Inside Alibaba.com Scams

If you are familiar with the popular b2b network Alibaba.com you have probably read their forums, and noticed that there are A LOT of scammers on Alibaba.com.  There forums are littered with angry business owners that have lost hundreds and thousands of dollars through Alibaba.com.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the total of losses in the millions.

How are so many people getting ripped off?  Why are they all getting ripped of at Alibaba.com?

Basically Alibaba.com is a haven for scammers, because you can purchase “Trust Passes” from Alibaba for 500-600 dollars.  A cheap price to make a quick 50,000+ dollars, don’t you think?  Prior to paying your fee Alibaba claims that they verify your address, but if this were the case, then people wouldn’t be able to start up so many scams, and get away with it.

I recently had a conversation with a business owner that did a little investigation work on his own.  He basically talked to Alibaba’s staff via MSN ,and found out how easily it was to fool them into getting a “Trust Pass.”  Ok, enough with these “Trust Passes,” what do they actually do and how are scammers benefiting from them?

Picture this, you are looking to buy 20 digital camera’s and run across Alibaba.com.  You do a search for cameras, and find a lot of wholesalers (or what you would think are wholesalers.)  These wholesalers have “Trust Passes” so how could they possibly scams right.  This adds a lot of value in the consumers eyes.  The scammers know this and exploit victims, daily.

What happens is the consumer will contact a couple of these suppliers and get a price list that will be sent out via email from the scammer.  A bunch of different price list, but they are all from the same scammer.  They typically have a website too to insure that they are real. (Learn more about Fake Websites Here.)  However, you will notice improper English throughout the site.  However, if you check the WHOIS report on them you will find that most of these scammers have only been around for a little while. 3-7 months usually.

The basic idea here is they have an endless supply of whatever you need, because they never really ship it.   They will provide you with fake tracking (EMS) Also, commonly they ship you an incorrect order. which is usually a fake Rolex, iPhone, cell phone, ect.  They will even send you a packing list that appears to look like it was intended for someone else, too.

How do I know this?  I  was recently was a victim of a scam by Sz-xinglong.com that drop shipped all my customers the same fake iPhone and packing list.   You talk about a huge nightmare!  Also, I have talked to countless people and guess what it’s the same story different scammer…hmmm.

So, typically you will contact the scammer and tell them they got someone else’s order if you got anything at all.   If you are lucky you will get a response in broken English about how they are working on it.  That was my response it’s been 3-4 months now and they are still working on it…yeah right.    Correction, they just ignore me now.

You can contact Alibaba.com, but realistically they don’t help all that much.  They might ban their account, but their site remains intact.  You really have to hassle them to get them to do anything.  They (the scammer) will just jump around from site to site.  Also, they will just create another Alibaba account and acquire another “Trust Pass.”  It’s an endless process that goes on forever.

As you can see something needs to be done about this situation.  What I did was contacted Alibaba.com asking them what they are doing about the situation.  There response it basically they are working on it. …heard that before.   I asked them to link to my site on their homepage, so that they could prove they are making a true effort.  I sent them a email but they just told me they forwarded it to someone else.  No response yet, and it has been a month.

I would ask that you send them an e-mail requesting that they partner with me at:
alibaba@service.alibaba.com

Here are my recent post on Alibaba:

Questions For Alibaba.com

Alibaba Never Takes Responsibility

Alibaba.com Does Not Do Anything To Protect Customers

Tired of Alibaba, File A Report On Alibaba

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