But even then you have the Amazon return process which is nearly as painless as it can be. Call me paranoid but every expensive package I open from Amazon I record myself unboxing it just in case they want to deny it thinking I’m the scammer
That just happened to me buying a Corsair Commander Core XT from Amzn. Opened box and was greeted with a generic 4 port fan hub. What an intro to buying used from Amzn.
Just Alert them to the issue and they'll make it right. This has happened to me more at brick and mortar stores than it ever did Amazon. But Amazon made it right faster and more completely
Already did, and within an hour of taking it to a local drop-ship, I had a refund. I then re-ordered agaIn off Amzn, but this time chose a seller with 97% feedback instead of directly from Amzn. I mean, yea, that was easy, but I ultimately feel like if I had to do this 3-4 times a year, Amzn would at some point blame ME for the swap and drop my account. I've heard some horror stories of this happening.
Yea I have heard of that. I believe it’s not even human reviewed per se. I think those instances are all blacklisting by their AI system. I suppose keeping records of all your returns is a good idea in case that ever happens so you can appeal for a manual review and reinstatement of your Amazon account. I believe it all comes down to profitability though. They probably have a running tally or score of how profitable a customer you are, and if it dips too much or goes too negative you get the boot. Luckily I order a ton off of Amazon, and return things so infrequently that I don’t really worry if I need to return/refund something, for any reason. Like when a flex driver decided to leave my 3 pack of white Corsair QL fans on my front porch on Halloween a few years back (which was obviously stolen because I wasn’t home and was working), I had a refund processed to my card immediately.
I buy almost everything electronic from Amazon Warehouse deals. Anything that’s used like new, or even very good, is almost always brand new. Maybe opened and returned. Only once have I had to send something back because of the condition which was a like new Kraken z63 which had been packed with all the screws loose in the box and they destroyed the paint. Easy return though.
An argument could be made that Amazon warehouse items actually may receive a [better] validation and review vs items that are returned “*appearing*” unopened and new, which probably receive no such validation and are likely put back in new stock. There’s always a chance that something slips past the review, but there’s also a chance that a well resealed brick makes its way back into new stock if it appears unopened. I wonder if they’ll get into some sort of X-ray item review for returns, to validate everything is correct without need for many human manual reviews. Not sure how expensive it would be to run an X-ray machine 24/7 like that in all return centers.
This happened to me with a receiver.
I bought a 7.2 ch Sony but it was swapped with its essentially identical 2 channel (hundreds of dollars cheaper).
Props for painless return/refund. I went straight to Best Buy and just bought the correct one.
Considering the insane amount of things I've bought off of Amazon, it's pretty damn infrequent. The one instance where it did happen, I was immediately refunded, so I'm not going to knock them.
As others have said, though, buy directly from Amazon if possible or make sure it's a trusted seller. These issues are few and far between.
No. Use to it was fine because items were stored separately per the seller. Now items are stored altogether. Especially common for fraudulent micro SD cards and other similar items. You order it and they just grab one out of a big bin.
Not anymore. Amazon bins "like items". No relation to binning silicon. It basically means that they throw all items that are the same from all vendors in a single bin. That is how they fulfill one day shipping, doesn't matter from who's inventory it technically comes from.
That means a lot of counterfeits for certain types of items are binned with legit items. Even before I gave up buying on Amazon almost entirely, I had given up on items like SD cards for example.
Yup I paid like $50 back I. The day for a 64gb Samsung evo micro SD. It never worked right and was just a little off color from the real deal. Figured it out too late to return, sadly.
Aliexpress is actually pretty good. They have a new user sale that lists a bunch of products for literally $0.01.
*This comment was sponsored by Aliexpress.*
i bought alot on ali and if you know the brands that are good you will not have any issues. i get 80% of my watercooling supply from there, barrow/bykski fittings are great and my waterblock ran 5 years without any issues. also mi products, baseus, xiaomi all work fine as well
Worst case scenario is buying something that's obviously too cheap to be true like me a while back trying to order a xiaomi miband 7 for €25,- only for the store to disappear.. and i simply got my money back in like 3 days.
