Am I wrong being paranoid using my debit card on Aliexpress?
Would it be better to set up an account using Revolut and transfer the money to them and use that card to make purchases on Aliexpress?
Also, I have never had a credit card - would it be a good idea to get one and if so what would you recommend?
Depending on the seller, you can contact them to issue you a PayPal invoice. I did it yesterday when I bought some headphones
Just sign up for Up bank or something similar and use the free debit card only for online shopping. Transfer money from your main bank account to the card every time you need to use it, leave like $1/$2 on the card when not in use.
This as when there is no money in the account all card transactions are automatically declined.
In all honesty, it will be okay. All aliexpress transactions go through the central holding company. I have purchased just under 1500 items over the years, and actually have never had a problem. Aliexpress has a lot of (merchant and system) tricks to watch out for, but IMHO debit/credit card fraud is not something to worry about. All my recent purchases have been by debit card.
Also, if you were concerned, there is an interesting product called privacy.com that seems to allow you to generate multiple, virtual, credit cards - ah, sorry, I read further about it, and it seems to be US only.
Yep, ali_____ itself is a huge platform- over twice ebay's revenue. You're unlikely to have a problem directly with the platform itself. I've had one or two sellers ship me the usual not-as-described crap, just like ebay, but aliexpress mediated it and refunded me just fine.
I have my credit card on my Alipay account (Aliexpress's paypal equivalent) and hasn't been compromised so far.
I've been called by the bank asking if the charges are legit way back when I first started and they were all my purchases. I supposed it flagged because it was a charge in China.
Just make sure you take the proper precautions and your bank will do a charge back and issue you a new number if something goes wrong. There's a level of trust between you, the bank, the vendor, and their bank. This is true in any transaction and no credit card transaction is 100% secure.
Alipay has similar protection to Paypal when shopping online for buyer protection and chargeback. It has all the compliance certifications with the major cards and the security standard orgs. You can also use the VISA/Mastercard authentications from the bank to approve transactions.
I haven't had any problems.
If your card is via VISA/Mastercard you have quite a reasonable degree of protection anyway.
Edit: RE: credit cards, I think yes, a credit card is a reasonable choice IF you don't need one. As soon as you start paying interest at 20%, that's a hit. It's worth learning a bit about all the frequent flyer points schemes and stuff. I normally expect about $300 back from a card with $100 in fees in and expenses.
I have a separate account, not with my main bank, that I use for AliExpress and also to make other low value card purchases that I may have doubts about and I leave a minimal amount in it, just enough to cover these purchases.
No issues so far.
Usually I disable online payment option for my bank cards in my bank apps. When I want to buy online, I can just enable again online payment option for the card in my bank app.
read some ozb posts here said their cc compromised .. and only used on aliexp for online