I was looking to make a purchase on aliexpress and was wondering what I should look for to identify whether or not they are scammers. I have been burned in the past and any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Had purchased some accessories for xbox with a tempting price. After five days I received the track # but it was not in the system. I thought it's normal but after a week it was still like that. The track number was FAKE!!

I disputed, both with their website and Paypal, but it's almost one month that my capital is locked by them. I can't even call them, very poor customer service. They don't even have a calling system! I sent several emails and messages to them about my case but all with no respond.

I just hope paypal could get my money back, but it takes a loong time! I used to deal with aliexpress and alibaba but I won't do that in future at all.

Purchased a bluetooth earbud, patiently waited 3 weeks, traded some emails with the seller (via the AliExpress website - not directly) and the seller eventually refused a refund and told me to check with customs or the post office. Now it's escalated to Ali ESCROW service and it's been 3 weeks more (though they promise 2-3 business days).

If this had been a substantial amount of money I'd be upset. As it is, I'm just annoyed. I will not trade using this service this again, and caution anyone who considers it.

I did meet aliexpress on internet maybe two years ago and was closely following its behavior for a while before making a trade with them since I have always heard about the risk of making business with China. After I see they qualify their merchants with certifications, they have a feedback content and they launched their scrow system, I thought wow! this place has became a safe and wonderful tool for retail so, I made my first order from a merchant who appeared to be a certified gold member with more than a hundred trades, 95% positive feedback, all perfect to fit my needs.

I bought a case of Kingston flash drives for retail. After I received them everything looked perfect and I tried one but not all, as I got them for retail and needed them in their original package. Since everything looked fine, I release the payment but for my surprise, after I have sold 5, I had 3 devolutions. The problem with those flash drives is that beside are defective product, they format them to make them appear as they were high capacity when the true is that just have less than 1gb so, when you intend to use all the fake capacity, the flash drive get blocked and you can not access your information once again.

At that time and following the aliexpress advice, I contacted the seller just to received an email with an apologize. Then I sent more than four emails without response so, I told them I will start a Paypal dispute. The day after, the merchant disappeared from aliexpress webpage and nobody respond for my money. Paypal said I had to complain with my credit card, my credit card made me send the merchandise back to china, gave me a temporary refund while they investigate, after 2 months the money was debited from my account again because alibaba declined to make a refund and I even lost the shipping and a fee I had to pay my credit card for a foreign transaction. jajaja! thanks God I learned a lesson and it could be expensiver.