I recently purchased some privacy screens for a client from AliExpress (specifically a reseller called “Sofia Store”). The reason being is that they were cheaper than what was available locally. In total I had two separate orders from the same supplier for 2 screens. One of the orders came in fine (they both actually arrived the same day as I ordered them only a day apart) and the second order came in damaged.
Because of the obvious damage to the packaging I had the foresight to take pictures of everything before opening it to see if the product was any good. Unfortunately I was correct in assuming that there was damage to the product as the privacy screens had dents and creases in them. It appears pretty obvious to me that something was dropped on the packaging creating the dents in the screens and rendering them unusable for my client.
I feel that I should also describe my previous experiences with AliExpress. I had already order a few things via AliExpress, mostly just glass and metal water bottles which all came in fine. However one other order that I had with AliExpress actually came missing part of the order. That issue was actually solved very quickly and the missing part was sent out. But, this means that so far a large percentage of my orders required fixing.
Back to my recent purchase, I entered a dispute in with AliExpress for the damaged privacy screens, thinking that with the pictures that I took and the obvious damage to the product, that it would be pretty quick and easy to get them replaced. Further to that I was actually planning to purchase at least 4 more and seeing as my clients are mostly in health care, I suspect that I could end up purchasing many of these every year. However, the person that received my dispute at Sofia Store (Sofia Lee) doesn’t believe that the pictures show the damage well enough and are refusing to refund me for the two screens.
When it comes to purchasing quality products from quality manufacturers I had come to the conclusion with electronics long ago that in the end it doesn’t save any money buying cheap hardware because the money you save in the hardware you pay for in headaches and time. I am now coming to this conclusion again but in terms of the resellers used to purchase products. Unfortunately 99% of the time even buying locally the products are the same as what one would buy from a site like AliExpress (everything comes from China anyway), but then it is the person you are buying from that has to deal with headaches like these instead of you and me.
At this point I am a very unhappy customer and rather than rant and rave about how ridiculous this is I will let you be the judge. What do you think of the pictures below?
AliExpress Damaged Product
AliExpress Damaged Product
AliExpress Damaged Product
AliExpress Damaged Product
