AliExpress Hello-GoodBye

[Richard Crowley]

I placed my first order with AliExpress today.  Turns out that it will apparently be my last order as well.  When I found something else I wanted to buy, my credit card (Bank of America) blocked the second transaction until they contacted me to confirm that it was legitimate. 

But too late. AliExpress has now rejected my card until I send them half a dozen personal documents including drivers license, passport, etc. etc. etc.  Of course, I am NOT going to do that just to do business with this dodgy scheme.  If they can't do business with the normal credit card mechanism used by everyone else on the planet, I will vote with my feet and shop elsewhere.  Bye-bye, Ali.   

[boffin]

I placed my first order with AliExpress today.  Turns out that it will apparently be my last order as well.  When I found something else I wanted to buy, my credit card (Bank of America) blocked the second transaction until they contacted me to confirm that it was legitimate. 

But too late. AliExpress has now rejected my card until I send them half a dozen personal documents including drivers license, passport, etc. etc. etc.  Of course, I am NOT going to do that just to do business with this dodgy scheme.  If they can't do business with the normal credit card mechanism used by everyone else on the planet, I will vote with my feet and shop elsewhere.  Bye-bye, Ali.   

Yes, a "dodgy scheme" that does double the business of Amazon. 

Your comment is very American.

[Richard Crowley]

Yes, a "dodgy scheme" that does double the business of Amazon. 

They are welcome to do business with people who place no value on their private information.  That won't include me.  They won't miss me and I won't miss them, either.

Your comment is very American.

You are probably right. My perception is that part of the world plays pretty fast and loose with information security.  I'm not going to contribute to the problem by sending them information I wouldn't even share with my own bank or government officials.

[Halcyon]

I 100% agree with you Richard. Bugger that. If I placed an order with a retailer/reseller, they only need know my payment details and shipping address. Nothing more. Not even my legal name.

People are too "free" with information these days.

[Kjelt]

Weird that they need all that information. They should use an intermediate that handles all that administrative stuff, if your shipping address differs from the billing address on the credit card then and only in that case there should be an extra inquiry because fraude is too real these days. Can't you use Paypal, it should not have that kind of trouble ?

BTW I also would not provide those documents, they can be used for identity fraud, so we are not even allowed to make copies of our passport  without deleting a lot of sensitive information.

[imidis]

I haven't had an issue like that, but I agree I would not send them that stuff. That's just silly.

[bd139]

I've had this before as well. Instant card block! I no longer use Aliexpress. They are not entitled to my personal information and I am offended that they even requested it.

Companies that treat you like this need to understand that we are actively choosing to do business with them and they need to treat you well. If they put up a barrier to entry there are 10 other sources of the same crap without that barrier.

The real reason they do this is liability limit because they have such a bad reputation and want to play CYA against the fraudsters purchasing. Really do you want to do business in that arena? Hell no.

[mrpackethead]

I buy several things a week from Aliexpress and have never had this problem, and of the 200 + thigns i've orderd, i've only had a few bad deals and none of that was to do with aliexpress.

My credit card company rang me a few years ago, to ask if it was me, making the transaction and i confirmd it..  never been a problem.

[wraper]

They want to check you because there was something dodgy about the purchase (blocked card). Now if you are so American, I'll tell you something about (American) Mouser.  They asked for my passport even without trying to charge my card.

As this is your first order placed with our company, we would like to accurately set up your account parameters with Mouser. Your future orders will therefore be processed timely and efficiently.
 
In order to validate the credit card in regards to the billing and shipping address, would it be possible to send us a copy of any identification means (ID, passport, driver license etc.?) We want to make sure to take this extra precaution in order to protect our customers from any potential misuse of their credit card by a third party.  Of course you can blacken all confidential information of your card, except your full name and the address.
 
Should this not be a preferred option for you, the offered alternative is to prepay for the order. We can send the proforma invoice including the bank details for processing the wire transfer.

[wraper]

I've had this before as well. Instant card block! I no longer use Aliexpress. They are not entitled to my personal information and I am offended that they even requested it.

Offendatron, LOL

[Halcyon]

Offendatron, LOL

Yes!   

[bd139]

Hahaha

[Yansi]

Well, that may be your mistake that you checked to "save my credit card".

[2N3055]

Why are you not pissed at Bank of America for causing the problem in a first place.. I was.. While we lived in USA, my wife took kids back to Europe for a vacation, and retards blocked her card because of "suspicious transactions" in EU.... It took me 48 hours of hell to make it work.. Imagine trying to pay for food and room, and card is only money she had.. They blocked both of them she had... I had to wire her money for few days until cards worked again... USA banks seem to be really trigger happy to block transactions to non USA companies, and outside USA..

And Aliexpress is OBLIGED by current card issuer rules, that in case transaction is blocked by issuer on grounds of possible fraud, to establish unequivocally that card is in a possession of rightful owner and no foul play is going on... That includes multiple identification documents and such.

That being said, I agree with you that I also wouldn't be comfortable giving them all this info on grounds of not being sure it would be protected properly and not misused..
I would probably not give it to them myself either.

