Reply With QuotePerfectly fine to buy from there in my experience. :)
Hello, I’m probably massively behind the times but is buying from Aliexpress safe & legit? I only want to buy a silly cap and would rather not donate my bank balance to someone unscrupulous. What’s the safest way to purchase an item, credit card I presume? (I’m not sure if PayPal is accepted).
I know this is probably a very stupid question but like many of us I can no longer make life decisions without consulting TZ!
Perfectly fine to buy from there in my experience. :)
I’ve bought a couple of items from AliExpress - nothing costly, just a few pounds. All went through smoothly with updates on the progress.
I think I used a Revolut card as that is a prepaid card.
Items can take a while to arrive but they do turn up.
The straps I bought from there were fine.
I have had a couple of bad experiences, and on that basis will absolutely never use Aliexpress again.
I've had two different sellers send me goods that were not even remotely what I ordered. When I complained, they just gave me the silent treatment, so I escalated it to Aliexpress - and no matter what evidence I provided, they called *me* the liar! This, despite the fact the items were very low value goods that no sane person would waste time scamming!
There was a parcel that went AWOL too, seller washed their hands of that, and at the time AE's user support was so opaque I didn't even bother...
tl;dr: AVOID!
I’ve purchased a few items at around £20-30 a pop with no issues. Not sure I’d spend much more than that though.
Only done one £30 transaction but all good, no different from eBay really. In any case you're protected assuming paid via credit card.
I bought some bits and pieces for party bags for my little girl’s birthday.
It all arrived. Eventually. Missed the party though!
It's safe and legit - what you might receive is pot-luck. I'd steer away from anything with a plug or an adaptor as the product could be OK but these can be death-traps.Originally Posted by Kirk280
Hello, I’m probably massively behind the times but is buying from Aliexpress safe & legit? I only want to buy a silly cap and would rather not donate my bank balance to someone unscrupulous. What’s the safest way to purchase an item, credit card I presume? (I’m not sure if PayPal is accepted).
I know this is probably a very stupid question but like many of us I can no longer make life decisions without consulting TZ!
It’s a baseball cap for ca. £5. I want to look like an American. (No it won’t have MAGA on it!)
I don’t mind if I get sent a pink unicorn instead. Indeed, the girls would love that.
I was just worriedly about my credit card being scammed! Thanks all.
Only used them for a low cost item. The it arrived after a week, which was 2-3 weeks earlier than expected. The items was £15 or so, some seller on Amazon had clearly bought in bulk and seller them as a UK seller, but asking for £60.
I saw that with pulse oximeters recently.
I've bought there, and no problems.
I’ve purchased lot of low value items and only ever had problems with 1 which was a replacement remote for a sat box. Thing would chew through batteries so I lodged a complaint. The seller initially refused to accept that there was a fault then demanded a video. I tried explaining how would a video prove that the remote chewed through batteries but their dispute centre then used the lack of video to side with the seller.
One thing worth bearing in mind is if you want it in a hurry forget it, on average it takes 4-6 weeks or even longer right now to arrive.
I recently used them for the first time and it was a c. £800 purchase for multiple units of a low cost item (FACE MASKS)!
Was apprehensive to be honest and after making the order heard nothing for a long time. But they have recently arrived, comms were fine although I didn't bother reaching out to the seller as I knew on order the lead time was a long one.
I guess like most things, this will be seller dependent. Similar to eBay. So some experiences will be fine some not so.
Interesting point from the poster above about the customer service not kicking in when there was an issue, reading the blurb when I ordered I had felt it was pretty secure. I had thought that funds are in fact held until you click to say items received and fine (could be wrong on this part, didn't bother to read the small print in too much detail).
OP - for a cheap MAGA cap, I wouldn't worry too much about using it.
It was a £4.80 (incl. shipping!) non-MAGA cap!
No problem on my orders
I've bought a fair amount of stuff through AliExpress. Mostly low value, non-essential stuff - I pay for it, and then a few weeks later (but sometimes much sooner) a little plastic envelope drops through the letterbox.
I've only ever had one or two problems (stuff not arriving) and the complaints process has always found in my favour.
At one point I bought a number of EO-clone straps far, far cheaper than they were from Erika (or even from WatchGecko) and I was very happy with them.
I have bought probably over 50 items from ali, mostly below 10 euro, mostly non electric, never had any problems, it can take months before the goods arrive. And you mostly get what you paid for, cheap chinese plastic....
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I bought a bracelet from them. Took a month or so, but did arrive ok. Proper tracking info was given too.
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I know...was just teasing you!
No issues with them - bargains to be had - filtering can give you postage free - vouchers for signing up etc
What’s not to like?
I’ve used them many times, no problems at all. Mainly bits for my bike (e.g. phone cradle, seat cover). Delivery can take a while, but the quality of the kit I’ve bought has been really good.
Thanks all. I’ll let you know if something random turns up!
used the site several times with no problems.last item was a knife which had a slightly bent blade,seller said it was ok, i disagreed and opened a dispute.was refunded within 3 hours.cant complain at that.most sellers take paypal but the site will charge a small fee for its use.
