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Quoting from [Aussie]:Ebay, Paypal, Alibaba and other leading B2B sites are to blame. Every week, tens of thousands of new scam names are registered with those firms including by scammers getting hold of Western credit cards to register with Paypal. Their verification process, compared with processes to open a bank account, is a joke. Alibaba is in my view the worst offender. It's published rules for posting Sales Leads prohibit selling of fake goods. Yet Alibaba does nothing whatsoever when members of these forums bring fake goods to its attention.
I am very disappointed with alibaba in this regard.
I was invited by alibaba to become a moderator of this forum. I did not apply or express an innterest in such a duty but when offered the role I took it as alibaba is without a doubt THE key trading website for China.
As a moderator it quickly became apparent to me that we were seeing the same sorts of reports of being scammed, many of these reports applying to suppliers who advertise here on alibaba.
I contacted service at alibaba and asked to meet with the person in charge there of ensuring that users do not get scammed. I received a standard reply asking me just to email in my thoughts. I replied that my email would possibly just get filed away, and that as I am in China and do speak Chinese I would prefer to meet face to face in their offices. I received no further reply from Alibaba.
So I have no other choice but to accept that alibaba has no interest in resolving this issue and that they are indeed capitalizing on the membership payments from these scammers, who pay these membership fees from the money that they scam from users. So in that regard alibaba is a party to all of this and that is very, very disappointing.
Alibaba has the best chance to make trading online safer for buyers and sellers. They have the name, they have the users, they have the logistical ability to get things done right. Instead they choose to take the easy option and just do the minimum taking money wherever they can.
Buyers cannot trust anyone. You need to do your own due dilligence (or pay someone to help you do this) on every supplier that you look toward buying from. I wish that we could say that alibaba would help you here but in fact they do the opposite by attaching labels such as 'Gold Supplier' and 'Verified' to any company that pays money. So protect yourself and take care of your investments.
Aussie I am not so sure that politicians would really care about business people getting ripped off by companies overseas.
I like your suggestion for a B2B website that actually does on the ground verifications of suppliers. A way to show the other sites like alibaba that they really missed the boat here. If anyone is interested in pursuing that option then please let me know as I would like to be a part of that!
I made a new thread regarding our planned revenge to the company who scammed us. kindly email me the details of the company that scammed you as we will be on china come jan2008, rest assured we're not just a typical buyer of so-so products, just so happen one of our members who wanted to donate cellphones in our local police force have been scammed by one of alibaba's rated gold supplier. our email is spyfrat at yahoo dot com.
Hi Egernia. Full credit to you for standing up to be counted - it takes guts to do that my friend.
The massive scale of what's happening is almost beyond comprehension ... 66,000 sales offers for fake Nokia phones on Alibaba alone (punch "Nokia" into the above search engine and see). That's thousands of individual scam sellers each offering a dozen or so models of fake Nokias. Mightn't be so bad if the things were decent fakes. They fall apart within weeks (if they aren't nabbed by Customs) costing m of little buyers millions of dollars - the very people who can't afford to lose money.
Add the other big name phone brands and total sales offers for nasty fake phones runs to the hundreds of thousands right here on Alibaba.
Toss in fake brand name computers and etc etc and the full Alibaba hook is baited with around 1 million fraudulent sales leads - way beyond the joke.
Ya, let's talk privately about how suppliers can be pre-qualified.
I do not know if complaints to politcans or government will may help, but I have since long time a question, that can not be answerd here in Thailand !
Alibaba has field sales and marketing offices in Switzerland and the US and I ask me, is a disclaimer furthermore valid in this countries if many members have complaint against one company who is an massive cheater, or is Alibaba obligated to prevent more cheat after they get knowledge of this cases !
All complaints now to Alibaba will beworked with the standard mail, please file a court claim and if you win we do something !
That is after my opinion pure aid to the fraud, because they know about the costs and the difficulty to do this in china and therefore quite sure that nobody this makes! !
If this question could be cleared and probably in Switzerland or the US the law will prohibit the hiding behind a disclaimer, especially when the fraud by several members has been announced to Alibaba, members of this countries could get together and claim a court file against Jack Ma as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Alibaba Group and thus also responsible for the foreign branches that fall under the respective federal state law !
It may be a suggestion for US or Switzerland members who get cheated by one company, to find a late satisfaction and then of course a change in Alibaba's Policy, if a judge made Alibaba liable !
I see no other way, because it seems that Alibaba need the money from the scammers, although Alibaba at the present size could waive well for monthly 100 new Gold Scammer !
Wilhelm
Alibaba has a decent presence in Hong Kong, they have advertisements running all over Hong Kong, - in cabs, Buses. They are listed in the HK Stock Market also. Do you think if it will be a good idea to make a formal complaint to the leading English Newspaper in Hong Kong 'South China Morning Post'
about the them? I did think about it but dont know if it will work.