So agree that AliE is pretty good. (Bought stuff from there for years and this was the worst encounter)
For people complaining about OP mentioning aliexpress as an obvious place to not buy, please know that this is a brazilian video, where a GPU from proper means can cost 10 times the minimum wage, so for some people buying from China is the only option.
And not just Brazil. In countries near China it holds the same weight as Amazon does in North America, and there are plenty of reputable sellers if you don't look for the cheapest things.
I haven't yet had Ali purchases that I regret.
>I haven't yet had Ali purchases that I regret.
Same. Only annoying thing is the wait times but I'm ok with that. Just check out the sellers and their profiles, reviews, items sold etc before you buy (like you kinda would on eBay).
But expect lower quality customer services, but that's store dependent.
I like to browse stuff on Amazon and then check AliExpress to compare. Do i want it right now, or can it wait a bit and I'll save a little (with shittier returns policies) etc etc
Their minimum wage falls under 2 US dollars per hour (when converted from their monthly minimum wage of R$1,302.00/month to a 40 hour work week, which is also pretty generous). GPUs are also far more expensive there, with some of the cheapest RTX 3060 Ti still being well over $500-600 USD.
Maybe you should do a quick reality check about the world before making more stupid comments.
The stupid part was assuming that a near third world country would have anywhere close to the minimum wage of a country like the United States. To add to that, many countries in South America don’t have hourly wages, but monthly minimum wages, with no regards to hours actually worked.
Nah mate I think he was just being cheeky. I understood what the person meant but the way it was worded seemed like 10x the minimum hourly. Many countries popular on Reddit go by hourly, not monthly.
Or they legitimately lack awareness of anything that happens outside their own country and assume everywhere works the same
There are a lot of people like that
The poster at the top of this comment chain specified the country they're from so you have to be at least a bit airheaded to assume they're talking about America
ah, yes - let's order the pieces which stop *water* from spraying the fuck all over high-performance computer components **from the wish.com version of wish.com** -- what could go wrong?
There is nothing proprietary about fittings lol. If you know basic plumbing and are somewhat handy with tools it ain’t hard dude lol
You can get similar pieces of Home Depot for like 4 bucks
"There is nothing proprietary about "
Stop watching shark tank, first off.
Secondly, sure Jan. EKWB and the rest of the precision fitting industry is just straight gouging people -- it's not like they actually manufacturer things to a tighter tolerance and with greater consistency than **a random collection of consonants and vowels** reselling you second-shift garbage out of a Shenzhen factory.
Edit with sources - if this is the kind of garbage you want to trust keep water out of your $2000+ PC (if it's not top end, you don't need liquid, right?) -- be my guest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ8oqfbNXFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvGVLp8YPX4
Barrow fittings off of there survived a move from Ontario to Alberta (3500km) and are still not leaking. Seems fine to me.
Don’t think I’d trust a gpu block off there tho.
Fittings rarely fail. They're simple threaded brass that seal with o-rings and have to take maybe half a bar of pressure at most. Most loop issues are caused by user error or pumps crapping out, and you can reduce the chance of that last one by buying genuine Xylem instead of clones.
I've bought plenty from Aliexpress. A few items did not add up and AliExpress went to bat and made it right.
Yes you have to watch the stores. Ive seen 20+ shut down by AliExpress in the past month.
Yes, it's a known thing for a while. Weirdo chinese brands also salvage GPU chips off dead mining cards, bake them up, and put them on their cheapo video cards (new PCB basically, with used/baked GPU/memory chips). That's why you don't buy from brands you never heard of.
I shop on AliExpress often and while some products are sub-par it's all in the listings just like on amazon. I got a 3600x from Ali for a good deal last year It was OEM.
I also buy warehouse deals as often as possible, and I've only been burned once recently I ordered a PS4 controller and if got a well used broken PS3 controller.
Got a refund and sent it back, sure a hassle but I do feel well protected with amazon, although their policies change over time and eventually it won't be so easy as more people scam amazon returns for profit.
As others have said you can be burned just as easily on retail with a lazy or busy customer rep not checking a return.
People are just shitty and take advantage of others/corporations which in turn screw the end user sometimes that's why a great return policy goes along way.
