Citizens of Serbia can buy goods through AliExpress with multiplied transport costs, which is the result, according to the consumer organization Efektiva, of theft of small value shipments that took place in our country in the past period.
A citizen of Serbia will pay exactly 150.84 dollars for a thermos cup of 8.77 dollars, ordered through AliExpress, because the costs of transport from China to Serbia cost 142.07 euros.
This calculation was presented by the consumer organization Efektiva, claiming that due to the theft of small value shipments, which arrive in Serbia from China in this way, there is no longer a possibility of free delivery for our citizens. Moreover – to be charged high delivery costs, which, in the case of buying cheaper items, many times exceed the price of the goods.
As they claim in Efektiva, small postal items started to be stolen en masse in Serbia, before they reached the end customer.
Following these allegations, Nova also sent questions to the public company “Post of Serbia”. We did not receive an answer until the moment of publishing this text.
Unofficially – there is room for abuse in this area with these small shipments.
“Shipments that are sent from abroad to Serbia free of charge, as free shipping, have the lowest security level,” said a Nova source familiar with the legislation and the issue of postal traffic flows in our country.
They arrive in Serbia as ordinary international shipments, and there are no records about them, they are not tracked, there is no so-called “tracking” for them.
“It is not known how many were sent, because there are no records. Only those who ordered and the Chinese know that, who can claim to have sent it. These are the only two facts that can be established,” states the interlocutor of Nova.
There is room for abuse, therefore. But, to what extent – it is unknown.
And, how these thefts work, Efektiva has already announced on social networks.
A buyer from Serbia buys an item worth 15 dollars on the AliExpress website, and a Chinese seller gives him another free delivery, the so-called “free shipping”, to motivate him to continue buying from him.
AliExpress keeps the money in deposit with it and informs the seller that it must send the shipment to the buyer in Serbia within (usually up to seven days), as well as that it determines the protection period for the buyer of 60 + 15 days. Within that period of 60 days, the shipment must reach the buyer in Serbia, and in the additional period, the buyer has the opportunity to check the authenticity and quality of the goods,” they state in Efektiva.
If everything is in order, as they say, the buyer confirms the receipt within 60 days and if in the next 15 days he does not initiate a dispute due to the quality of the goods or damage, AliExpress only then pays the seller.
“In order to provide us with free delivery and thus a favorable price, the Chinese sent us shipments that are officially called “small postal items” (say as a regular letter) and these items have a “tracking number” but only until leaving China. The last information that the buyer can get according to that number is: “the shipment has left the country of origin”, they point out in Efektiva.
The postman leaves such a shipment in the mailbox, because he has no obligation to even have someone sign the delivery.
“Buyers therefore initiate disputes en masse over undelivered shipments within a 60-day protection period. AliExpress’s dispute resolution team always rules in favor of the buyer and returns the money, and the seller is left without goods and without money,” they explain in Efektiva.
As stated in the example – a Chinese person sells goods in Serbia for 10,000 euros, receives 7,000 euros from AliExpress, and pays the other 3,000 euros to damaged customers in Serbia for goods missing at the Serbian postal customs (or some other place) but also at small local post offices throughout Serbia.
All this, they say, has led to the fact that the citizens of Serbia can only buy items up to 4.99 dollars, because Chinese traders have recalculated that they can bear those small damages, Nova reports.
