On a more uplifting note, while I will not mention exactly what the item I ordered was, lest some people try to take advantage of it: I did order an item for a total order cost of about $160.00 on May 2, 2021 which needed to be shipped to me from a merchant in China. The problem was that when I received the order, it turned out that it was shipped to me with electrical plug typically used in Australia or China or a few other parts in the world. Now it also turned out that the unit was compatible - from a voltage/current perspective with 110/120 V 60 cycle Electricity North America SO cut off the Australian plug (let’s call it) and replaced it with a North American compatible one (which a relative who worked for a provincial hydro system advised (which of course, I knew and would’ve certainly done that in the end) BUT – I decided to see what happened if I contacted the merchant first.
Since I went through Amazon Canada in placing the order, I tried the ‘Problem with order’ button first and/but they advised (actually required me) to contact the merchant first and see if the matter could be resolved within (I forget - either 48 or 72 hours or something) – being very polite – and reporting the issue to them “What do you suggest I do?” I didn’t think too much about what their response might be - perhaps a discount/some money back/a suggestion that I simply in exchange for a discount or whatever BUT, what happened was:
- I reported my problem to the merchant at around 4 PM the same day I received.
- By roughly 8 PM I received a response from them ‘Apologizing Profusely’, and offering me a Full Refund.
- By roughly 12 midnight that same day, I received an email from Amazon informing me THAT I HAD RECEIVED A FULL REFUND IN THE AMOUNT OF $160.28 - that it had been credited to the Credit Card Account that I had used and,
- I immediately went to that account online and checked and the money was in my account!
At this point, I decided to simply wait and see what would happen. Would Amazon or the merchant requests that the item be returned?
Well, as I kind of suspected night and I hope: “Nope!” (a) Amazon didn’t care; never asked me to ship it to them in order to get the refund and (b) the merchant didn’t care either probably because the administrative and shipping costs would-be simply not worth it to them remembering (c) that it was their mistake; which is why Amazon probably didn’t care.
So the bottom line is I got A $160.28 item from a merchant through AliExpress ‘Nada’.
So, I guess you don’t know until it settled, one way or another.
As I said, I’m still reasonably optimistic that I will either get my order for four cells OR (and maybe, even, I might wind up getting the cells for nothing should they arrive after I get a refund ASSUMING I DO WIND UP GETTING A REFUND). The range of possibilities it is ’huge’. We shall see over the next few weeks what happens and I will post for the possible benefit of others.
One final thing/comment I might add: someone somewhere on this that if possible, try to find a merchant that will take PayPal. That’s probably a pretty good idea (over and above say a credit card).
Another idea might be to use a card – perhaps a premium card if there is one of those out there – which might ‘go to bat for you’ if you wind up getting cheated. I’m not sure if any of these exist and or how many there might be but at least some of these merchants have gotta be worried about – especially if they’re not fly-by-night operators – their ability to use credit card services to receive payment.
Another idea would be – even if you don’t happen to see any positive reviews or any reviews at all – if you can find a good price through Amazon, I have a feeling that you stand a pretty good chance of getting your money back, one way or another, by Amazon if you didn’t receive or warrant satisfied with your order.
Amazon is pretty good on that front, based on my experience. So, precautions you can take:
- Use Amazon
- Use PayPal
- Use a Premium Credit Card if it might help.
- Perhaps purchase some kind of insurance or something. (Again, you might want to check out the Grid Garage spreadsheet to see what Andy managed to ‘get’ in the way of deals/prices. I think that that might be very helpful by giving you a sense of what you ‘SHOULD’ be able to get for ‘how much money’.
Personally, I ‘hate haggling’ - I think I’m tempted to try dealing with Alibaba something like:
- I live in ‘X’ (provide address),
- I AM CONSIDERING/SHOPPING AROUND FOR ‘X’ (describe your order).
- I wound up coming to from (either Will’s the off grid garage website).
- “He spoke highly of you; ‘gave you a good recommendation’”.
- “This is what you managed to ‘do for him’in a recent order.”
- “Can you essentially match this/is recent orders” for ‘X-cells’ of whatever you want, aside from shipping costs perhaps in a little bit of minor stuff like that” because “If you pretty much ‘can’ ‘make me an order in the same ballpark’, I might be willing to just ‘place an order right now’.
- Also, you might ask them what protection//protections I might have if I don’t receive the order and/or it might be damaged or something. My sense is that all in all, both AliExpress and Alibaba are probably pretty concerned about their reputations because they would like to sell as much internationally as they can and your chances of ultimately getting your money back are pretty good. It might take a while, perhaps longer than, but I think your chances are probably pretty good.
And, in fact, who knows - you might even wind up getting some merchandise for nothing if it should simply be a problem of shipping delays.
So much for now. Will post updates periodically.
If I wind up getting ‘screwed’ in the end, I think I’m inclined to either follow Will’s recommendations the links from the Grid Garage (‘strong’) OR just order something either using PayPal OR order from Amazon. I think if you order through Amazon, even if you order a product that might never arrive OR might turn out to be damaged or grade B or something like that, I would give pretty strong odds you will get your money back.