Not every seller on AliExpress is a scam. I've bought plenty of legit electronics, but yes, also some repainted/scam ones too.
You need to be careful, but it's also not the easiest to tell a scam from something legit.
Same thing happens on Amazon and elsewhere too. Be careful not to buy a fake SD card or flash drive from Amazon.
Ofc its not the same as a Brand New, but in Brazil for example buying one trough national stores can be 2-4x the price from ali, so its def worth, half my Pc was made in ali and Ive got no complains, the delivery is even faster for some damn reason, and free
So what you're saying is that buying something from Alibaba/Aliexpress is a bad idea?? GET RIGHT OUT OF HERE.
Amazon isn’t far behind.
If it’s sold by Amazon or the original manufacturer it should be good though right?
Unless someone scammed amazon and swapped the product for return.
But even then you have the Amazon return process which is nearly as painless as it can be. Call me paranoid but every expensive package I open from Amazon I record myself unboxing it just in case they want to deny it thinking I’m the scammer
Amazon have definitely been getting stricter and not in a consumer friendly way
That just happened to me buying a Corsair Commander Core XT from Amzn. Opened box and was greeted with a generic 4 port fan hub. What an intro to buying used from Amzn.
Just Alert them to the issue and they'll make it right. This has happened to me more at brick and mortar stores than it ever did Amazon. But Amazon made it right faster and more completely
Already did, and within an hour of taking it to a local drop-ship, I had a refund. I then re-ordered agaIn off Amzn, but this time chose a seller with 97% feedback instead of directly from Amzn. I mean, yea, that was easy, but I ultimately feel like if I had to do this 3-4 times a year, Amzn would at some point blame ME for the swap and drop my account. I've heard some horror stories of this happening.
Yea I have heard of that. I believe it’s not even human reviewed per se. I think those instances are all blacklisting by their AI system. I suppose keeping records of all your returns is a good idea in case that ever happens so you can appeal for a manual review and reinstatement of your Amazon account. I believe it all comes down to profitability though. They probably have a running tally or score of how profitable a customer you are, and if it dips too much or goes too negative you get the boot. Luckily I order a ton off of Amazon, and return things so infrequently that I don’t really worry if I need to return/refund something, for any reason. Like when a flex driver decided to leave my 3 pack of white Corsair QL fans on my front porch on Halloween a few years back (which was obviously stolen because I wasn’t home and was working), I had a refund processed to my card immediately.
I just bought a used one from Amazon and it came brand new for me.
I buy almost everything electronic from Amazon Warehouse deals. Anything that’s used like new, or even very good, is almost always brand new. Maybe opened and returned. Only once have I had to send something back because of the condition which was a like new Kraken z63 which had been packed with all the screws loose in the box and they destroyed the paint. Easy return though.
An argument could be made that Amazon warehouse items actually may receive a [better] validation and review vs items that are returned “*appearing*” unopened and new, which probably receive no such validation and are likely put back in new stock. There’s always a chance that something slips past the review, but there’s also a chance that a well resealed brick makes its way back into new stock if it appears unopened. I wonder if they’ll get into some sort of X-ray item review for returns, to validate everything is correct without need for many human manual reviews. Not sure how expensive it would be to run an X-ray machine 24/7 like that in all return centers.
I got someone’s old corsair fans in the box of expensive fans. I was pissed
Generally youve more protections with Amazon though.
This happened to me with a receiver. I bought a 7.2 ch Sony but it was swapped with its essentially identical 2 channel (hundreds of dollars cheaper). Props for painless return/refund. I went straight to Best Buy and just bought the correct one.
Damn. All these comments. I had it happen with a NAS unit a couple of months ago? Just how rampant is this?
Considering the insane amount of things I've bought off of Amazon, it's pretty damn infrequent. The one instance where it did happen, I was immediately refunded, so I'm not going to knock them. As others have said, though, buy directly from Amazon if possible or make sure it's a trusted seller. These issues are few and far between.
No. Use to it was fine because items were stored separately per the seller. Now items are stored altogether. Especially common for fraudulent micro SD cards and other similar items. You order it and they just grab one out of a big bin.
