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Post by Johan on Nov 14, 2010 15:57:30 GMT
Really , I dont know where to start with this "review", if that can be called a review at all. :roll: I just have another debacle in my attempt to acquire a tanto , for those who read my previous experience in the former SBG forum, I am sure you knew what I am talking about. This time to begin with , I dont have the product in hand to review , but to bring awareness of my recent attempt to purchase another tanto from another supplier in China through Alibaba trade website. I found this Tanto offered by Zhejiang Jiangs Sword Co., Ltd. sword.en.alibaba.com/product/521 ... craft.html By hwarangjakarta at 2010-11-14 I requested through the website in Alibaba on the 28th August 2010, and was replied by the sales person named Sophie Zhang. From that date on, I have been in contact with Zhejiang Jiang Sword Co for my interest in their product in T10 clay tempered with hamon. Number JH071RDA. After through correspondence with email, the sales person Sophie Zhang had quoted the price USD 88 plus shipping cost USD 41 = USD 129. I paid USD 130 through Western Union on the beneficiary of Lam Silas on the 1st Nov 2010, as instructed by Sophie Zhang, despite the difficulty, the fund was successfully withdrawn. I went to check with the local Western union office , it was confirmed that the fund was successfully withdrawn by LAM SILAS. So on the 11th Nov 2010, I emailed to Sophie to ask and confirm that the money was well received by the person Lam Silas. Sophie replied by email on the 12th Nov 2010, saying that she confirmed the fund had been received but she said they could no longer process my order because the minimum order had been changed to 5 units instead of one unit. ( I still have all the emails correspondence with her ).
Thursday, November 11, 2010 12:49 PM From: "蒋氏刀剑——毕龙凤" <jiengshisword@yahoo.com.cn> Add sender to Contacts To: pescadosindonesia@yahoo.com
Hello Johan Sorry for my late answer yes we successfully receive your payment today my boss said that we cannt delivery 1 sword i suggest you increase your order our MOQ is 5 pcs
Regards Sophie --- 10年11月11日,周四, pescadosindonesia@yahoo.com <pescadosindonesia@yahoo.com> 写道:
发件人: pescadosindonesia@yahoo.com <pescadosindonesia@yahoo.com> 主题: Western Union 收件人: jiengshisword@yahoo.com.cn 日期: 2010年11月11日,周四,上午11:36
Dear Sophie
I just got back from Western Union, I was told the money was successfully drawn by Lam Silas. Kindly confirm about this and let me know.
Regards
Johan
WHILE PREVIOUSLY ON THE 27TH AUGUST 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010 7:16 PM From: "蒋氏刀剑——毕龙凤" <jiangshisword@yahoo.com.cn> Add sender to Contacts To: "pescadosindonesia@yahoo.com" <pescadosindonesia@yahoo.com>
Dear Mr Johan This is Sophie Zhang from GENS sword. It cost $88 for JH071RD with T10 and with caly-tempered hamon. This is retail price just for one pcs,not for wholesale price , If you needs more than 20 wil will give you a big discount. Yours turely , Sophie In the email ,she had stated that I was allowed to order for one unit of the tanto knife as a retail with price and terms conditions stated and I agree to those price and terms stated by her. When Sophie Zhang of Zhejiang Jiangs Sword co instructed me to pay by western union, I complied and I kept my promise to pay in advance before the product was processed. For me This is a fraudulent practise, if she knew that my order was no longer feasible by the company to make, then Sophie Zhang and the recipient Lam Silas should not withdraw the fund USD 130 from western union and ought to inform me as soon as possible. However, this did not happen, instead she changed the terms of the retail sale from one unit to five units, and already took my payment , purposely withheld and broken the original deal that was already mutually agreed in email. I dont know if anybody in this forum had dealt with them before , but frankly I began to doubt and suspect that Zhejiang Jiangs Sword Co., Ltd. did not appear as it is purported to be.This kind of company perhaps is just a facade for a group of conmen to cheat and fraud unwary customers by portraying themselves as a well established company. I dont know if this soured deal can be called as evidence , but if my suspicion is true, then this company might have cheated many more customers before in the past, the modus operandi is to lure customers to buy small value products and renegaded the deal later. The value might small like mine was only USD 130 per transaction, but imagine that if they got 1000 buyers like me each from European mainland and US continent, do the math ,that is a big sum of money! I filed a complaint to Alibaba dispute center , and I am still waiting for their response to this problem. I dont expect my fund will be refunded by them , I just want to make sure no one will ever fallen prey to them. They have a flashy website and good pictures of their products, that what made me to place order with them. Again another lesson was learned, although this time I truly paid the "lesson fee" upfront :oops: Thank you for reading.
