The Short of it

An Alibaba merchant just persuaded me out of $250 worth of Bitcoin in exchange for nothing but empty promises. Please read if you have ANY suspicions about a merchant you found on Alibaba.

I Sniffed the Bait

It started with a listing. I was searching for a good price on some RX480 or RX580 cards to power some more ethereum miners and I came across some of these too-good-to-believe offers:

Becoming Hooked

And so I was suckered right in by the alluring price. Strangely enough, I still feel that allure now, even though I am well aware that these are most likely all scams.

They Start to Tug

I reached out and sent a message, and an eager 'salesperson' immediately required I use a different messaging service than Alibaba, presumably so that Alibaba cannot track the messages if a problem occurs. And so they had given me a gentle tug away from the Alibaba ecosystem, trapping me in their cocoon of false promises and lies:

When I would express doubt, and asked the representative to prove they were a legitimate company, he sent an impressive looking tax registration receipt:

Being convinced by both the speed and professionalism of his communication, I warily agreed to send 20% of the order price through BTC, agreeing that I'll pay the other 80% when the cards came through. He would not accept payment through the Alibaba system - something I should have realized was a big red flag. I payed the BTC, and eagerly awaited my order.

Even More Bait

A couple days after I sent the BTC, he had the audacity to ask for more $ to finish the trade, saying that the cards were held in transport until I sent the other 80%. To 'prove' they were there, he sent me to a convincing courier website to track my shipment:

I went to the site, plugged in the tracking number he had provided, and indeed, I saw that my package was in the next country over, just waiting for clearance. It was tempting to send the remainder, but I was highly suspicious now - he had gone back on his word that I would only have to send 20%. And so I did a bit of my own investigating. I called the phone number marked on the website and no one answered... Next, I found the Courier through Google and called the different number listed there. Someone answered me, I described my situation, and he immediately answered that I had been scammed, as if he hears that same story all the time. He said his business doesn't even ship from the country that was marked in my shipments 'tracking history.'

Conclusion

There must be a collection of well staffed and well-resourced scammers out there setting up fake courier websites, forging tax certificates and offering convincing listings from seemingly-reputable Alibaba stores. My rep put an impressive amount of time into scamming me, and I fully commend him for cutting painlessly through each of my barriers of mistrust. The two items that should have immediately alerted me to the fact that this maybe a scam were his:

• eagerness to message outside of the Alibaba message center
• refusal to use any payment system within Alibaba
  If a seller is asking you to do EITHER of these things, you should get highly suspicious.

Good luck, and safe buying!