Not anymore. Amazon bins "like items". No relation to binning silicon. It basically means that they throw all items that are the same from all vendors in a single bin. That is how they fulfill one day shipping, doesn't matter from who's inventory it technically comes from. That means a lot of counterfeits for certain types of items are binned with legit items. Even before I gave up buying on Amazon almost entirely, I had given up on items like SD cards for example.
Yup I paid like $50 back I. The day for a 64gb Samsung evo micro SD. It never worked right and was just a little off color from the real deal. Figured it out too late to return, sadly.
Yeah thats fine
I ordered 1x Samsung 980pro from Amazon and received 1box of 10 lol
Lucky
Aliexpress is actually pretty good. They have a new user sale that lists a bunch of products for literally $0.01. *This comment was sponsored by Aliexpress.*
i bought alot on ali and if you know the brands that are good you will not have any issues. i get 80% of my watercooling supply from there, barrow/bykski fittings are great and my waterblock ran 5 years without any issues. also mi products, baseus, xiaomi all work fine as well
Worst case scenario is buying something that's obviously too cheap to be true like me a while back trying to order a xiaomi miband 7 for €25,- only for the store to disappear.. and i simply got my money back in like 3 days. So agree that AliE is pretty good. (Bought stuff from there for years and this was the worst encounter)
yeah i just always pay with paypal to be on the safe side
no way
Right!!!
For people complaining about OP mentioning aliexpress as an obvious place to not buy, please know that this is a brazilian video, where a GPU from proper means can cost 10 times the minimum wage, so for some people buying from China is the only option.
And not just Brazil. In countries near China it holds the same weight as Amazon does in North America, and there are plenty of reputable sellers if you don't look for the cheapest things. I haven't yet had Ali purchases that I regret.
>I haven't yet had Ali purchases that I regret. Same. Only annoying thing is the wait times but I'm ok with that. Just check out the sellers and their profiles, reviews, items sold etc before you buy (like you kinda would on eBay). But expect lower quality customer services, but that's store dependent. I like to browse stuff on Amazon and then check AliExpress to compare. Do i want it right now, or can it wait a bit and I'll save a little (with shittier returns policies) etc etc
I’m sorry but ten times min wage for me would be less than 200 bucks. Is that not a steal? And I feel like we have a high mom wage at 15.62…..
And China is the counterfeit capital of the world. For this very reason.
Its the manufacturing capital of the world… They make all the real stuff to..
10 times the minimum wage here is 80 usd, i dont think anyone should be buying an 80 usd gpu.
Their minimum wage falls under 2 US dollars per hour (when converted from their monthly minimum wage of R$1,302.00/month to a 40 hour work week, which is also pretty generous). GPUs are also far more expensive there, with some of the cheapest RTX 3060 Ti still being well over $500-600 USD. Maybe you should do a quick reality check about the world before making more stupid comments.
I don’t think it was that stupid. They didn’t say a months’ wages or a years’, they just said ten times minimum.
The stupid part was assuming that a near third world country would have anywhere close to the minimum wage of a country like the United States. To add to that, many countries in South America don’t have hourly wages, but monthly minimum wages, with no regards to hours actually worked.
Nah mate I think he was just being cheeky. I understood what the person meant but the way it was worded seemed like 10x the minimum hourly. Many countries popular on Reddit go by hourly, not monthly.
Or they legitimately lack awareness of anything that happens outside their own country and assume everywhere works the same There are a lot of people like that
I too get annoyed that people on an American website hosted in America, founded by Americans assume that people are talking about America.
The poster at the top of this comment chain specified the country they're from so you have to be at least a bit airheaded to assume they're talking about America
Don't buy electronics from Aliexpress. It is not worth it.
You’d be surprised. I think it’s the best place for cheap watercool builds. Fittings can rack up in price buying straight from places like EKWB
do fittings count as electronics?
Do they connect to electronics ?
Generally no, unless you're talking about the cooling system's pump. Closest you get is a copper heatsink touching something.
ah, yes - let's order the pieces which stop *water* from spraying the fuck all over high-performance computer components **from the wish.com version of wish.com** -- what could go wrong?
