Buying asic miners from Alibaba?

Rip Off pure & Simple

If they do ship, they'll send you something, but it will not be what you want. It's impossible to return, there is no customer service.

Here I'll give you an example, happened to me a few weeks ago.

I saw MSI GTX-1080 boards for $500 new, I figure why not, ordered two. When I clicked the order, it order two sets, one minute apart. I cancelled the second order, but the 'baba' credit-card fee was stuck $40 2X, impossible to remove.

Then I waited the ten days to ship, contacted seller, and asked 'why not ship', he said they never had such product in stock. So I cancelled the order, and again, BABA charged another $40 credit card fee, and not even if they just 'validate' your card, not charge, they still charged the card, and the card-company said 'no way' will we refund, this is not normal 'fee', I really think that 'baba' owns most of our credit card companys these days, nobody dares to fight them, you can't chargeback like the old days, and you can't file a complaint online, must call, but like a return at COSTCO return you can spend your entire life on the phone, and never talk to a human.

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So there are many problems with 'baba' these days, first of all there ARE NO GPU-CARDS, or ASIC miners, so if you see one, its either used & dead ( ignore the new ) they can send anything they want.

I buy lots of stuff, but the last few years has gotten worse, I bought big item a last year, came in wrong color, and 10x for shipment than they said, fought the shipment company got it down by 1/2, but when it finally arrived realized it wasn't what was ordered, this seems to be really the big stuff > $500 USD

I notice that small stuff like $10 high power lasers and chips is still ok, I do notice that if you get an electronic thing ( oscilloscope, power supply ) that doesn't work, you SOL, as you MUST be returned, and its often more than the price you paid to return, so its in the sellers interest to sell you dead equipment.

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If your really serious about a buy, contact the seller first, demand to know 'do you have in stock', show me a photo, if machine demand the serial-number up front and photo, tell them clear if that SN doesn't arrive you will not pay. Don't pay in advanced set it up so you only pay 10% on order, and then pay the balance at 'ship' demand to see photo of what your buying, and the serial, even ASIC miners and GPU cards have serial-numbers.

The deal is that MOST of the companys selling junk are owned by BABA, so they don't care if your unhappy, and they don't penalize a company for ripping you off, because they own the company.

I really say that unless its a < $50 item with near free shipping, don't buy anything from alibaba or aliexpress these days, AMAZON still has good customer service for now

I tried to buy ASIC miners over the last year also, and I want to make CLEAR I live on the CHINA border, I speak chinese, so this is not a USA problem

The chinese always rip people off, thats how you get rich, when Jack Ma started baba, he followed the western amazon model to build success, I think 'jack ma' has been out of the loop +2 years now, and that is about the time the company has gone to hell. I also note that the CEO of aliexpress in SINGAPORE is now fired every 6 months, and its largely because they want to do right for the customer, but HQ in SHENZHEN wants to screw the customer.

In summary, they get their FEE $40, just for the 'order click', they're done, they don't even fulfill anymore, they don't care, they don't make extra for being a good company, there is no incentive

GIVEN alibaba ain't going to do shit for you, then what you do is find the 'seller' and contact directly and offer to buy direct from them, discuss terms, shipping & Cost, you will probably do better, because you can control the payments like the Chinese do, which is send somebody to the factory to actually see the product before its shipped.

Lastly, there are NO cheap ASIC miners, the s19 is what $5k, mostly what baba is selling is s9's & s3's that are +5 years old, and most are damaged, just junk, but it don't matter, because you can't do anything about it, say you order one sent to USA, you pay shipping, customs & duty, find out its dead,junked, contact the seller, he'll tell you to return, then you find out you can't get your tax back, you get taxed by china for shipping to them and the UPS back to CHINA is more than you paid for the junk. If you do return, I have NEVER heard of anyone getting their money back, as all BABA does is take orders, after that they're done, and SELLER can just deny to you forever that the product came back.

I would say if you want a USED ASIC ( cuz that's all your going to get on baba ) is find one on paypal, and visit the seller in person, and verify it works, and pay cash and take home.

Lot's good ways to order, here in ASIA I can order direct from local warehouses that stock new chinese stuf, but now all the warehouses are empty, there are no gpu cards. Period. Just six months ago I was buying RTX-3070 cards for $400 each 8gb, ASUS, then post NOVEMBER price went to $2,000, now I see this stuff on amazon for $3,000

I have given up on ASIC miners, the only new ones around are AVALON, and I have heard many bad stories, so its not worth wasting $1500 for an s9 clone, that will probably die in a month. The quality has really gone down, in the past year. I think post Trump tariffs everybody saw the writing on the wall, and just started stuffing output boxes with junk. Long before COVID the system had changed, and now its permanently JIT screwed. This could be good, but IMHO what will happen is manufacture will go local all over Asia, especially in Singapore or Malay, where you can go to jail if you rip somebody off. Malay is making some real good electronics these days.

All the BITMAIN stuff on baba is used, old, and dead. As they moved on to the S17 last year, so 100's of 1,000's of s-9's got dumped on the market; the good stuff is not sold, they run it to death, until all the profit is squeezed, then dump it wholesale, and buy new from BITMAIN direct, but 'they' have contacts, I'm talking about the big miners, of which most are owned by 'ant', who is also owned by TAOBAO, which is the name of the BABA mother company. Everything on the BITCOIN food-chain is owned by Baba, and now the CHinese gov has taken control from Jack Ma.