Marketplace
So my girlfriend started ordering from AliExpress various shoes and dresses and whatnot. One day she comes across this dodgy seller, as I never heard about the practice that these sellers are doing. It goes a little bit something like this:
- Make an order (e.g. a pair of shoes) and pay for it
- While you are in the 10 days period in which the seller must ship your item you get a variation of a message like this:
Dear customer, the item you bought requires a delicate shipping solution. Please purchase this extra care shipping item (which leads to an AliExpress item link labeled "Dropshipping Service" or something different for $5-$10) if you want us to send your item. Thanks!
- I never heard of something like this so I told her to just ignore the message as the seller has to ship the item in 10 days because we already paid for the order. The shipping method was registered mail anyway so we can track if it was actually shipped.
- The seller ships the item 9 days and about 20 hours after payment (coincidence?)
- A few weeks later the tracking shows that the item was successfully delivered to Tasmania (we are in Sydney!)
She used the same address like I use for AliExpress that I used a hundred times successfully. - At this point we don't even bother to message the seller and just open the dispute right away, with the reason being "Delivered to wrong address".
- AliExpress approves of the dispute and she gets her money back.
All-in-all a lot of time wasted and a horrible first AliExpress shopping experience for her.
She came across another seller like this while buying a dress, but I told her lets do the same as it was registered mail again. We ignored the "delicate shipping" request message and this time the seller sent it 5 days after payment and a few weeks later we actually received the dress she ordered in perfect condition without paying any of their "delicate shipping" bs.
So first things first, is such "strategy" allowed in AliExpress?
Are they just searching for gullible people who will pay extra for no reason while people who know better will get the item anyway?
And is it better for store's reputation (or place in the search results) to send the item to a wrong address than to cancel the order?
I have over 100 AliExpress orders but I never had to deal with this, but then again, I never ordered any clothing, so I have no idea what is going on. Can anyone share similar experiences?
Yes.