But I would be pissed at BoA for causing trouble and disappointed for not being able to use ALiEx anymore...

[tszaboo]

When I went to the USA, I wanted to pay. They did not wanted to accept my embossed Matercard debit card, they wanted a credit card. What a strange business practice. If I'm spending my own money, not someone else's, thats bad, right?

Once they also wanted to pay me with something called "check". That I need to take into my bank. Personally. They asked, where I'm from, I told them. Which state? Europe, you know, another continent.

Also this company called "Paypal" wanted me to fill out a 1099 for some spy agency called IRS. That's like the CIA or the IRA, right?

So here is the thing: Business practices are different around the globe.

[Halcyon]

2N3055 -- Your situation seems unfortunate. In Australia (at least with my bank), they put suspicious transactions on hold until they can verify they are legit. They first try a phone call, then SMS, then e-mail. If you don't respond, the transaction is reversed, but the entire card/account remains active.

I actually appreciate the system and have thanked them many times on the phone for international purchases.

If I was to travel overseas, they just put a note on my account.

[bd139]

Yep same here. HSBC call me within 2-3 minutes of the transaction if it's blocked and ask if I've made it and then unblock the card. Then I can retry or not bother.

[RoGeorge]

I bought many times from AliExpress, once I canceled an order after I paid it but before delivery, and once the package didn't arrive. Both times AliExpress refunded me the money in a couple of hours.

Never have a card blocked because of making AliExpress payments, and it happened to make maybe 10-20 different payments of about $400 in total in just a couple of hours. Unless the amounts were not considerable big, then I think the bank was acting weird.

Blocking a card for two payments to the same seller looks to me like paranoia, not like protecting customers.
What if I decide to stay for another beer after I already payed the big bill? Will I be arrested for not paying the last beer because the bank decided to lock my money? 

[Zero999]

Why are you not pissed at Bank of America for causing the problem in a first place.. I was.. While we lived in USA, my wife took kids back to Europe for a vacation, and retards blocked her card because of "suspicious transactions" in EU.... It took me 48 hours of hell to make it work.. Imagine trying to pay for food and room, and card is only money she had.. They blocked both of them she had... I had to wire her money for few days until cards worked again... USA banks seem to be really trigger happy to block transactions to non USA companies, and outside USA..

That's a pisser, but you'd be thanking them, if someone had stolen/cloned your card and gone to Europe. I agree, they could have made it easier for you to authorise the transactions but initially blocking them wasn't a bad thing to do.

[RoGeorge]

AFAIK you have a month or so to contest and reverse a transaction, so it is possible to retrieve the money many days later after a transaction has been closed, so why they don't phone first, then block the card only if you can not be contacted in a day or so?

[sokoloff]

AFAIK you have a month or so to contest and reverse a transaction, so it is possible to retrieve the money many days later after a transaction has been closed, so why they don't phone first, then block the card only if you can not be contacted in a day or so?

The credit card network serves multiple parties, with sometimes conflicting interests.

In this case, they might be protecting the merchant from fraud whereby a card is stolen/copied/otherwise compromised, then tested on an online merchant for validity, then used online or live to procure merchandise. Just because the authorized user of the card is protected from the financial loss doesn't mean that the bank should be excessively lax about potential fraud or security matters. A fraudster can charge a lot of goods in a "day or so".

[Kjelt]

Why are you not pissed at Bank of America for causing the problem in a first place.. I was.. While we lived in USA, my wife took kids back to Europe for a vacation, and retards blocked her card because of "suspicious transactions" in EU.... 

Thats true, the banks and creditcard companies should introduce some form of logging in and unblocking the card for use in another continent.
For my normal bankcard where I can withdraw money from all machines in the EU I also have to login to the bank and clear the default foreign use block, for a certain amount of days.
Creditcard companies should do the same or at least call the owner to verify what is going on in case of suspicious transactions.

That said I had a neighbour that was called at home here in the Netherlands in the middle of the night if she was shopping in Tokyo because someone wanted to buy an expensive camera with her copied card. So sometimes it is ok to block certain transactions as long as they are not lifelyhood critical such as in your case.

[wraper]

AFAIK you have a month or so to contest and reverse a transaction, so it is possible to retrieve the money many days later after a transaction has been closed, so why they don't phone first, then block the card only if you can not be contacted in a day or so?

Because criminal already defrauded the seller. If it was physical goods, those might be stopped before dispatch but not guaranteed. If it was digital delivery, criminal already got the goods.

[bd139]

The problem here isn't blocking the card, which is perfectly reasonable. It's that if you have a failed transaction authorisation up front, aliexpress block your account and ask for a load of paperwork. As per any other person they should just fail the checkout process and allow a retry.

[polli]

Blocking the card makes sense, as it's probably to limit the use of stolen cards. The fact that they don't allow you to continue shopping after the bank confirmed the transaction might be a technical limitation with a low priority for fixing, since this probably doesn't happen all that often. My CC never had a problem like what you are describing after literally thousands of things bought online on dozens of websites.

I think this is perfectly reasonable, as is you voting with your wallet. I doubt a single person will move the needle on their 400 billion dollars market cap at all, though.