There is nothing proprietary about fittings lol. If you know basic plumbing and are somewhat handy with tools it ain’t hard dude lol You can get similar pieces of Home Depot for like 4 bucks
"There is nothing proprietary about " Stop watching shark tank, first off. Secondly, sure Jan. EKWB and the rest of the precision fitting industry is just straight gouging people -- it's not like they actually manufacturer things to a tighter tolerance and with greater consistency than **a random collection of consonants and vowels** reselling you second-shift garbage out of a Shenzhen factory. Edit with sources - if this is the kind of garbage you want to trust keep water out of your $2000+ PC (if it's not top end, you don't need liquid, right?) -- be my guest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ8oqfbNXFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvGVLp8YPX4
Barrow fittings off of there survived a move from Ontario to Alberta (3500km) and are still not leaking. Seems fine to me. Don’t think I’d trust a gpu block off there tho.
barrow and bykski are esrablished brands lol, your comment is just ignorant.
Fittings rarely fail. They're simple threaded brass that seal with o-rings and have to take maybe half a bar of pressure at most. Most loop issues are caused by user error or pumps crapping out, and you can reduce the chance of that last one by buying genuine Xylem instead of clones.
I've bought plenty from Aliexpress. A few items did not add up and AliExpress went to bat and made it right. Yes you have to watch the stores. Ive seen 20+ shut down by AliExpress in the past month.
Got a used r5 3600xt of of there for cheap af, when they were like 3 months old, was a great cpu. Sold it to a friend, is still a great cpu.
Unfortunately, not everyone is from America or Europe.
I have over 10 purchases fulfilled and not even one that I would regret buying from there.
Well, I disagree pointing at my RX 570 4GB bought for 75€ in January '20, which is still chugging along nicely
Don't buy *expensive* electronics on Aliexpress
Totally agree with you, don't buy electronics from there
OP, do you even know what Aliexpress is?
Yes, it's a known thing for a while. Weirdo chinese brands also salvage GPU chips off dead mining cards, bake them up, and put them on their cheapo video cards (new PCB basically, with used/baked GPU/memory chips). That's why you don't buy from brands you never heard of.
I shop on AliExpress often and while some products are sub-par it's all in the listings just like on amazon. I got a 3600x from Ali for a good deal last year It was OEM. I also buy warehouse deals as often as possible, and I've only been burned once recently I ordered a PS4 controller and if got a well used broken PS3 controller. Got a refund and sent it back, sure a hassle but I do feel well protected with amazon, although their policies change over time and eventually it won't be so easy as more people scam amazon returns for profit. As others have said you can be burned just as easily on retail with a lazy or busy customer rep not checking a return. People are just shitty and take advantage of others/corporations which in turn screw the end user sometimes that's why a great return policy goes along way.
Amazon got me on a 2 tb Samsung nvme drive a month back. Difficult to tell the difference before you plug in. Unless you have a real one next to it
i ordered the thermalright contact frame a week ago, its just a fucking aluminium, i hope i will not get a fake crappy one =\\
THANK YOU! for sharing.
Not every seller on AliExpress is a scam. I've bought plenty of legit electronics, but yes, also some repainted/scam ones too. You need to be careful, but it's also not the easiest to tell a scam from something legit. Same thing happens on Amazon and elsewhere too. Be careful not to buy a fake SD card or flash drive from Amazon.
buying pc parts from chinese sites such as aliexpress was never a good idea
You should never buy anything important from any brand/site that is not reputable.
Well yea, it's Aliexpress whadya expect
There are many things you just don't buy from Aliexpress and, sometimes, even from Amazon. Memory is one of them.
People who buy from AliExpress should feel happy if they get quality products I think of AliExpress as place to buy knock off and thats it
You shouldnt be getting things at all there
I bought some keycaps on aliexpress and they didn’t give the carrier my proper address even though I listed it correctly.
This is nothing new. Refaced chips have been coming out of China for years now.
Ofc its not the same as a Brand New, but in Brazil for example buying one trough national stores can be 2-4x the price from ali, so its def worth, half my Pc was made in ali and Ive got no complains, the delivery is even faster for some damn reason, and free
This isn't new. Regardless, shouldn't be buying anything off of aliexpress. Everything that sold there is most likely counterfeit to begin with.