Chinese Return/Refund Scam - Beware

Allyall

I have been having a nasty problem with one Chinese site in particular, ongoing since November.
Paypal have been trying to help.

Long version short:
If you receive a faulty item, some sites will tell you that you have to return it at your own cost to get a refund.
You return the item, and are required to do so with registered post (to prove that you sent it).

Initially, it appears on the An Post website tracking as normal.
Then after a week or so, it appears as delivered in Ireland. like THIS
It doesn't move from that status.

They are somehow able to manipulate the An Post tracking system, to show the item has been returned to Ireland.
Paypal check it, and believe the problem in on this end.

Luckily An Post are aware of it, and told me what happened. I have had to ring Paypal and ask them to ring An Post to clarify.
I am waiting for paypal to get back to me. Paypal as of today seem to be unaware of this scam.

Sites known to do it are:
<SNIP Names removed>

I have asked on another forum for a list of them.

GerardKeating

Allyall wrote: »

I have been having a nasty problem with one Chinese site in particular, ongoing since November.
Paypal have been trying to help.

Long version short:
If you receive a faulty item, some sites will tell you that you have to return it at your own cost to get a refund.
You return the item, and are required to do so with registered post (to prove that you sent it).

Initially, it appears on the An Post website tracking as normal.
Then after a week or so, it appears as delivered in Ireland. like THIS
It doesn't move from that status.

They are somehow able to manipulate the An Post tracking system, to show the item has been returned to Ireland.
Paypal check it, and believe the problem in on this end.

Luckily An Post are aware of it, and told me what happened. I have had to ring Paypal and ask them to ring An Post to clarify.
I am waiting for paypal to get back to me. Paypal as of today seem to be unaware of this scam.

Sites known to do it are:
<SNIP Names removed>

I have asked on another forum for a list of them.

I did not think the An Post site could track someone once it left Ireland.

davo10

GerardKeating wrote: »

I did not think the An Post site could track someone once it left Ireland.

From the title I thought this was a "I ordered duck but I got chicken" thread.

They can't. Once it goes out of the juristiction it is untraceable when you use normal/registered (an post) post. That is the benefit of using international courier services and why it costs more.

Allyall

I'd find it very unlikely that a national postal service could not track an international parcel with a barcode/serial number.
Especially today.

I was on the phone to An Post for less than 5 minutes, and they were able to tell me where, and at what time it was picked up in China.

In any case, if anyone is asked to return items to China at their own expense, be aware that this exists, and if your item is reappearing in Ireland, or in France, Germany, Malta etc.. That is probably the reason why.

davo10

Allyall wrote: »

I'd find it very unlikely that a national postal service could not track an international parcel with a barcode/serial number.
Especially today.

I was on the phone to An Post for less than 5 minutes, and they were able to tell me where, and at what time it was picked up in China.

In any case, if anyone is asked to return items to China at their own expense, be aware that this exists, and if your item is reappearing in Ireland, or in France, Germany, Malta etc.. That is probably the reason why.

I send registered items to the UK/US/Germany every week and at times when items are delayed/undelivered, never once has An Post been able to give me any information beyond the details of when it landed in the other country.

ohnonotgmail

Allyall wrote: »

I'd find it very unlikely that a national postal service could not track an international parcel with a barcode/serial number.
Especially today.

I was on the phone to An Post for less than 5 minutes, and they were able to tell me where, and at what time it was picked up in China.

In any case, if anyone is asked to return items to China at their own expense, be aware that this exists, and if your item is reappearing in Ireland, or in France, Germany, Malta etc.. That is probably the reason why.

if an post were able to tell you over the phone where and when it was picked up in china did they explain why the online site says something different?

Allyall

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

if an post were able to tell you over the phone where and when it was picked up in china did they explain why the online site says something different?

Explain? No.
He said it's some scam that is being done from China, that they are aware of it, and it is happening more frequently.
Maybe that is also the reason they are monitoring the parcels that go there more accurately.

I'm guessing that they have some scanner that reads the parcel barcode and sends a message "parcel received in ******* hub" back to the main server.
'Guessing' being the relevant word there.

wokingvoter

davo10 wrote: »

I send registered items to the UK/US/Germany every week and at times when items are delayed/undelivered, never once has An Post been able to give me any information beyond the details of when it landed in the other country.

This is true. We send items to France frequently by RP and once the stuff lands there it disappears in a puff of smoke.

Allyall

wokingvoter wrote: »

This is true. We send items to France frequently by RP and once the stuff lands there it disappears in a puff of smoke.

I can't say why that is.
Also, tracking info didn't appear on website. An Post themselves were able to give it to me.

The English version is what was on the website. The Chinese version is the real tracking. (You can use any number of browser addons, or google translate to read it.)

