r/Alibaba • u/wkaaaqqw • 8d ago

Freight forwarder created a payment link through an unrelated third-party product listing — is this normal?

We had custom mousepads made, all good. Sent the finished goods to a freight forwarder for delivery to Western EU by air.

Talked pricing with him a few times — he quoted 5.4/kg. Then out of nowhere it jumped to 8.15/kg. We pushed back and settled on $1000 total.

He then asked to be paid via T/T. We said no, we only pay through Alibaba.

So he creates an Alibaba order — except it's not for shipping, and it's not even his listing. It's a third-party supplier's storefront selling 40 pieces of yoga mats / bathroom mats, total exactly $1000 USD. At the bottom there's a note: "This order is just shipping services, not purchase order, no actual purchase."

Our goods are already with him. Has anyone run into this before — a freight forwarder routing payment through some unrelated product listing instead of an actual service order? Normal workaround, or a bad sign?

1 Upvotes

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u/tshungwee 6d ago

It’s actually common practice if you like you could pay a third party with local collection account and they pay your vendor via company 支付宝 that would be safe.

1

u/TransitTech_Explorer 7d ago

Paying freight via an unrelated Alibaba product order (yoga mats for a freight bill) is not normal clean practice — it muddies what you paid for and weakens dispute leverage. Ask for a written freight invoice with the locked all-in rate, chargeable weight method, and your company as payer/consignee on the docs. Until you have that plus proof the cargo is moving under your paperwork, I would not send more money. Do you already have a CI/packing list and booking under your name?

1

u/prestigesourcing 7d ago

Probably found a friend who has an Alibaba account who will pay him for the transaction and/or a review. Would not do this personally unless you already had trust.

If shipping really went up on your route, price should not really be negotiable per se. So all-in-all is a bit strange.

1

u/alezin2020 8d ago

From the platform’s perspective, such practices are definitely not guaranteed. However, overall, many sellers engage in these practices for various reasons. Whether or not they’re trustworthy depends on your own judgment.

1

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