Anyone else been de-frauded buying from China?

colmil

I recently bought through what I thought was a legitiimate website some electrical items, I paid for them through Western Union, the goods were never sent and now the website is no more.

I enquired about the items through Alibaba who do not show the webiste as one of their members.

I paid with my credit card, the purchase was over £100, but I cannot see me being able to claim the money back through them as they paid Western Union. The money has been collected in China and no doubt they are working the same scam under another false website.

Anyone any advice, apart from be more careful next time!.

JasX

colmil wrote: »

I paid for them through Western Union,

colmil wrote: »

I paid with my credit card, the purchase was over £100,

First up you make no sense, either you paid for goods by credit card or western union.

If you paid for goods not received by credit card start a section 75 claim

Anyone paying for anything overseas via western union to someone they don't know given the number of fraud warnings around probably deserves to lose their money.... and be laughed at.

Advice? exercise basic common sense -the western union thing is nothing to do with china, europe, down the road or elsewhere....

fiddiwebb

I think you can fund a Western Union payment with a credit card these days?

First port of call is contact Western Union and if you did fund a payment with a CC card via Western Union contact your CC company straight away.

With JasX on this one, never, ever use Western Union unless you know the person well enough, eg. friends & relatives.

If dealing with unknown websites always double check they are kosher, either ask on forums or do a google search.

colmil

I can do without the sarcasm, thank you.

I paid Western Union with my Barclaycard, Western Union tranferred the money to China and it was collected by a.n.other

Barclaycard will not refund my money as Western Union is not a merchant.

colmil

Sorry, Fiddiewebb, I didin't mean you with the sarcasm!

fiddiwebb

No problem colmil.

Just had a quick nosey at alibaba and found a forum (link below) on there you could ask some questions, not saying it will get your money back but if you kick up enough of a stink someone may be able to help you.

http://resources.alibaba.com/discussion_board/86/Payment_Finance.htm

colmil

Thanks, Fiddiweb,
We sent a complaint in to Alibaba last week and a reminder yesterday.
They replied straight away and said that a reply was sent last week and they repeated their e mail.

To be fair, they must have sent it last week as they couldn't have produced this in the time before replying, we simply did not receive it.

They have no trace of the company on their records.

I have sent all of the details to Western Union this afternoon and await their reply.Thank you for your interest and help

Regards