buying from china

patman99

Started buying SD cards from China via AliExpress to resell. First batch of 4 turned-out to be fake. AliEx took a dim view of the seller when I raised refund request. As the seller failed to respond within 5 working days, the case escalated. I got a full refund. The seller got a ban.

There used to be a lot of sellers shipping via Hong Kong. As this is what is known as a 'free port', there was never any import tax to pay (google free port for an explanation).

Money-Saving-King

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Never buy electronics from China and I would suggest not buying anything expensive as there's a good chance of it not being the quality you expected.

I bought my secound Roku 2 from China (UK Retail is £79.99) I got mine for £27.99. It works perfectly fine as well.

So I'm another that says buy electronic from China, you'll be fine and save tonnes of money!

By the way eBay has a 45 day money back guarantee (you can raise it even if the item hasn't turned up) so Flyonthewall what can actually go wrong?

iammumtoone

Money-Saving-King wrote: »

I bought my secound Roku 2 from China (UK Retail is £79.99) I got mine for £27.99. It works perfectly fine as well.

So I'm another that says buy electronic from China, you'll be fine and save tonnes of money!

By the way eBay has a 45 day money back guarantee (you can raise it even if the item hasn't turned up) so Flyonthewall what can actually go wrong?

Funny you should mention them. I saw those the other day and was considering getting one if I get any christmas money, aren't they second hand? so I was thinking they are more likely to be originals? Problem is I run the risk of the £8+ import duty

I never normally buy electrical goods from china, I know someone who got a laptop charger from a uk ebay seller (but would have come originally from china) It caught on fire :eek: luckily she was in the room at the time otherwise it could have been serious. Knowing that has put me off.

iammumtoone

patman99 wrote: »

Started buying SD cards from China via AliExpress to resell. First batch of 4 turned-out to be fake. AliEx took a dim view of the seller when I raised refund request. As the seller failed to respond within 5 working days, the case escalated. I got a full refund. The seller got a ban.

There used to be a lot of sellers shipping via Hong Kong. As this is what is known as a 'free port', there was never any import tax to pay (google free port for an explanation).

But isn't everything on AliEx fake?

I don't suppose the free port issue relates to the private buyer one or two items will come via air, its only applicable to the business seller buying in bulk via sea. I didn't know that though thanks for the info.

Flyonthewall

Money-Saving-King wrote: »

I bought my secound Roku 2 from China (UK Retail is £79.99) I got mine for £27.99. It works perfectly fine as well.

So I'm another that says buy electronic from China, you'll be fine and save tonnes of money!

By the way eBay has a 45 day money back guarantee (you can raise it even if the item hasn't turned up) so Flyonthewall what can actually go wrong?

Well done. You bought one great electronic item so all electronic items from China are fine, right? Forget the person earlier in this thread that got the fake SD cards, or all the other thousands who have bought fake memory cards. Plenty of online articles about them including on ebay.

Granted, not everyone realises they have a fake one although everyday they risk losing their data and probably have far less space to actually save on than they should. The memory cards are only one of many fakes.

Not everyone knows about the time limit, which is why in my very first post I said "you can be waiting weeks for the item to arrive. This is fine if the item comes and is as expected, but due to ebay time limits for cases you have to be careful if things don't go right."

If an item doesn't come and they promise to send out a replacement then you can easily go past that 45 days as you may have to wait weeks for delivery. Some people trust that they'll get the other item so they don't open a case to cover themselves, or some might not even realise that they are fine to open a case even if the seller appears to be offering a solution.

Now if the item is faulty or not as described then you have a different problem. You should have got the item within the 45 days so thats fine and, sure, ebay will happily make sure you get a refund, but ebay will tell you to send it back for a refund and when sending to China that can be costly (more so as it needs to be tracked).

Then a lot of Chinese sellers will claim they haven't got the item. If you contacted them first and have returned the item on their promise of a refund you may run out of time to open a case and then find they refuse to refund. If you did open a case you'll need a tracking number and that needs to show it got there. Cases are only open for so long.

Stoke

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Well done. You bought one great electronic item so all electronic items from China are fine, right? Forget the person earlier in this thread that got the fake SD cards, or all the other thousands who have bought fake memory cards. Plenty of online articles about them including on ebay.

Granted, not everyone realises they have a fake one although everyday they risk losing their data and probably have far less space to actually save on than they should. The memory cards are only one of many fakes.

