Ali Express Contact Email Anyone?

BIGEYE

An order I placed with Ali Express was apparently delivered whilst I was away on holiday. I got back last night and found that the order has been delivered to a name that does not reside on my street. Finding an email address is proving difficult, and the online chat facility is nothing short of useless. Does anyone have a contact email address that I could raise my issue with and pursue a refund?

TIA

stuartJo1989

https://helppage.aliexpress.com/buyercenter/questionAnswer.htm?spm=a2g19.helppage_7aypo.0.0.7ZIHbu&isRouter=0&viewKey=1&id=20060634&categoryIds=9205380&lang=ru

As far as I can see, it appears to be a marketplace and would require you to contact the seller (not ali express) through your online account as per instructions above. You can then raise a dispute with Ali Express by clicking the relevant button on your account.

It appears that making contact to Ali Express directly, except by going through the dispute process, would be a waste of time (and put you at risk of running out of time to raise the dispute).

BIGEYE

I am already out of time as I was away on holiday.

marliepanda

It’s chinese ebay basically, I hope it wasn’t expensive...

stuartJo1989

BIGEYE wrote: »

I am already out of time as I was away on holiday.

Checked on the website and it does indeed seem like their protection only lasts for 15 days after receipt of the order!

So that's a bit of bad luck for you. More so because the contract of sale is not necessarily with Ali Express. If it were a normal UK website I'd suggest that small claims court is the best way to go, but given it is Chinese I have no idea sorry.

soolin

I use Ali express a lot but I think there are some real issues at the moment. There doesn't appear to be any way at all of speaking to Aliexpress nor do sellers care about buyers anymore. I buy a few things a month and where I rarely had any real issues, I'm now having problems quite a lot and due to the changes in the dispute system it isn't always possible to even open a dispute before the time frame closes.

I keep all my purchases to less than £15 now and just write off any purchases thT go wrong if the dispute polices doesn't allow me to open a case in time.

I have private messages aliexpress via Facebook and all they tell me is to only buy from good sellers, but since it is almost impossible to leave bad feedback for a bad seller that isn't always easy.

Cornucopia

Like eBay, there are a few sensible precautions when using Aliexpress. I've conducted over 100 low-value transactions using Aliexpress over the past couple of years, and have 100% success rate (including 3 disputes which resulted in full refund).

I would say:-

- Keep transaction values low. For many product types, there are good value options below £5, and for me that's the kind of amount I could write off if necessary.

- Choose buyers with high feedback scores (certainly over 2500 score, and over 97.5% feedback). Bear in mind that they will have had customers who don't understand the mechanics of buying from China, and it's unlikely that you'll find true 100% feedback sellers with any volume of sales behind them.

- Ideally choose a free shipping option so that there's no dispute that the entire amount is due back to you in the event of a problem.

- Keep an eye on the deadline date in your "My Orders" list. Ensure that you raise any non-delivery report before the deadline times-out. Be aware that the transaction duration varies depending on the shipping method.

- Check any items immediately upon receipt and raise any dispute for damage or under-quantity promptly. Ideally include photos of damage/under-quantity in your report.

- In some product areas, the same item is sold by multiple sellers. Whilst they may seem like similar offers, maybe with a few pennies difference in the price, it is always worth checking shipping options to see if you can free/cheap tracked and/or airmail shipping.

In my product area of Electronic Components & Modules, I have had some fantastic deals with AliExpress. For many products, I am paying 10% of the UK cost for components that (probably) come out of exactly the same factories.