst their IP address shows their location in India and Nigeria.

MY BIGGEST QUESTION IS THIS!

HOW COMES A MASSIVE COMPANY LIKE ALIBABA IS ALLOWING THESE IDIOT SCAMMERS TAKE GENUINE BUYERS MONEY WHILST CONDUCTING THEIR CRIMINAL ACTIVITY ON ALIBABA.COM. I MEAN THEY NOT HIDEN AND BELIEVE ME THEY ARE NOT HARD TO FIND. JUST TYPE IN PS4 CONSOLE ON THE SEARCH ENGINE AND THEY ALL POP OUT LIKE ANTS.

IM VERY CONFUSED! I REALLY DONT UNDERSTAND WHY/HOW THIS HASNT BEEN DETECTED YET!

Keeping things short, I was coned out of over £2000 from one guy on Alibaba, I'm still trying to get money back, what made things extremely hard is they kept him on there and the moment I was conned they removed him so after I spoke to the bank surface used and spoke to the police I than tried Alibaba but two things, 1 you need to put the persons account that robed you on there (wall they took him of so when I type it in it searches nothing) and 2 there uk help line is the worst I've ever seen (it's extremely hard not to swear saying that) for starters it's all fouraign and second it costs like mad trying to call them so bottom line don't F ing use this site, I'm posting continuous posts about Alibaba trying to get them to 1 star because they don't even desearch 10% of 1 star

It has been 60 days since I started trying to communicate with around 30-40 Chinese suppliers, so that I could source some very basic parts to manufacture some small inexpensive outboard motors- called Longtailed Mud Motors... Which originated in Asia about 50-60 years ago.

Most of the sales people there speak just enough English to get their basic point across, but there is quite a bit lost between myself and most of them --- in the details.

Most of them just don't get it.
I wanted to check the references of a few of their US customers.

Before ordering and sending my money to China to buy goods there I asked for references.

What I found out was that very few of the Asian suppliers actually have any customers in the US at all... none.

To sum up. It has been a fairly complete waste time for both of
Us... the suppliers from Asia and myself.

Most of the sales people want you to send them 3D drawings or actual samples of the goods you needThen they will have their engineers go over the details. Mthen they supposedly will custom manufacture your item and ship it to you
The Chinese goods are actually very cheap compared to goods from the US... but with that... it is the cost of the shipping that will kill you.

Your total cost of the China-made goods will be about 25 percent of your total order, then the shipping will run you about 75 percent.
Just not worth the time and effort of trying to source your business needs from China.

I have finally decided it will be better for me to source my needs here in the US... rather than to try to get them from Asia.

Steve... CEO... of a small US based
Outdoor Sports Business.

Alibaba has changed the way that it is portrayed in the message centre. Its not easy to find the new answers of suppliers in our inbox. Everything is very haphazzard. Why cant they just have a normal inbox like ordinary websites where all the new messages are highlited and the old ones are faded out? They are a massive International company with the best IT specialists to work with... And this funny little animated man that runs nonstop is PATHETIC. CAN AN EXPERT PLEASE SORT OUT THIS CRAP WORK FUNCTION OF THIS WEBSITE?

It is really no wonder why Alibaba has such bad review. I
Bought a part for wine bottling in China which arrived but the quality was so
Bad that it was very danger to use it. I raised the dispute for refund.
Unfortunately Alibaba lost my evidence and even after send it direct to *******@service.alibaba.com it was not recognized and so I was informed that Alibaba closed the dispute because of lack of evidence from my side. Could it be more fake?

I bought an product in Alibaba. I did all the negotiation in their network. The supplier was announced by having 5 years Gold Supplier and having Trade Assurance.
The product that i got, did not comply with what i asked or was promised.
I was scammed, and when i tried to complain with Alibaba, it was impossible. And then they told me to get an lawyer to resolve my problem.
Alibaba support companies that scam their overseas customers, by making hard to complain and don't allow customers to review companies.