Since covid-19, the delivery failure rate has been 30% no-show items (order 3 products, 2 will arrive)
The stuff that does arrive takes 3 months minimum, it used to be 4 weeks.
A full refund happens after 3-4 months, and a few "no-show" items will arrive 5-months later out of the blue.
So if price is important, and you don't need it quick, or don't need it at all - go for it.
If the purchase is important, go to Ebay and find a UK seller with stock, and a less than a 2-week delivery time to avoid drop shippers.
I still buy stuff from Ali - still waiting for face masks I ordered 6-weeks ago in mid May.
Just bought a Mi Dreame from there (Dyson handheld competitor ) - 5 days later in my house, used them a few times no issue
I have used them several times for clothing and never had any problem. Mixed bag quality wise, some excellent and some garbage, but mostly positive.
I did fall for trying to buy some items of a site advertised on fb (Yes, I know...) from Singapore. After 2 weeks a random scarf arrived. Emails exchanged in which the seller blamed the carrier and then offered me a 40% refund. Issued a chargeback request through my CC and money refunded the next month.
On the bright side the scarf (Gucci knock off) was well received as a gift by a female friend.
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I bought a $100 watch and it was fine - took about 3 weeks to arrive and good accurate tracking info was provided. I've bought lots of cheap (under $20) items never had any problems. Wouldn't buy mains electrical items though. Best to stick to well reviewed/bought main 'shops' for safety and you should be fine.
I prefer DHGate for my Chinese tat delivery service. I've used Ali and had no issues but DHGate seem a bit more buyer oriented in that they only release funds when you confirm satisfactory delivery. I had a watch delivered that stopped in the same place after about 5 minutes running, the seller only offered a token refund and urged me to confirm receipt. I escalated to DHG's cusromer services department and on production of a video of the watch being a git they refunded 100% of my money immediately so if I can find what I'm after on DHG then they get the business.
Bought quite a bit from AliExpress and DHGate and only had one non-delivery which AliExpress refunded with no quibble.
The knock-off Hermes and Gucci silk ties at $15 are worth a look.
Last edited by J J Carter; 30th June 2020 at 20:45.
Be prepared for lots of spam in your inbox, which seems to arrive at silly o clock in the morning when the Far East wakes up!
Good news, the stuff I ordered 14th May (7-weeks ago) has arrived in the UK, and should be with me soon.
Order now for Christmas delivery.
8-10 weeks is the going rate for free postage items.
Paid postage arriving by air can be as quick as 2-4 weeks.
I ordered a timegrapher on the 20th April and it still hasn't arrived. That's 73 days ago, even though I had paid £21.47 for fast postage.
Aliexpress CS haven't been that helpful just continuing to say wait 10 days, wait another 10 days etc.
Seems i will have to wait 90 days before they even consider a refund, that will take upto 21 days to process.
My lad ( 13 ) has discovered Wish and spends his pocket money on tat, phone cases and such like, I figure it’s a good learning experience when he finds the turds amongst the ok stuff and learns to be sceptical about the adverts and descriptions. Too good to be true etc.
Cheers..
Jase
I've ordered some stuff on there and never had an issue.
I have found that the cheaper the stuff, the longer it takes. The more expensive stuff (£100 watch) had great comms from the store and was here in less than 1 week.
Hopefully he’s a better learner than my wife.
I had better experience than most with my first AliExpress order.
There was some delay with the post office at the UK end, but in theory the watch should have been with me in 10 days.
Pretty satisfied with that.
The right watch arrived too!
M
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Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
From today I’ve just noticed that all orders now incur 20% tax.
Haven’t been able to find much info on what apart from the additional charge this actually means in terms of excise duty when the order is inspected and cleared after arriving in the UK but something to be aware of.
Last few times ive been caught out , only on low value stuff but go over £20 and it makes a big difference thanks to RM fees
Yes it was a lottery before but the change now means that the tax is collected at the point of placing the order which Ali must pass back to the UK?
There are a lot of Ali sellers on EBay and Amazon but haven’t checked what sort of changes there are on those platforms.
Bumping this to ask if many have bought watch straps on AliExpress? Price of the FKM rubber straps seem to good to be true.
If you have had good experience with a particular seller, may be you could leave a link?
Not sure if this seller has what you want, but got put on to this seller via the straps forum for some parachute straps, good quality and delivery time wasn't excessive.
Natobelt Store
https://m.aliexpress.com/store/v3/ho...ull&extParams=
Most of my china tat has come from DHGate. They operate an escrow like system where funds are released to the seller after receipt of goods (this may or not be for certain sellers only it's been a while) I bought a cheap watch there which immediately stopped after 5 minutes of running, raised an issue with the seller who was very unhelpful so raised the matter with DHGate themselves, they fully refunded me once I provided a video of the issue.
I'm leery of buying from abroad at present until the import / vat situation is clearer.
Not a watch strap , but bought a Lego kit from A xpress. Bought early January £8 carriage paid. Claimed shipping was 20 weeks. Fully tracked and arrived 12 days later. I noticed it came in a Jiffy bag with only one label on eg our address. So package / order has either been grouped and split, or sent to a known location and re packaged.
I was suprised when I saw on the tracking “ accepted by airline”.
Steve
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