Buy from these Ali Express/Amazon sellers at your own risk

k1ng 1337

Joined Sep 11, 2020
940
A company can have a business address anywhere in the world, and similarly, the fulfillment center can be anywhere in the world, and not necessarily the same place. I have been getting things from Shenhzen, Hongkong, Taipei, and Singapore over the last couple of years.
This is a good point. I've noticed Chinese sellers with terrible English advertising with "ships from within Canada". Corporate laws in my country have become so loose that you can rent a mail box and use that as your address which is what I've done with my business for mail protection as my office is technically my house. In some jurisdictions, shareholders and directors can reside in other countries making it easy to use the corporation as a shell or front for other nastiness. As long as the tax man gets his cut they don't care much.

If you Google my business address it comes up as a downtowm skyscraper when in fact I'm renting a mail box at the front desk.
 
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SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
this has been going on for over 6 months now
This is a good reason to use a payment method with teeth! PayPal has given me excellent results adjudicating disputes (or total lack of communication) with vendors. Credit cards would be next and don't even think about using a debit card as they have zero protection! Also, if they don't have PayPal as an option, beware! They have probably been dropped by PayPal for bad reasons...
 

KeithWalker

Joined Jul 10, 2017
3,063
I have been using AliExpress for years now and have always received what I ordered, in good working condition. There was only one exception that happened very recently.I received a soldering iron stand which was different to the one advertised. It was a cheaper version with the plastic iron rest missing. I opened a dispute . The agent for the supplier tried very hard to correct the situation but that model was no longer available. He was very apologetic and insisted on me keeping what had been supplied and gave me a full refund. That service sure beats anything I have experienced with North American suppliers!
 

Thread Starter

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,839
Amazon store purporting to be Samsung Store. Defective 128GB microSD cards. 2 failed htest2w test, 1 passed, but experienced data corruption when trying to fill the card.

Two of the cards failing htest2w, thankfully, failed at less than 16GB of data transferred; failing as early as 2GB transferred. But the time added up because I tested the first card 10 times and the second 3. My son tested the third and it took several hours.

1655671801541.png

We have to return the product, but thankfully we don't have to pay return shipping.
 
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SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
Just to give you a bit of insight as to what you are dealing with on AliX...

Fake bolts...

And from one of several recent disputes about tea-cake breaking trays on AliX...
advertised.jpg
received.jpg
I had bought what was being advertised previously from other vendors so I knew what to expect. What I received was a very cheap knock-off copy being sold for MORE than the original. I was later able to buy the high-quality trays as advertised from US vendors for less than AliX not even considering shipping which from US vendors was quick and free. There were several vendors on AliX, all using pictures of the real quality product but selling cheaply made and finished knock-offs. Very disappointing! I had to dispute several vendors before giving up and finding another source and was reimbursed. After waiting several weeks for the item to arrive and then spending time photographing, editing, and compiling the refund request. AliX was advertising what I wanted but the advertisements were fake and did not match what was actually being sold.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
I would expect most to be bought through 3rd parties who bypass international trade regulations. There was a recent article about their obtaining the latest (or near latest) generation chip fab equipment that most countries had denied them access to. But that is pure speculation based on little real evidence and a bit of personal antagonism from having bad experiences buying falsely advertised and poor quality goods from their vendors.
 

drjohsmith

Joined Dec 13, 2021
852
I would expect most to be bought through 3rd parties who bypass international trade regulations. There was a recent article about their obtaining the latest (or near latest) generation chip fab equipment that most countries had denied them access to. But that is pure speculation based on little real evidence and a bit of personal antagonism from having bad experiences buying falsely advertised and poor quality goods from their vendors.
Alibaba is only for the west the ! That would be about right ,
:->
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
Don't completely misunderstand me. I buy good stuff from AliX. I started buying from them when I noticed that some of the goods I was buying from Amazon were made in china and that AliX had them for sale much cheaper albeit with a much longer delivery time. I've bought good hardware, tools, sensor modules, and xstrs from them. Honestly, I have not tested all of the specifications of the transistors for compliance but at least they weren't DOA like many chips were that I bought from AliX or far off spec. I will NOT buy any more tea from their vendors as it's not worth my time contesting their false advertising practices and they are rampant among their tea vendors and I have other reliable sources from china. I basically cut the middleman's profit out of the sale by buying closer to the source and being patient with delivery. YMMV and Caveat Emptor!
 

Thread Starter

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,839
I do wonder
where does the Chinese space and aerospace industry purchase from ?
It doesn't matter. Even the US military has been a victim of counterfeiters.

This guy was caught having Chinese suppliers making/marking counterfeit components that had military applications. He sold to an undercover agent who made it clear that the parts were intended for military applications. He only got 46 months and $144,000 in restitution.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/o...arged-selling-counterfeit-integrated-circuits

https://incompliancemag.com/busines...hased by defense contractors for military use.
 

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dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,839
Warning regarding 3220 tie point solderless breadboards from KJD Electronics. I bought one of these new from a discount store and found that leads were difficult to insert in a significant percentage of the tie points. This is a common complaint about the cheap 830 tie points from Ali Express and similar. The markings on these boards were clear and not faded; unlike all of the boards I've purchased on Ali Express.

I emailed the company and the CEO indicated that they had a bad batch in 2017 or 2018. They tried to round up as much bad product as they could, and discontinued that product, but my experience shows it's still possible to get one.

Before you purchase any of these, inspect them to see if there's obvious misalignment of the clips with the holes. I was able to fix mine by inserting a 5 pin male header with pins that were more pointed than most and forcing the clips into alignment, but it took hours and was a pain in the a**.
 

Thread Starter

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,839
I'm quite surprised he didn't mail you a couple of good ones gratis along with his response!
I expected more than a "sorry you got one" because they knew they had a problem and discontinued the product. I thought about returning it to the surplus store, but decided it wasn't worth the gas for the trip and the hassle.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
The ones I really liked were the ceramic breadboards. They were made much more precise than the plastic ones and didn't melt from a hot component. Albeit a bit broken the first time you dropped it and more expensive. I don't ever remember one being out of alignment. I still have a 4-board large one on an aluminum plate. Probably because it is too large to use for almost everything so rarely (if ever) used. They had screw holes in the corners for mounting instead of double-sided tape bottoms. Even my old Heathkit ET-3100 Electronics Trainer has a plastic one.
 

Thread Starter

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,839
Even my old Heathkit ET-3100 Electronics Trainer
I have two of those and a 3200 I think. I wish the breadboards had power rails. I taped one to one of the ET-3100's after I fixed a ripple problem on the power supplies.
 
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