Quoting from [wilhelm]: I see no other way, because it seems that Alibaba need the money from the scammers, although Alibaba at the present size could waive well for monthly 100 new Gold Scammer !
I think that ebay learned very early on that if they did not provide some level of protection for their users then two things would happen:
1. they would lose the confidence of their users;
2. they would leave themselves open to being outcompeted by a site that did take user security more seriously
It is all well and good for alibaba to look at the short term and think that they are making enough money out of the scammers to make it worth their while to 'look the other way' but it clear that they will lose more in the long run. Somewhat typical of Chinese companies - and I thought that alibaba was something different considering its claim to be a Global Trading website.
Buyers will obviously turn away from alibaba to other sources as they realize that alibaba has let them down as far as supplier verification.
Sellers are vital to alibaba's success but as buyers disappear so will the sellers. No legitimate seller wants to be associated with a site that has a reputation for scammers - especially when those sellers pay such relatively high fees for such an association.
Clearly alibaba is looking at this the wrong way around and that is the thing that is most disappointing to me.
I am more for avoiding the problems rather than trying to deal with them after the fact. Rather than complaining after the scam or trying to issue legal proceeding against the scammer or alibaba, why not be pro-active in avoiding the problems.
The steps to cleaning up the site are easy. Alibaba has the ability to do all of this now so why not do it:
1. Do not allow sellers to suggest that they can supply famous brand name products when we all know that they can't. Put the emphasis on them to prove that they can BEFORE listing them publically on the site. Every company goes through a sort of verification by alibaba as far as checking first submission and changes to company profiles before they get uploaded - so why not just delete companies that don't comply before they even get listed publically on the site.
2. Do not allow product listings that make mention of brand name items and remove any such product listings from the site. All new product uploads are meant to be verified by alibaba first so don't approve any that don't meet the guidelines here.
3. Do random searches of the site and remove and listings that show up for brand name searches.
4. Add a warning that can be seen when people search for brand name product on this site. I don't mean a pop-up which may be blocked, I mean bold text at the top of the listings warning users that brand name products are only available from licenced resellers so contact the brand name company first to verify potential suppliers. This would be easy to do for keyword searches for Nokia etc.
It is difficult for Alibaba to make a judgement call when a seller makes a complaint about a buyer after the fact. But it is very easy for alibaba to do any and all of the above.
An investment now may cause short term losses as the scammers realize that their money is not welcome here, but in the long term it will be repaid ten fold. That is for sure.
But if alibaba don't want to do that then perhaps someone else will....keep watching this space!!!
Since the time that I was scammed by another Chinese company, I have done some research concerning the massive amounts of scammers and fraudulent companies that are allowed by Alibaba.
It is actually a good thing that Alibaba is now listed on the HK stock exchange because now a case can be made to the International Chamber of Commerce against Alibaba! The website is:www.iccbo.org.
In order to file a complaint against Alibaba with the ICC, an individual business or corporation must become a member of the ICC which involves paying a fee of either 1500.00 euros (for an individual business) or 3000.00 euros (for a corporation). Then an arbitration complaint may be filed with the ICC which in turn will be the arbitrator or an outright fraud claim may be filed against the offending company.
The ICC has great influence with many countries concerning international trade and, in my opinion, would probably be the most effective way of dealing with Alibaba this den of thieves!
Re: Re: BATTLE PLAN to kill fake Chinese products
Quoting from [egernia]: I think that ebay learned very early on that if they did not provide some level of protection
Why has Ebay learned ? Because they got massive court files from Brand Name Manufacturers, directly against them !!!
And this is at the moment not possible with the present chinese law !!!
Wilhelm
Quoting from [wilhelm]:
Why has Ebay learned ? Because they got massive court files from Brand Name Manufacturers, directly against them !!!
And this is at the moment not possible with the present chinese law !!!
Wilhelm
Yeah but Willhelm my whole point is that why should the users have to sue alibaba to get reasonable action on this issue.
I used to believe that alibaba was THE best forum for B2B dealings for international traders. I am no longer so sure and unless they make changes then any reputation that they have built up will be quickly eroded.
I am lucky enough to be able to personally visit all suppliers prior to entering into any business with them so none of this directly affects me. I am just disappointed that alibaba not only have not done anything substantial to resolve the problem, but have rebuffed people like myself who were happy to help.
Alibaba admin monitors this forum so when you read this please pass on the word that my offer still stands if alibaba is serious about resolving this issue. As long as my earlier offer remains unanswered I have no choice but to assume that alibaba does not see this issue as being an important one.