AliExpress accused of malicious closure of merchant stores

Recently, the well-known domestic online consumer dispute mediation platform “Dianfubao” received a complaint from a merchant that Alibaba’s “AliExpress” said it maliciously closed the merchant’s store and withheld the payment and deposit.

On May 7, Ms. Yang from Shanghai complained to “Dianfubao” that she had opened two stores on AliExpress,one was opened in 2020. At first, there was no operation and no business, and then there was a sudden explosion., After delivery, the store was permanently banned by AliExpress, no matter how Ms. Yang appealed, it was unsuccessful. The new store was newly opened in April 2022, and it was banned less than a month after it opened. It was said that Ms. Yang’s products violated the regulations, but Ms. Yang sold many products of the same style on AliExpress, but the account was still blocked, and the appeal was unsuccessful.

And after the seal, Ms. Yang can not even see their account information, all the payments are not released, ask their customer service are no way, do not know, can not refund the deposit, and malicious retaliation against the merchant’s behavior. After receiving the user’s complaint, we first transferred the complaint case to the relevant staff of the platform to supervise the proper handling, but as of press time, we have not received any relevant processing response from the platform under complaint.

AliExpress (operated by Hangzhou Alibaba Advertising Co., Ltd.) is a cross-border e-commerce platform built by Alibaba for the international market. It is called “International Taobao” by the majority of sellers, and its legal representative is Dai Shan. It claims to be facing overseas buyers, conducts secured transactions through Alipay international accounts, and uses international logistics channels to transport and deliver goods. It is the third largest English-language online shopping platform in the world.

In addition, the case of “Dianfubao” accepting user rights protection shows that “AliExpress” still has problems such as suspected overlord clauses, freezing of merchant funds, and non-refundable deposit for return.

[Case 1] “AliExpress” was accused of maliciously closing the merchant’s store due to the overlord clause. On April 28, 2022, Mr. Chi from Fujian Province complained to “Dianfubao” that he entered AliExpress on December 12, 2021 , paid a deposit of 10,000 yuan. During this period, the sales have been normal and no illegal points have been deducted. On April 2, a striped plaid mobile phone case was put on the shelves, and 4 links were made. During the review of the listing, the platform informed that there was a suspicion of infringing Burberry. Mr. Chi took it off the shelves at that time and deleted it and did not sell it, and then immediately went to learn about Burberry related product information. On April 3, I suddenly received a message from AliExpress saying that Mr. Chi had seriously infringed on Burberry bag products, and he directly froze his Alipay payment, closed Mr. Chi’s store, and made a deposit of 10,000 yuan. Mr. Chi said that the products he sold did not have any For Burberry’s logo pattern, AliExpress only informed him of suspected infringement during the review. The store immediately removed it from the store and deleted it. AliExpress has no telephone and only customer service consultation. Mr. Chi has been consulting and has not really solved the problem, AliExpress belongs to the overlord clause.

[Case 2] “AliExpress” was accused of closing the merchant’s store for no reason and not refunding the security deposit. On April 2, 2022, Ms. Chen from Fujian Province complained to “Dianfubao” that she registered an AliExpress store in 2021. In March of this year, AliExpress closed her store for no reason and did not refund the security deposit. Ms. Chen’s store sells regular products without any brand of products. The purchase channels of all products are on 1688. Ms. Chen can provide the purchase records of each order, which are all common products. AliExpress closed her store for no reason and did not refund the deposit of 10,000 yuan for Ms. Chen’s illegal sales. Many sellers have this situation. This amount is not a small amount. Ms. Chen asked the platform’s customer service for consultation, and the result was that her illegal sales led to the closure of the store. When Ms. Chen asked them to provide illegal products, they were unable to provide them.

[Case 3] “AliExpress” was accused of withholding the merchant’s deposit and not returning the payment. On March 28, 2022, Mr. Tan from Zhejiang Province complained to “Dianfubao” that he opened AliExpress in September 2021, and that in 2021 On September 13, the deposit of 10,000 yuan was frozen. On March 25, 2022, I obtained consent from the 1688 merchant on the Alibaba platform and uploaded a picture of a product sold by 1688. It is not clear that the picture is a sensitive infringing picture. On March 26 , AliExpress directly closed my store and detained 10,000 deposit. There was no deduction before. Now Mr. Tan only wants to get back his 10,000 deposit. As for the payment, AliExpress has also frozen Alipay for 6 months. I don’t know. will return, I do not know whether it will return.

[Case 4] “AliExpress” was accused of maliciously closing stores and detaining merchants’ deposits On March 25, 2022, Mr. Lin from Fujian Province complained to “Dianjingbao” that he had registered and opened a store on March 1st on AliExpress , on March 3rd, the deposit of 10,000 yuan was recharged on the AliExpress platform, and the link was started on March 13th. All the product links on AliExpress are at least 5 products that are normally sold on AliExpress, all of which are normal from AliExpress through the link itself. On March 18, Mr. Lin received the store closing information without specifying which product link was the problem. All the products were immediately removed from the shelves and the deposit was frozen. AliExpress has no phone calls, only customer service consultation. Mr. Lin has been consulting, but he has not gotten a real solution. AliExpress belongs to the overlord clause.

[Case 5] “AliExpress” was accused of maliciously closing merchant stores and freezing merchant assets. On March 15, 2022, Mr. Yang from Hubei Province complained to “Dianfubao” that he suddenly received a payment on February 21, 2022 To the violation penalty, I removed all the product links, saying that Mr. Yang had some orders that violated the rules in March and April last year, and listed 20 order numbers that Mr. Yang violated. However, for these orders, Mr. Yang said that he did not know where the violation was, are normal orders from the platform and are shipped normally, and most of the orders are the official logistics of the platform, all of which are registered orders, with receipt information, and the customer has not filed any disputes. So Mr. Yang sorted out the information and submitted an appeal according to the platform’s requirements, but only one appeal was rejected without any reason. He sought the platform’s customer service for verification for many times, but he has not received an exact reply and has been delaying the time. During the period, the funds in Mr. Yang’s store were frozen, and cash withdrawals were not allowed, as well as a deposit of 30,000 yuan to open the store. In this regard, after receiving the above user complaints, we immediately handed over the complaint case to the relevant staff of the platform for proper handling, but as of the time of publication, we have not received any relevant handling response from the complained platform.