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gold members alibaba
 

what do you think of this?

negotiated with alibaba gold member for about £1000 worth of goods, they said accept t/t and WU only.

I started reading wholesale forums and about gold members scamming sometimes, so I decided t o buy from a more expensive place that accepts paypal.

When I told original supplier this they said, they have a 'new' paypal account now and i can pay them

What do you think? It is in someones name not the company name, and not sure, about this turn-around...

Do your research and see if there are any scam reports on the companies.

no, nothing

I occassionally buy palletloads of stock from wholesale distributors across Asia and even EU. My suggestion, and I know some people can't be bothered with the hassle of it all, is to go via the escrow (escrow.com), or brokered stock method. Fees may range from 2-5% of the value of the transaction, buy for what it's worth; if your items are not illegal or questionable by customs in nature, you have legal security in the deal. Remember that with L/C and escrow, you are protected if you receive the items and they are not as decribed (bad quality, bags of sand/newspaper, etc. etc. horror stories.. ^_^ )

Ask them if they accept L/C (letter of credit), or escrow. Usually if it is a respectable small business, factory or company they gladly accept this as it also gives them the security of payment being received (e.g. no PayPal chargebacks 3months later, bank transfer/cheques bouncing, etc.). However if it is just some guys appearing to be a business and operation from a hired office or even their home; and just contacting the local company's down the road whenever they make a sale, well then they probably won't accept l/c or escrow, or even know what they are for that matter. :(

For me, with anything over $1000 AUD in international transactions, since I am in very good standing with my bank; and have a business account and a line of credit, then I just call them up and request a letter of credit from them, and they supervise the whole deal.

Finally remember that Gold Membership is not something earnt via trust from buyers, Gold Membership on Alibaba is something bought, which could simply mean you could be scammed by a successful scammer that has made alot of money fraudulently over the years. (think Putian, Nigeria, that area of shady characters).

Furthermore gold membership only requires one legal document stating the seller is an actual business, but usually these are unreadable scanned pictures and thus you could still get scammed. E.g. Gold Member has a business certificate/permit to sell foodstuffs and textiles, but your deal involves electronics, high-end things, etc. So they could be legit, and selling what is stated on their permit, but they can still be scamming you on the side. (Haha, e.g. think Godfather/Mafioso - they operate legit olive oil businesses for their dayjob)

With PayPal, always remember that you are NEVER SAFE. There is always those times where, lets say you never receive your goods. However PayPal staff/robots are very unpredictable and there is a significant chance that you do not get your money back. (Google PayPal horror stories - sellers providing pake shipping info, where they send bogus items to you to show PayPal they sent you things, etc.) Thus I highly recommend you don't pursue the deal via PayPal, especially with this 'new account.' Remember the company/business can turnaround and say, we never knew 'such and such' worked for us, blah blah blah, so you made a payment to a person we don't know, etc. so you don't get any goods.

Well maybe I'm paranoid, but golden rule with intl' transactions for me is L/C or escrow, or no deal. Usually if people accept L/C or escrow they have nothing to hide/to be afraid about. And yes, I have used these methods for rather shady deals (not illegal/pake items, but pretty shady things).

Haha, my 2c. ^_^

Agree with that 1000%. Letters of credit are most suitable for my items. In some instances I have used escrow with great results.
My own preference is for a company to have proven bonafides. They are not all obtained from a fudged piece of paper.

totally agree but they dont accept LC under $20000, mine is a small transaction, but big for me as I am only starting up....

What kinda bugged me was the way they suddenly decided to give me a paypal address, when I said I wouldnt do tt and was going elsewhere...

I agree about paypal being problematic for buyer sometimes, I mean they could ship some gravel with tracking! However I made enquiry via alibaba and this person responded via hotmail, so surely they cant say they dont work for them...

Hmm, now Im really not sure what to do, I can buy these products from ebay, from Chinese user but they are charging 25% more than buying direct...so less profit but maybe more secure...

Anyway thanks planks...

Anthony from thewholesaleforums always recommends paying with CC by Paypal if possible. You can file a SNAD on paypal, and also a dispute with your CC. Two layers of protection.

I would trust the latter one a lot more though.

Oh yes, remember with CC you can always get the charges reversed with your credit card company if you give them a good reason to - (along the lines of.. unauthorised charge, fraudulent deal, something legal, but don't go too specific into details). Chargebacks are usually related to PayPal buyer fraud, but in your case yes it is a means of protection, hehe ^_^

The simple fact that a card was used to back a purchase is quite sufficient to deter a potential fraudulent seller. I've done a total of 2 chargebacks over the span of 22 years. Both were very well justified.

Nothing can protect you better than excercising a prodigious amount of caution and lots of good sense. A safe means of making payment should not be considered as a primary defense from being scammed. Escrow services come in 2 flavors, and it is often harder to tell which flavor a particular service happens to be. I also don't like to tie the seller's hands by witholding payment to extort good service. The seller may need the funds to use for shipping or as other resource. To me, it's skeevy to tease a kid with candy (if you take my meaning).

The only times that a scam has successfully defeated me is when I relied solely on Paypal to protect me. I stopped counting on them about 10 years ago, after being disappointed by them about a dozen times. Yeah, back then, I was duped by their hype about being the safest way to pay online.

well, I dont feel bad about using paypal to get good service, I know Im ok, just i dont know them...yet

Does the seller know if you are using a cc or not via paypal?

Unless you make it clear to them, I don't believe they are able to determine if funds were made by CC or by PP balance. I'm pretty sure the origin of funds is only specified if and when the buyer uses echeck as the funding source.

If anyone knows otherwise, please correct my statement.

next episode - Ive tried 2 of their official emails on their site and they both come back postmaster failure......Ive been negotiating by hotmail, that was the reply I got when I originally made alibaba enquiry...

Does anyone from exec section volunteer to check out this site and tell me what they think? pm me..

oompaloompa!

Be very careful on alibaba! There are so many horror stories if you read through the forums!!!! There are trusted members in the forums that volunteer to "investigate" companies per request. Many times even for free. Look into it!

Something else you can try is to ask the seller for forum references. Of course be sure to look into how reliable the references really are, et al.

Per your original question, I would not send payment T/T or WU. No way in hell.

That's a huge red flag, IMO.

Lack of a solid company email address/custom domain, use of public email services such as gmail, 126.com, hotmail, etc etc. are very indicative of fraudulent activity, suggesting that the seller has needed to change their emails regularly in order to cease/avoid communication from previous buyers they have scammed. Just my perception of the situation though. ^_^

Also remember that even though a company says they offer L/C for a certain minimum quantity/price order, they may be relying on the fact that none of their customers even purchase that much. In effect, they may not be able to offer L/C at all, but just say they can to look more legit.

Hope you don't get scammed though... :(

Ive always been ok on alibaba, with paypal, but we werent talking large sums, max $500 orders at a time.............but this ones bigger, for me anyway, Ive paid them by paypal via cc and we will see how it goes (agreed the email thing made me uneasy too) .