China trade difficulties?

jonescg

100 MW
Joined
Aug 7, 2009
Messages
4,213
Location
Perth, Western Australia
Has anyone here on the Sphere had trouble buying stuff out of China?

I've been given the root-around trying to buy some 63 Ah LG pouch cells from these guys: http://vodno.en.alibaba.com/
After sending them US$2424.40 back in June, they assured me the cells were on their way. 3 months later still nothing. No correspondence, no shipping documents like Bill of Lading of Packing lists... I pestered until they finally told me they were destroyed at Customs, which is bullshit because Customs would at least contact the recipient first. They promised to find me some more cells, or of course, sell me any other shitty cell I wasn't after.

After a few weeks it was clear they couldn't source any more of these LG pouch cells so I asked for some 18650 cells instead - too expensive, so I concluded, frock it, I want my money back.

I was told it would take 30-60 days, and was very difficult. Strange, because I sent them money within 24 hours...

It's now late October and I am still down $2424.40 and have no cells.

It also doesn't help that logging a dispute is a painfully slow and so far impossible task. It's not easy to find, and when you do, it wants you to upload any evidence via what seems like a 56k dialup-modem. I've been trying to upload a 1 megabyte transcript of my interactions with the vendor but it refuses to happen...

:confused: :confused: :confused:
 
Looks like a painful, drawn out exercise Jonescg. . :(
Alibarba is always risky , unless you know the vendor or have personal recomendation.
I assume you used PPal/CCard for payment security in case of major issues ?
FYI, i just bought some mini Stereo amps from Shenzhen via Ebay.
They arrived within 7 days ! :shock:
 
Telegraphic transfer, so there's a strong paper trail but I don't have the might (for what it's worth) of Alibaba or Paypal to help me.
 
If the sale went through Alibaba, you should be able to file a dispute with them?

But time window is very limited, so don't procrastinate, and do not be swayed by seller delaying tactics!

FFR, dealing only with sellers that accept PayPal or your credit card from a USA bank

is a good up front filter for such transactions.
 
Well I did start an offline dispute with Alibaba and within a day I had my refund.
So that's a relief. Even if it's about $500 less than what I sent across initially due to exchange rates, commissions etc, its' nice to have it over with.
 
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