What are your opinions on Temu?

[SylverReZ]

It's sketchy asf.

It is super sketchy. The quality of their products are super cheap, misleading, and not to mention the price of shipping.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Honestly, I'll stick with AliExpress.

AE has a sale coming up on August 21-22ish so I'm waiting for it to get the items in my cart for cheaper.

 

[AkikoKumagara]

I don't feel like I have to wade through anything. The most popular items are usually what show up top, and those tend to be decent quality.
Granted, there are some categories of items which are not good to buy from China, because all the listings are of the same few cheap crap products that overrate their specifications. But those tend to be categories of items which are typically quite pricy, and only the cheap crap variants are available from China, you'll rarely find products for hundreds of dollars on AliExpress, obviously those types of products are better to buy from Amazon or similar, if you are willing to pay the price for a good one.
For small items which don't cost a whole lot to make, AliExpress is perfect.

Never had an issue getting a refund on AliExpress. In one case, I settled for a partial refund. It was one of those fake RCMloader dongles, which technically works, but just doesn't have the same functionality as the original. It didn't seem like anybody was selling the original (maybe they aren't even being manufactured anymore), so I didn't really see any better option, otherwise I would have kept asking for a full refund and tried to buy the original from a different seller. The dispute window was already closed though, so I was relying on the goodwill of the seller, so I didn't expect I would have been able to get a full refund.
In every other case where I had issues (one package arrived opened and empty, some packages never arrived, and a n3DS XL battery that was faulty) I got a full refund without much trouble.

Sometimes they will refuse the refund at first, but they always give you an option to provide more details. This happened in the case of the n3DS XL battery, they refused at first and asked for a video of the console not working, which I provided, then seller asked me to do it again but show the battery installed in the non working console (and AliExpress sided with the seller on this), which wasn't really easy to do because my cousin had the battery and doesn't have a small enough screwdriver, but he managed to get one of the screws out and make another video that was too unclear and dark to see the printing on the battery at all. Still, I uploaded the video to AliExpress, they accepted the refund and I was refunded in a few days. I didn't honestly think that video was going to be good enough and the dispute window was closing, but luckily they accepted it.

If you took too long to complain it could be difficult to get a refund. Once the dispute window is closed, AliExpress don't want anything to do with it anymore, and you're relying on the goodwill of the seller. It's the same on eBay too though. You should never mark an item as received until you have tested it enough to confirm that it's in good working order. Once an item is marked as received, you have only limited time to file a dispute, I think it might be 2 weeks (the item will be auto-marked as received after a few days if the item is sent with international tracking though, once AliExpress' systems detect that the item was delivered from the tracking info), but as long as it's not marked as received, you have until the end of the estimated delivery date + the same 2 weeks.

If it had been months after you received it until you complained about it, understandably AliExpress would not be very willing to give you a refund at that point. They only hold the money for a certain amount of time (same as eBay), once they release the payment to the seller, they have no way of getting that money back, and if the seller is not willing to give a refund, it would be money out of AliExpress' pocket if they gave you a refund against the seller's wishes. That's why neither AliExpress nor eBay is willing to help out once the dispute window is closed. That is not AliExpress or eBay's fault.
They don't operate the same way Amazon does, which will basically accept any return, even fraudulent ones, and take the money out of the seller's profits. This is good for consumers, but bad for legitimate sellers, and the only thing that makes it worth it for sellers to continue to sell on Amazon despite the losses due to fraudulent returns and refunds is the huge exposure they get through Amazon and the fact that Amazon takes care of a lot of the logistics for them, which makes it way easier for small businesses to sell things. As a consumer, I like Amazon's refund policies, but I can understand that from a legitimate seller's point of view they might be a pain in the ass, so I can't expect every online marketplace to be like that.

Chargebacks are meant to be used against fraud. It's pretty typical of any online store or service to ban accounts associated with chargebacks, because it implies the account was involved in fraud, and that is a reasonable action to take to prevent further fraud. Nintendo does the same thing, FWIW.
This was not fraud. The seller didn't intentionally sell you a flashcart with faulty PSRAM, and it sounds like you were aware you were buying a clone cart. So I would say you abused the chargeback system in this case. It's not there for you to use to get a refund on products you are not happy with. It's there to protect you against people who intentionally scam or defraud you.

Difference is I was the one being scammed lol.

You can't sell someone a faulty product, tell them you won't refund them and keep their money. That's not how commerce works.

Edit: Sorry, I'm going to post a better more detailed reply.