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Post by William Swiger on Nov 14, 2010 16:07:21 GMT
Man - that is ate the hell up. Hope you get a full refund.
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Post by Wes on Nov 14, 2010 16:58:54 GMT
Gah! You poor guy. You just can't seem to get a break with your tanto buying. Hope everything works out and you either get your product or a refund. Good luck!
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Post by 6stringseme on Nov 14, 2010 18:24:43 GMT
I know how you feel, I was just ripped for about $140 by kingofswords.com. I too am a hunter for obscure blades and good prices, and this is a risk we face dealing with sketchy sellers; though it seems to getting worse of late.
My best advice to you is to use a payment method which can be disputed, like paypal. If the seller doesn't ship, paypal will open a claim and investigate, and will refund you your money. It may not be available where you live, though.
This is the exact type of tanto I like, too! Longish with some sori, they're like mini-katana. I'm sorry you're having so much trouble getting a decent one. I wish you better luck in the future, and I hope you're able to get at least something out of your current transaction. Have a karma for keeping us informed.
I think we should have a blacklist section of the forum for negative experiences to be posted in.
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ghost
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Post by ghost on Nov 14, 2010 18:59:47 GMT
wow it looks like they just royally screwed you. I wonder if this has to do with the parcels bombs that caused China to shut down all airmail. In the future, I would be wary and only pay using paypal or some c.c. payment that gave you a receipt. Paypal would definitely refund your money even after the 45 days passed if you forwarded this email to them. If you did it on a c.c. you could always call your company and have them block the payment. money and wire transfers always raise my warning flag. I really do not know how you can resolve this You have my sympathy and thank you for the warning.
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Post by Maynar on Nov 14, 2010 19:35:12 GMT
I bought a tanto from these guys: www.zssword.com/English/pro_detail.aspx?id=87$55 plus $28 shipped to my door in Canada. Took about two weeks. I dealt with linming1217@hotmail dot com. Had no problems at all, he was very helpful except I didn't get the wooden box as illustrated. I don't recall method I paid, I think it was my Mastercard. This is the forge that was offering the brand name "Kawashima" in the US for a time. The brand was discontinued but I don't know why. Their home page is here: www.zssword.com/English/products.aspx?code=02 A typical Longquan sword company, looks like. But in any case yeah, Paypal would have been a great help to you in this situation.I think you should get it resolved through alibaba eventually. If not, try emailing Lin Ming at the address above or forster0013@hotmail dot com and see if they can help you get your money back. I hope this helps. Good luck.
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Post by iealchemist on Nov 15, 2010 1:09:17 GMT
Word of the wise, when buying from unknown sellers, use aliexpress or at the very least paypal. Aliexpress uses Escrow, so the money is not released to the seller until you confirm the delivery of the product. That way they have more of an incentive to send it.
I bought a laminated katana from them, but i decided to do it through their aliexpress, and I got it quite fast. To be honest it's not that great. Fitting's are very secure, but the ito's not alternating, and I can't really tell if it's laminated.
For what I payed i could've got something better from Huawei or Kultofathena. (however being in Australia means I have to order from china to avoid massive shipping costs.)
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Post by Johan on Nov 15, 2010 16:12:51 GMT
Yeah I used paypal and the escrow by aliexpress before, and not that I was not aware of them. Frankly I had fallen to the "temptation of the flesh " , I just really wanted that Tanto so badly. To tell you the truth this was my THIRD attempt to get the the tanto that I want so much, and all three ended up in fiasco.
The first fiasco was reported in the old sbg sword forum, and that one was resolved. The second was also in fiasco but I never spilled it to the forum , so this is the third one. So it looks , I have to take a break from Tanto buying.
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Post by Johan on Nov 15, 2010 16:28:51 GMT
By the way, response by Alibaba is rather slow, I had filed my scam and dispute report to them a few days ago, and I have yet to receive any acknowledgement of the situation I am facing.
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Post by Bogus on Nov 15, 2010 23:47:00 GMT
This is kind of random, but have you looked into getting a custom job? I don't know what the costs would be like for an Eastern sword, or who you'd talk to, obviously it would cost more but IMO going with a respected name over yet another no-name Chinese factory that may or may not deliver and may or may not be an SLO is worth it.
Hope you get your money back...maybe they were just being useless and not actively trying to scam people.
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Post by LastGodslayer on Nov 16, 2010 16:20:11 GMT
It is a real shame. I know there are honest manufacturers in China who'd like to sell their products overseas, but once in a while, one of them just gets greedy, and it makes all of us wary of trying such a purchase again...
