Orders from Chinese pirates

[jon_1066]

Temu, being a Chinese firm, does not in fact care about pirating. Not one bit.

It’s the corner stone of Chinese business.  Ripping off Western IP.

[mikedemana]

It’s the corner stone of Chinese business.  Ripping off Western IP.

Agreed, that's why I can't fathom the people who support them -- especially in a small hobby like ours. "Yay, good for you! You saved a few bucks (or quid) and meanwhile another small business in our hobby goes under..." 

Mike Demana

[Mikai]

No, PayPal has a block feature but it’s terrible, and 90% of buyers can’t be blocked. When people buy using PayPal, they send the money and you get it. If you want to cancel the order, you need to refund them.

Sorry, just to understand this. in the US you can order and already pay with paypal before the order is confirmed? Wouldn't that be a way, introducing a new step between, to filter out such "customers"?

[nicknorthstar]

Thanks Nik, remember I'm in the USA and the rules work differently here.  Big companies are able to basically r*pe you, and get away with it.

Paypal keeps the fee in the USA if you refund.  If you call them and beg them to refund you, they might, but it takes forever to get a live person on the menu, and they don't have to.

As to just keeping the money, it might also be different in the UK than it is here.  Here, if you don't ship, and the customer wins the dispute, you lose the fee, AND paypal charges you a $15 "dispute fee." Why? Because they can.

So these responses would end up being quite costly to me.

Yeah, it is different in UK Paypal. If a customer raises a dispute and I refund immediately, there's no Paypal fee. It's only if I don't respond and Paypal find in favour of the complainant they send the money to the customer and charge me a fee.

I feel for you mate, that is a bugger of a situation.

If you are gonna get charged anyway, then just keep the money and don't send the goods. Chances are they may never get in touch.

I did that once. Chinese name, address was a 'parcel collection point' in the UK. Well dodgy. So I kept the money and didn't send the goods. A couple of months later he emailed to ask where his order was. 'What do you want my figures for?' I asked. 'I'm a hobbyist' he said. Oh aye. I made him send me pictures of his collection, and give me a real address not a collection point. Which he did bless him, and messaged to say he fully understood why I was wary of sending the goods  (Just have to point out, I'm not prejudiced against folks with Chinese names, it's when they come with other factors like dodgy addresses or ordering one of everything across a range)

[HerbertTarkel]

Agreed, that's why I can't fathom the people who support them -- especially in a small hobby like ours. "Yay, good for you! You saved a few bucks (or quid) and meanwhile another small business in our hobby goes under..." 

Mike Demana

100% agree. The prior thread on “buying cheap hobby crap from Chinese sites, oh, I saved so much money!” was, frankly, supporting piracy in at least some of the cases. It’s how Temu and the others worked.

Years ago, someone I knew had a “connection” in China, and offered to have miniatures recast there. The cost was obscenely cheap. I told him where to go, and what I thought of his brilliant idea.

[Easy E]

This is not the kind of Chinese pirate I expected to find in this thread.   

I was thinking more like these:



The story of Ching Shih