Not everyone knows about the time limit, which is why in my very first post I said "you can be waiting weeks for the item to arrive. This is fine if the item comes and is as expected, but due to ebay time limits for cases you have to be careful if things don't go right."

If an item doesn't come and they promise to send out a replacement then you can easily go past that 45 days as you may have to wait weeks for delivery. Some people trust that they'll get the other item so they don't open a case to cover themselves, or some might not even realise that they are fine to open a case even if the seller appears to be offering a solution.

Now if the item is faulty or not as described then you have a different problem. You should have got the item within the 45 days so thats fine and, sure, ebay will happily make sure you get a refund, but ebay will tell you to send it back for a refund and when sending to China that can be costly (more so as it needs to be tracked).

Then a lot of Chinese sellers will claim they haven't got the item. If you contacted them first and have returned the item on their promise of a refund you may run out of time to open a case and then find they refuse to refund. If you did open a case you'll need a tracking number and that needs to show it got there. Cases are only open for so long.

I've bought lots from China, including electronics.

Personally I wouldn't buy SD's from China though.

Flyonthewall

Stoke wrote: »

I've bought lots from China, including electronics.

Personally I wouldn't buy SD's from China though.

Fair enough. But I wasn't quoting you and it would appear that they're basing their opinion on having bought one electronic item. For all we know they could have just been very lucky.

To comment on your post though, do you buy from the same sellers or kow what to look out for when buying from China (especially with electronics) to make sure you won't get fakes/bad quality?

I mean the OP isn't buying an electronic anyway. Still if they were or someone else was we've got no idea who they're buying off, what they're considering buying or anything else about it so what you may know is obviously fake they may not. For that reason it's best to warn that there are many sellers who do sell fakes/cheaper quality and to be careful.

Stoke

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Fair enough. But I wasn't quoting you and it would appear that they're basing their opinion on having bought one electronic item. For all we know they could have just been very lucky.

To comment on your post though, do you buy from the same sellers or kow what to look out for when buying from China (especially with electronics) to make sure you won't get fakes/bad quality?

I mean the OP isn't buying an electronic anyway. Still if they were or someone else was we've got no idea who they're buying off, what they're considering buying or anything else about it so what you may know is obviously fake they may not. For that reason it's best to warn that there are many sellers who do sell fakes/cheaper quality and to be careful.

To be fair, yes, to both questions and as such, I tend to have good experiences. I do know what to look out for, what questions to ask, and where to find limited feedback even on products that may seem very unheard of. That allows me to base a decision as to whether to buy it on a decent ground.

Also, I favour a number of sellers. I find Chinese sellers are a lot like English ones, the more you buy with them, the more they do favours for you and even discounts if you email them personally. I've had some very good experiences with sellers, and such, I tend to favour them over new ones. The only time I ever had an issue, i bought a Stereo off one of the sellers I use often, it arrived and worked fine, but the IR remote did not seem to work properly. I emailed them, and told them of my issue but of my reluctance to send it back due to the postage costs: they sent me a new remote and a new front IR receiver and some instructions in broken English. Yes, I had to take part of the Stereo casing off to fit the new receiver, but it took roughly 1 hour I'd say and it's worked fine ever since. An equivalent stereo in this country would cost in excess of £800, what with the number of features it has... this one?

£150

meg72

iammumtoone wrote: »

Just be careful that you don't spend over the amount that you will be liable for import tax (I think it is now £15 but hopefully someone will be able to confirm) otherwise you may get caught having to pay RM the tax plus £8 handling fee.

In certain categories alot of the items sold by UK sellers are imported from china so if you are prepared to wait for the item you can usually get it cheaper direct.

Great advice, I got caught out like this buying from America I bought two items but if I had known about this I could have ordered them separately and not had to pay the charge.

campdave

Flyonthewall wrote: »

To comment on your post though, do you buy from the same sellers or kow what to look out for when buying from China (especially with electronics) to make sure you won't get fakes/bad quality?

There are plenty of UK based sellers selling imported Chinese tat as well. I've bought some items successfully from China and Hong Kong (cheap cables and a few cheap electrical items) and a few cheap items from a UK seller that went kaput pretty quickly. It's not possible to have a blanket UK Good, China bad attitude - it's up to the buyer to research seller's feedback and see how they react to issues or if there is a suggestion the items they sell are poor quality regardless of where the seller is located.