Keep trying to get the tanto though. I've lost once over 400€ on a bad Western Union purchase, but a couple of years later (and at half the cost) I got the sword I was looking for. Just need to keep trying.
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Post by SwordLord on Nov 16, 2010 18:01:36 GMT
May I ask why you keep trying to purchase these through such unknown sellers? Why don't you just order from a trusted vendor? I see nothing in particular that is special about these tanto.
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Post by Johan on Nov 17, 2010 8:45:06 GMT
There are two answers to that
1. trusted vendor
For this particular Tanto order , After the 1st fiasco , I did and place order from a particular trusted vendor before. I had read many of its good review, and in fact due to that I put my "faith" on that supplier. I paid with paypal on 3rd Sept 2010 and promised 35 days , and he promised my order would be delivered. Lo and behold, on the 35th day, when I asked the person regarding my order , no reply, not until I sent a couple of emails later , he replied on 11th October 2010 like this :
" Dear Johan,these days was really terrible,We hope that you'll appreciate our position.thank you very much! "
This was the answer I got from so called "trusted vendor" that made many people awed by its prowess. Whenever , I emailed him for estimated time needed to extend the processing completion of my order, he never replied eversince. BUT one day, FORTUNATELY this so called "trusted vendor" replied to me in the form of full refund of my money through Paypal, which I really appreciate despite the unfortunate dealing and very bad service. No explaination nor apology from the "trusted vendor" and discarded me just like that. I can not put the name of this so called " trusted vendor " because I dont want to create a tsunami using a mere pingpong ball
Due to the 2nd fiasco and despite all that , I decided on to "gamble" again with the 3rd attempt and place order with Zhejiang Jiangs Sword in Alibaba, which turned to be worse than the 1st and 2nd dealing.
The lesson I learned from the 2nd attempt, if the "trusted vendor" was not willing to entertain a small time buyer like me, why would I bother him since he got so much "big value" orders in his hands.
Believe me , my best dealing so far when I bought two of my raptors from North America based sword sellers. In fact one of the former employee, is still in the forum, and she did a very good job with my order. Thumbs up for her! Perhaps, I should turn to them again for the tanto, if they have what I want.
2. Regarding the tanto
Ok when it comes the reason why I was so "gungho" about the tanto. Nothing special really about this tanto , but from where I come from , "this is like one small step for the rest of the mankind, but a giant step for sword freak like me" I had seen a lot of images in this forum " Clay tempered Blade T-10 with hamon", just imagine a sword freak like me with limited resources , it is like " looking at women lustfully "( For lacking of better terms, my apology to the female members in the forum ) Plus with good price, I just forgot all the lessons I learned , and jumped into the abyss :oops:
I am ok now, if I can get the refund thats good, if not well then, it is something I have to accept.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2010 9:26:22 GMT
I'm so sorry you are having to go through this...it's not just the anger one feels about a lousy retail transaction. If you are anything like me, I get really "emotionally" involved in the whole thing. I love the research, talking to previous customers, looking at THOUSANDS of pictures. Then, you save all your pennies and make the order. It is so exciting! When I get my tracking number, I must track the darned things ten times a day! Then, the truck of joy shows up and it is like Christmas and your birthday all together. All of this to say, we get INVESTED in the whole thing, so when you get shanked like this, it's like someone shot your dog! The 14 year old boy in all of us just gets smacked to the curb and it's WAY worse than finding out they screwed up your vacuum cleaner warranty at Walmart. Anyhoo, you have my sympathy and best wishes for the next time. Don't give up. All of this may be just because YOUR tanto hasn't found YOU yet.
Blessings, ~warriorpriest
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Post by Midori Kawakami on Nov 17, 2010 12:31:55 GMT
*Moved to feedback section for further discussion.*
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Post by larlim on Nov 17, 2010 16:09:31 GMT
Dear Kind Folks of SBG,
Before you commit everything to Paypal, please NOTE THIS:
Only Paypal payments marked as purchase of "goods" will they (Paypal) accept your case in their Resolution Center, and subsequently seeking Refunds.
I had a 'narrow escape' a couple of months back, when the seller did not deliver my order, and repeatedly broken his deadline promises. So, I put a case through Paypal resolution center (on the 45th days), and to my surprise, Paypal replied that because the payment had indicated something other than "goods" purchase, they'll NOT allow refunds. PERIOD. I was shock! I tried to reason but Paypal stood their ground.
