Here's an odd one...

Frigating

Ok, so I bought something from a seller on Aliexpress, back at the end of October. When I finally got it last week inside the package was something completely different, instead of what I ordered. The seller does not sell this or anything related to this item and never has done as far as I can tell. Neither of us have any idea how it came to be in the packet. It's a standard yellow bubble wrap packet and doesn't look like it's been tampered with.

I'm giving the seller the benefit of the doubt for now, but what does bother me is that they took my money and gave me a tracking number, but it didn't work for three weeks, and when I queried this they said they hadn't got it in stock yet. The package miraculously appeared in the system a few hours later. Annoying that it was late, but they had sent it eventually so I apologised and left it.

But now that I've got something completely unrelated to what I ordered, I'm wondering if they ever did get it in stock, or if they just panicked and sent me a random cheap item just so I would see it was posted and drop the matter. They have good feedback so I don't think this is the case, but I don't see what else could have happened.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this, or has any ideas about what happened to my order. Also, I presume I can claim for a full refund without needing to send the random thing I got back, since technically I never received my item, and the seller never sent this thing. Is that right?

Berty

Yep. I got a wallet the other week, ordered WAY back in October. It was the wrong colour, and a load of junk as well(of course) so I filed a dispute with Aliexpress/Alipay and they said "Yep, send it back" and because I was able to prove it was the wrong colour(in your case, a whole item) I claimed I had to be refunded shipping charges of 7 times the value of the item(how much An Post says recorded delivery to China is). Needless to say Aliexpress refunded the entire item.

I don't give sellers the benefit of the doubt on Aliexpress or iOffer.

nava

I wonder if your seller is uses a warehouse that also stocks for other sellers. I would open a dispute on aliexpress.

The tracking issue does happen quite often, I had a few parcels that are slow starting to track but never for 3 weeks.