I sent them a video of the fault, they said "nope, we won't refund you" and AliExpress sided with the seller. I didn't wait too long to complain, this was within a week or two of receipt. Again, I was the one being scammed here. I'm not in the wrong for getting my money back for something that isn't what it claims to be or doesn't work as intended. The fraud/scam was in me not being refunded for something that clearly doesn't work as advertised. The item being a clone or reproduction does not excuse it from this in any way.

As for the first part, search something without specificity. You won't immediately find the best products. Guaranteed.

 

[Deleted member 571007]

It is super sketchy. The quality of their products are super cheap, misleading, and not to mention the price of shipping.

Not to mention the numerous accounts of bank info being stolen through the platform.

 

[Marc_LFD]

The minimum spending order put me off instantly and I went back to AliExpress.

If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

 

[Hackary]

Constant sponsorships about getting a cheap Nintendo Switch aside, never ordered from there, but I've used a couple products from there. I can tell their quality is on the cheaper side, but what I have used gets the job done.

I can't say with certainty if they're good or bad, but the few products from them I've used, they're fine.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Constant sponsorships about getting a cheap Nintendo Switch aside, never ordered from there, but I've used a couple products from there. I can tell their quality is on the cheaper side, but what I have used gets the job done.

I can't say with certainty if they're good or bad, but the few products from them I've used, they're fine.

Like this guy:



Says it cost him $7, but then shows he paid over $1k for all of it. What a clickbait asshole he is and I'm not watching his stupid videos again.

I remember he bought a Switch from Wish and he said "no instructions so that's why it was cheaper" cheaper as in $20-30 than the MSRP. What the fuck.

 

[SylverReZ]

Says it cost him $7, but then shows he paid over $1k for all of it. What a clickbait asshole he is and I'm not watching his stupid videos again.

I remember he bought a Switch from Wish and he said "no instructions so that's why it was cheaper" cheaper as in $20-30 than the MSRP. What the fuck.

Its one of the reasons why I hate influencers in general. They're pathetic lifeforms of cancer, just like TikTok.

 

[Hayato213]

For me I would only buy cheap stuffs from oversea marketplace, so even if it doesn't work I won't lose much.

 

[SylverReZ]

For me I would only buy cheap stuffs from oversea marketplace, so even if it doesn't work I won't lose much.

Yeah, AliExpress I have great experience with.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Yeah, AliExpress I have great experience with.

AE offers tracked shipping on all orders so that's really nice and shipping only takes about 10 days rather than 30 or more as it used to.

Temu on the other hand has too much going and kind of feels like gambling. Yeah, no. And the free shipping has a minimum order value which new customers aren't aware of.

 

[SylverReZ]

 

[FAST6191]

Between adblock and sponsorblock I had not heard of it before the "this isn't good" videos popped up from various anti scam sources I otherwise do watch.

From casual observation mostly seems to be the latest in a long line of cheap tat frontends with a gambling gimmick (not really a new one but one I had not seen in a few years) and seemingly enough venture capital to make a mark.

I have not looked to see if there is (or as it is older now was) any kind of first mover advantage as there so often is when venture capital firms (even more so those that stretch it further with gambling profits) opt for the growth now profits later approach. As it is almost exclusively cheap junk (aliexpress having some real firms doing real products in the mix as well, indeed it is more of a general selling site that was invaded by cheap tat sellers rather than cheap tat from the jump) then drop shipping a like, cannibalise things for parts, some kind of value added (buy something and fix it, improve it, clean it up), quasi illegal (police are not going to kick down my door for a collection of HDMI splitters that also happen to strip HDCP but you are equally unlikely to find one in the legit shops which means a pile of them in country and definitely working as wanted has perks, ditto various tools that fall on the wrong side of overactive health and safety) or hoping the gambling element did not have their loss adjusters and risk management do their job are your options here (lucking out on a trend not being sound investing). Cheap tat matters little whether it is $15 or $18 in the grand scheme of things as well for my personal needs where $500 vs $900 if bought from a local supplier is a rather different matter.

 

[Marc_LFD]

This stupid app shows up on the Play Store sections of Popular Apps and Suggested for You.

I really wish there was a way to customize what apps/games should show up, or none at all.

 

[Marc_LFD]

New interesting video about TEMU:



This was recommended to me by YouTube and surprisingly a good one.

As I've said here and there, I tend to buy a lot from AliExpress though the difference is that my purchases on AE are of things I either need or want and will be used rather than simply buying for the sake of it. Heck, I sometimes wait until they're cheaper as I don't like spending money all that much.