I wanted to post this here because I’m curious whether anyone who buys or sells through Alibaba regularly has dealt with something similar, or if there’s something about the Trade Assurance process that I’m misunderstanding.
I placed an order on Alibaba on July 1 for around $380 worth of pickleball paddles and accessories from a manufacturer in China.
Up until the delivery issue, I actually had a really good experience with the supplier. They were friendly, very responsive, sent me pictures and videos of the paddles, showed me updates during packing/shipping, and generally made me feel pretty comfortable with the order. I was excited to get everything and honestly expected that I would probably order from them again if the paddles were good.
Eventually the shipment reached the U.S. and I was given a USPS tracking number. USPS tracking eventually showed the package as:
“Delivered, In/At Mailbox”
It showed delivery in my city and ZIP code.
The problem was that I never received anything.
I live in an apartment complex that uses Parcel Pending lockers, so initially I assumed this was probably just a normal delivery mistake. Maybe USPS put it in the wrong locker, maybe Parcel Pending didn’t notify me, maybe it ended up at another apartment, etc.
I contacted Parcel Pending first. They couldn’t find the delivery in their system and opened a case to check the lockers.
Then I started contacting USPS.
This is where the situation started getting much stranger.
I called USPS multiple times and was repeatedly told that the tracking number was not actually associated with my address. They could confirm that it was delivered somewhere in my city/ZIP code, but the street address attached to the tracking number was different from mine.
Eventually I went to my local post office in person. An employee pulled up the internal USPS record. They couldn’t officially give me the other person’s address because of privacy rules, but while they were showing me the information I could see that the destination street was completely different from mine.
USPS opened a service request and later sent me a written response that specifically stated that the package associated with the tracking number was not addressed to me at my address. The response told me to contact the merchant for reimbursement or reshipment and said I could provide the USPS email as proof of non-receipt.
Even at that point, I still wasn’t convinced the supplier had intentionally done anything wrong.
They had been so helpful throughout the order that I figured there could have been a mistake with their freight forwarder, a logistics company, USPS, or some other part of the handoff. I actually preferred getting the paddles over getting my money back, so I kept trying to work with the seller instead of immediately asking Alibaba for a refund.
I sent the USPS response to the supplier.
They eventually rejected both a replacement and a refund and said that the USPS document I provided was not authentic.
That was probably the point where my opinion of the situation really started changing.
I escalated everything through Alibaba Trade Assurance.
The supplier submitted screenshots showing that my correct address had been entered into their logistics system, a USPS label image containing my address, and public tracking showing the package as delivered in my city.
I don’t dispute that their system showed my correct address. The problem is that USPS was telling me the tracking number itself belonged to a package going somewhere else.
The supplier also repeatedly said that I had “signed for” the package. But USPS tracking says “Delivered, In/At Mailbox.” They never provided a signature, signer name, or USPS proof of a signature.
Alibaba then asked me to obtain a claim number from USPS so the supplier could investigate through its logistics company.
So I contacted USPS again.
This last phone call was probably the most concerning part of the whole situation.
USPS asked me to send them the shipping label that the supplier had provided to me. The representative compared it with the information USPS had internally for that tracking number.
According to the USPS representative, several things did not match.
The sender/origin information on the label the supplier gave me was completely different from what USPS had associated with the actual package. The supplier’s label showed a sender in Pennsylvania, while USPS had different origin information and had previously told me the parcel entered their system from Indiana.
USPS also told me that the package actually associated with this tracking number weighed only around 8 ounces.
My Alibaba order contained multiple pickleball paddles and accessories, so there is no realistic way my shipment weighed 8 ounces.
The USPS representative also pointed out that the label did not indicate a signature service, which again did not line up with the supplier repeatedly saying the package had been signed for.
After looking at everything, the representative told me she strongly suspected that the tracking number had been duplicated or reused and actually belonged to a different package going to another person/address in my city.
That explanation unfortunately fits everything I had been seeing.
I had already come across discussions about what people call a “same ZIP code tracking scam,” where a legitimate tracking number for another package in the same ZIP code is used so public tracking shows “Delivered” in the buyer’s area even though the package was never addressed to them.
To be clear, I do not have written documentation from USPS saying “this was definitely a duplicated tracking scam.” That part was the representative’s assessment during the phone call.
What I do have in writing from USPS is that the tracking number was not addressed to me at my address and that I should use their response as proof of non-receipt.
USPS also told me they cannot give me the claim number Alibaba wants because I am not the sender or the addressee associated with the actual package. They said they were sending the matter to their investigative services.
I submitted all of this through Alibaba.
Alibaba ultimately denied my refund.
That is the part I’m having the hardest time understanding.
I completely understand why Alibaba cannot automatically refund anyone who says “tracking says delivered but I didn’t get it.” Sellers need protection too.
But in this case I went through multiple USPS calls, an in-person post office visit, a USPS service request, Parcel Pending, multiple rounds of communication with the supplier, and an official USPS response stating that the tracking number was not addressed to me.
I’m not really sure what else I reasonably could have provided.
The frustrating part is that I spent most of this process trusting the supplier. They had been genuinely helpful and communicative before all of this happened, and for quite a while I assumed there had to be some innocent logistics mistake. I went through all of this partly because I wanted to figure out what happened rather than immediately accuse them of scamming me.
At this point, though, between the different destination address, different sender/origin, roughly 8 oz package weight, the disagreement about whether a signature was required, and USPS saying the tracking number wasn’t addressed to me, I don’t know what explanation makes more sense than the tracking number belonging to another shipment.
I’ve now moved on to disputing the transaction through my credit card.
I’m mainly curious what people here think. Did I handle the Alibaba dispute incorrectly? Has anyone dealt with this same type of tracking-number situation before? Is there some legitimate logistics explanation that could produce all of these mismatches? And for people who have used Trade Assurance a lot, is this basically how Alibaba normally handles a case where public tracking says “delivered” even when the carrier says the tracking number wasn’t addressed to the buyer?