An Post Registered Post:

Tracking number: R**********IE
tracking site:http://www.17track.net/en/track?nums=R**********IE
There is the order of shipping information：
Number: R**********IE
Package Status: In Transit
Destination Country: China
2016-03-08 15:06 深圳互换局, 已进口互封(国内经转)
2016-03-08 10:08 深圳互换局, 已进口开拆
2016-03-03 13:51 北京互换局, 已进口互封(国内经转)
2016-03-03 08:26 北京互换局, 已进口开拆
2016-02-26 05:06 都柏林, 离开
2016-02-26 05:05 都柏林, 已出口直封
2016-02-26 03:06 爱尔兰, 已收寄


WEBSITE VERSION

Origin Country: Ireland
2016-03-03 08:26 IRELAND, ITEM RECEIVED IN
2016-02-26 05:06 DUBLIN MAIL CENTRE, DUBLIN 12, ITEM DESPATCHED FROM
2016-02-26 03:06 DUBLIN MAIL CENTRE, DUBLIN 12, ON ROUTE TO CUSTOMER
2016-02-25 15:07 DUBLIN, ITEM RECEIVED
======================================

ohnonotgmail

Allyall wrote: »

I can't say why that is.
Also, tracking info didn't appear on website. An Post themselves were able to give it to me.

The English version is what was on the website. The Chinese version is the real tracking. (You can use any number of browser addons, or google translate to read it.)

An Post Registered Post:

now i am no mandarin scholar but the english version does not say the same thing as the chinese version. at all. Is that english version from the an post website?

the line at 8.26 says 北京互换局, 已进口开拆 which does not mean Ireland, Item Received in. it means Beijing office of exchange has been opened for imports. this is all very strange.

marklazarcovic

if you send a registered item abroad the country its destination is is supposed to add the item to their own version of registered post,and link the number your given to it,so its on their system and an posts,therefore you key in your code in track n trace and it will find it... but its out of an posts hands once it leaves the country,entirely up to the destination countries postal service..

works well mostly,but as i said,if the the country it arrives in treats it as non registered it will disappear

thats why some countries are blacklisted by sites for deliveries..no accountability

Allyall

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

now i am no mandarin scholar but the english version does not say the same thing as the chinese version. at all. Is that english version from the an post website?

the line at 8.26 says 北京互换局, 已进口开拆 which does not mean Ireland, Item Received in. it means Beijing office of exchange has been opened for imports. this is all very strange.

I posted the information from 17track to show it it compared to the An Post website.
If I can do that with 17track, I'm sure An Post are able to monitor their parcels tracking numbers better. Otherwise they could have all sorts of problems.

But anyway, the main reason for me posting any of this was to make others aware of it.

Allyall

Just to confirm.

It is 100% a scam. I'm just after getting off the phone to Paypal.

Wjile Paypal were on the phone to me and it was being disputed, and alert came in, informing that this has be resolved in the sellers favour.

Paypal were able to track the parcel to two delivery attempts in their HQ in China using Trackitonline.ru - and could see it had been refused.
Showed it to me, and said it needed to be escalated.
Told me I would receive a call within 72 hours.

30 minutes later I received another phonecall from 'higher up'.

All of the information that we were previously looking at was gone. Deleted.

It was only now showing up as in Ireland.
Paypal then told me that because it was resolved, they couldn't do anything anyway, and I am to contact my bank and ask for a merchandise chargeback. But seeing as this has been going on since November, and I used an 02/3 debit card, I guess it's gone.

MOH

Allyall wrote: »

Just to confirm.

It is 100% a scam. I'm just after getting off the phone to Paypal.

Wjile Paypal were on the phone to me and it was being disputed, and alert came in, informing that this has be resolved in the sellers favour.

Paypal were able to track the parcel to two delivery attempts in their HQ in China using Trackitonline.ru - and could see it had been refused.
Showed it to me, and said it needed to be escalated.
Told me I would receive a call within 72 hours.

30 minutes later I received another phonecall from 'higher up'.

All of the information that we were previously looking at was gone. Deleted.

It was only now showing up as in Ireland.
Paypal then told me that because it was resolved, they couldn't do anything anyway, and I am to contact my bank and ask for a merchandise chargeback. But seeing as this has been going on since November, and I used an 02/3 debit card, I guess it's gone.

I had an issue last year after ordering a tablet from a Chinese site that bore no relation to that advertised specs. They strung me along through customer support for ages before it became clear they were trying to wait out the chargeback period. I had a ton of documentation showing the supposed versus actual specs.
Sending back the tablet registered would have cost nearly as much as it was worth, and I wasn't prepared to do so until I had some commitment that they would refund me for the postage if they verified it faulty. They wouldn't, not that I would have trusted them anyway.

I sent everything to Paypal, including all the chat history with their support. Paypal took the same line that I had to send it back first before they'd consider the case, and found in favour of the seller.

I'd written off the money by that stage anyway, but I sent Paypal a reply saying I could understand why they made the decision they did, but that providing payment services to dodgy merchants like that didn't reflect particularly well on Paypal. Out of the blue I received a Paypal notification a few days later saying they'd refunded my account.

Seems a bit odd that they won't take your side despite clear evidence which they've seen that it's fraud on the seller's part. Might be worth one last email to them just for the sake of it.

Allyall

MOH wrote: »

Seems a bit odd that they won't take your side despite clear evidence which they've seen that it's fraud on the seller's part. Might be worth one last email to them just for the sake of it.

