Not a Scam but Strange Emails / Results

anotheruser

I'd like to think of myself as pretty savvy when it comes to scams and such but there is something that has confused me.

I spent £40 on a HALIFAX clarity credit card at AliExpress.
The item was a different size than what I ordered.
AliExpress did not uphold the claim - no refund.
Spoke to the seller who said I could send it back but it would be very expensive (postage back to China) - a tactic to try and put me off.

Spoke to Halifax / Credit Card supplier who said I had to wait 15 more days before I could claim through them.
Waited for 15 days.
Spoke to Halifax again a few days ago who said I should fill in a form online.
Did that and yesterday received an email from "Onlinecreditdisputes - Onlinecreditdisputes@lloydsbanking.com" saying I should upload documents to their portal.  Now this sort of surprised me as I thought Halifax was Bank of Scotland not Lloyds - maybe I am wrong?  Plus, I was expecting some sort fo contact AND they quoted the last part of my postcode.

Clicked on the link in the email, uploaded a few photos and the correspondence between the seller and I.
Received an email back from "$Lloyds Disputes - lloydsdisputes@lloydsbanking.com" with the details of the amount I paid and the merchant and everything.  They state they've contacted AliExpress who have said I should send the item back, so they're closing the claim.

I need to call them as when I spoke to the person in the first instance of this, I said I was more than willing to post the item back if I was provided with a postage label as I was not paying for postage back to China for them to not refund or anything.  The chap said they should provide postage before I send.

But the whole thing strikes me as a little strange.
Shame as the last time I had a problem years back, it was easy.

MovingForwards

BoS, Lloyds and Halifax are all within the same group.

born_again

Remember you are dealing with a chinese company & our consumer regulations do not apply to them. So while the person from the bank said "Should" that does not mean the company have to or will.

Clearly they are using one dispute team to cover all the different brands within the group. Thats money saving for you 🤷‍♂️

Sandtree

Fred would be proud of them following the central "manufacturing" model he created in RBS... though failure to use each domain you already own to avoid customer confusion is just sloppy rather than money saving.