Fortunately, the seller ultimately made good his promise and deliver my order.. *whew*
So, kind folks of SBG, please watch out even when you pay with Paypal!
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Post by Reflingar on Nov 18, 2010 15:06:58 GMT
Thanks for the very useful advice Larry!!!
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Post by Johan on Nov 23, 2010 14:13:18 GMT
Thanks Warriorpriest Just a quick update, my case has been handled by the Safetrading division of Alibaba for a week or so, I had submitted 1. Proof of Payment 2. Email correspondents 3. Email headers ( according to them, it is easier for them to track ) Recently I send them an email, wondering if there is any development of the case. T hanks for your email. This is Carol from alibaba.com online security department. This case is very complicated. It is still under investigation. If you have any further questions, please contact us at anytime. Sincerely yours, Carol Online Security Department of Alibaba.comWell, at least they are taking this seriously, hopefully there is something good comes out.
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Post by Johan on Dec 6, 2010 14:36:56 GMT
Just an update ! To my utter dismay , Alibaba Safetrading had classified my case as a mere "Trading dispute " :shock: I submitted the evidences, and filed a scam report to them. Alibaba refused to recognized my report as scam which I vehemently disagree since Zhejiang Jiangs Sword Co, already received my payment and CHANGED THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS AFTER THEY RECEIVED MY PAYMENT ! I did not received the refund and got cheated, while they balked at their obligations, how could this act be classified as "trading dispute " ? :roll: I did not understand at all. My expectation from Alibaba is that at least they recognized the case as valid scam or cheating case. I would not expect the fund of mere USD 130 to be refunded, even now the case would not be classified as scam ! Thats simply unbelievable Dear Johan Senjaya, Thanks for your email. This is Carol from alibaba.com online security department. We are trying our best to investigate your case. However, this case has been really beyond the scope of our ability. As an online B2B marketplace, we are also committed to providing a safe and trustworthy trading environment for our users. We therefore strongly recommend you to report your case to the according police bureau of China, where the supplier you complained is located. You may consider hiring a local PRC lawyer to assist you in this process.
Alternatively, if you have a friend in China, you may authorize your friend to represent you and help you in this process. After you make a report to the police, we will give our full cooperation to the law enforcement authority in connection with their investigation of your case.
Further, you may consider seeking for help from your country’s embassy in China which can be a good way to resolve your problem. You may also ask your country’s embassy in China to contact the police bureau and hopefully they will help you enforce your legitimate remedies against the subject supplier. If you have any further questions, please contact us at anytime. Sincerely yours, Carol Online Security Department of Alibaba.comDear Johan Senjaya, Thanks for your email. This is Carol from alibaba.com online security department. If you have any commercial related dispute with the Company, you are recommended reporting your case to law enforcement authorities in the jurisdictions of both of you, and Alibaba.com is always more than happy to cooperate with official authorities in their investigations under legal obligation. If you have any further questions, please contact us at anytime. Sincerely yours, Carol Online Security Department of Alibaba.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- Worst of all, Alibaba Safe Trading recommended solution which is not practical at all , since this act was commited through the medium of the alibaba trading site, they should be the one who took at least some sort of sanction upon the Zhejiang Jiangs Sword Co. If such is the policy of Alibaba, I would not be surprised if there are scammers and scheming suppliers running around in the alibaba site , completely unchecked and worst of all, they have an "unsolicited ally " on their sides. :evil:
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2010 18:56:36 GMT
Wow, this last development is shocking!! What is the point of having an organization like this if they won't go to bat for you in such a clear cut case? If I were you, I would draft a VERY strongly-worded, (but polite!) email to the seller. Say that you are giving them one last opportunity to do the right thing and either deliver the product or process a complete refund. Let the m know that if you do not hear from them in a specific amount of time (5 business days, etc.), you will be forwarding your complaint and file of all communication both ways to the American Embassy and their local Chinese police dept., along with any fraud investigation organizations you can discover. It is terrible that it has to come to threats like this, but the fault lies with them! Perhaps fear of investigation (which would at the very least be a big hassle and at most, could close their business) will prompt a more satisfactory response. You might also consider finding out who issued their licenses, permits to ship, etc, and send the whole file to them, as well. I sure hope you get this resolved and I urge you to keep after them. It may be a small amount in the grand scheme of things, but that is YOUR money and YOUR time, in addition to what you said about how many others they may be scamming! Don't let up. That is how they win. They give you the run-around for so long, that you just get so frustrated and discouraged that you let it go. Good luck to you and thank you for the updates. Please keep them coming!
Blessings, ~warriorpriest
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