I sent them a fairly long email, no nastiness in it. I got an autoresponse..

Just found out it's fairly difficult to email Paypal with a complaint or otherwise about them to them.

What email address did you use?

MOH

Allyall wrote: »

I sent them a fairly long email, no nastiness in it. I got an autoresponse..

Just found out it's fairly difficult to email Paypal with a complaint or otherwise about them to them.

What email address did you use?

Sorry, it was actually a couple of years ago. Can't remember, but I've just searched back through my mail history and I can't find anything beyond messages from service@intl.paypal.com

Thee's no sent ones. I must have been messaging them via the Paypal website.

Allyall

MOH wrote: »

Sorry, it was actually a couple of years ago. Can't remember, but I've just searched back through my mail history and I can't find anything beyond messages from service@intl.paypal.com

Thee's no sent ones. I must have been messaging them via the Paypal website.

Thanks. Yeah, I lookd everywhere and couldn't find any way to email them.
I sent them a complaint (As it was the only way to contact them) and option "how to format and file a complaint" :mad:.
But characters are limited, so in the end I had to remove a lot of the email.

Basically, I don't really see any advantage of using Paypal. They offer the same protection as the bank/card company, and in this case they even recommended using the bank to me.
Maybe they act as some sort of buffer, but unless you have a straight forward, run-of-the-mill situation, they're pretty useless.
Also, any bank/card company will easily fix (probably quicker) any of the regular issues. In this case (as I probably mentioned already) Paypal only delayed me.

Allyall

I checked it again today, and it has just been delivered. So I screenshotted the cráp out of it before it disappears again.
Even though paypal have already resolved the case in favour of the Chinese seller.:mad::mad:

E-mail: feedback@chinapost.com.cn, Phone: 8610 11185 Track at official postal site


Date & time

Event/Location
Weight
Additional


26.02.2016 03:06

Accepted from sender
Dublin

26.02.2016 03:06

Accepted from sender
ÀiĚrLán IE
26.02.2016 05:05

Send item abroad (Export)
都柏Lín IEDUBA
26.02.2016 05:06

Send item abroad (Export)
Dublin Del
China
26.02.2016 05:06

Left postal office
都柏Lín IEDUBA 03.03.2016 08:26

Arrived at postal office
Beijing International Place Of Exchange 10010200 03.03.2016 13:51

Left postal office
Beijing International Place Of Exchange 10010200
08.03.2016 10:08

Arrived at postal office
Shēnzhèn International Place Of Exchange 51805300
08.03.2016 15:06

Left postal office
Shēnzhèn International Place Of Exchange 51805300
15.03.2016 09:22

Arrival at delivery point
OfficeNánYóu 51805402
15.03.2016 13:57

Unsuccessful delivery attempt
OfficeNánYóu 51805402
19.03.2016 10:57

Item delivered.
OfficeNánYóu 51805402

5500

Had a similar situation to yourself in January with the company who's name can't be named from China. Returned some android box's to them and tracking showed up the same as your own via an post.

On the Chinapost site though it showed as refused delivery and then after a few days delivered but the company was trying to say they never got it. Lucky enough I called PayPal and got them to check Chinapost and got it sorted.

Fast forward to this month and I got another dodgy order, after getting nowhere with customer service I've a PayPal dispute open and they advised to return the goods which I've done yesterday, but I'll be keeping a close eye and screen shot's on the tracking, best bet for anyone else in the same situation is to,do the same and once you see it landed refused or delivered in China give PayPal a call and ask them to check the tracking and confirm it's delivered before it goes up in smoke or the seller denies they got it

Allyall

I honestly believed I would have been better off not using paypal, and after searching tons about it, i'm convinced.
Paypal were good maybe 20 years ago. They have since become a placebo effect peace of mind, but the truth is everything else has caught up and in a lot if cases surpassed them, leaving paypal in their dust.

I got a eye opening glance into how paypal actually work and come to their 'resolutions', and I didn't like anything I saw.

Not going to get into a rant about Paypal, but it seems they are very dated, the Chinese sites have seen and are using a loophole in their system and the whole "our decision has been made" shít, is exactly that.

It is now literally safer to NOT use paypal on some sites. If I hadn't gone straight to paypal three months ago, I would have saved myself a lot of heartache, and my money.

5500

Did you try using your card provider for a charge back? About a year ago I had a problem with something on eBay, similar situation I returned the item and it was delivered and then subsequently sent back again via royal mail but an posts site showed it as returned.

PayPal sided with the seller but I was able to get a card charge back against PayPal when by showing the seller had accepted and then someone returned it under the same tracking number. I agree though PayPal's way of handling a dispute is and decision making leaves a lot to be desired.

Allyall

Yeah, I applied for a chargeback. Can take up to 60 days.
The 120 days to apply for one expires today or tomorrow coincidentally.
Paypal waiting... waiting.. being reviewed....

Bullsh*t delayed me ages. In the end, they never actually came back to me, I had to push everything to get any movement from them.