I'm also looking to buy an L3+. I've been exchanging messages with sellers on Alibaba, and while the price is better than Ebay, I have no idea on the quality of machine I'll be getting or if it will show up at all. Any advice on finding one or dealing with Alibaba sellers? Pricing seems to vary daily and single unit purchases don't command much bargaining power.
It's really bad, I'm here in ASIA, and I get screwed.
Here's the scam, u order, must pre-pay, then they tell u they're out, or don't have, then you have to cancel order, then alibaba takes 10% to keep for order processing. That is just if your lucky.
Here's the deal, even if they do ship something, it might be just a box of parts, or not even as advertised, so then you return right? Well not so easy, you must wait for alibaba to judge the case, they always rule in favor of seller, as almost all companys on alibaba are owned by alibaba.
I could go on, hope you get the idea.
I might also add the return process is terrible, you must pay, it might be as much as $200 USD to return a box say 20LBS to China, and then they can just deny tracking, they can also send you a return address that is a black-hole, alibaba just doesn't care, they got their cut, they're done, when you made the order, they make the same whether the order is processed, or not. Now here is even worse baba-ant, now own most the western credit card companys, so its not even possible to dispute a chargeback, as they'll rule in baba favor
Amazon is still good, baba is not
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Now how to do this right.
1.) Talk directly to seller, ask do you have this product yes or no? Ask for photos and serial numbers of the machine
2.) verify
3.) Make it clear you will deposit, but not pay balance until shipped, before final payment demand more photo's, make sure they match earlier serials
4.) Order from baba, but make it clear to everybody on the order your terms, the serial number, and the means of shipping
There are many scams like shipping, if u didn't pay to the door, then they route your shipment through their consigner in the USA who might charge $500 for a $100 thingy, nothing you can do, because u agreed to pay import charges. Most of the chains inbound&outbound are all owned by these companys, so they can scam you a 1,000 different ways.
Here's the bad news, most HDD's and GPUS and miners are now gone, over the years I too have tried to order s19's and L's many times, and simply every time the order got cancelled; Most of this stuff doesn't exist, they're just scamming suckers, if they know you know the game early on, they'll usually just ignore,
Worst of all is once you click, order u must pay ALIBABA their full-cut on the deal whether the order takes place, or returned or not, the system is a 100% scam, that's why u see all the non-existant product for sale, because it doesn't exist, and they get paid when you order.
How to win? Not sure, you can't complain to credit card company, because they have 100 different ways to cheat, here's an example I cancelled an order and stopped visa payment, they reapplied the charge, but ran it through a restaurant in NY, when I called the credit-card company they said "U can't get your money back on eating food", I said this was not that order, that this was a re-application of the same refund same amount earlier, to which the credit card company said "It says right here xyz restuarant" your card. The way they pull this is most of this stuff has 60-90 day limit, and then you can't process the fund return.
Last time I ordered a GPU I clicked once, they processed two order 5 minutes apart. I asked to cancel one, they said "U must get the seller to accept the cancel", I said I just clicked once, they said "No it says right here you order 5 minutes apart". So I ended up getting stuck with two orders, that ended up getting cancelled cuz the seller finally admitted he didn't have the product,and sure enough ali got to keep their cut, and the credit card company said "U agreed to their terms on the order".