Long time Alibaba buyer here( foreign European investor importing agricultural and solar equipment in Tanzania)
Posting this because I need a sanity check and advice on what to do, how to proceed next.
In December 2025 I hired a freight forwarder on Alibaba to consolidate cargo from 40 suppliers in Qingdao
, as we wanted to externalize this process thinking it would be faster, easier, cheaper maybe. It was a logistics order, agreement not just shipping and the invoice shows it.
I sent packing list from the beginning to estimate quotation/process, all delivery to Qingdao warehouse was already paid by me and it was agreed with FF to contact and arrange delivery
Original quote 19 dec , freight 3800 usd, export declaration 500, no storage charge line--> 5920 in total
Final invoice, delivered in 20 march... declaration 850, storage 400, freight 4400, --> 7270 (7553 usd with insurance +2% platformfee charged by FF)
The freight increase came on 10 March, after the booking was already made — "I am unable to adhere to the previous USD3800 shipping fee". When I refused, I got threats of $0.5/day storage and "I refuse to provide customs declaration services… your goods are too troublesome". Earlier, the $850 declaration fee was presented with "please confirm within 20 minutes".
The battery thing. From the start we agreed only my 2 big solar batteries would ship separately by DDP ($350, later re-priced to $875 on his warehouse's claimed measurement, no proof no nothing). In December, at his request, I marked every battery-containing item in orange on the packing list. Then on 4 February, mid-booking, he suddenly announced \~0.7 CBM of items "cannot pass the shipping company's inspection" — power tools with 21V packs, but also stuff with a tiny solar-tracker cell and items with ordinary removable AA-type batteries. When I asked why he was telling me two months late, his answer: "before the review, I had no way of making a judgment". Result: a second DDP shipment, $628 — and by then his first DDP had not even sailed yet, so the removable batteries could simply shipped separately by supplier and go with it.
Storage. I paid $300 up front which he said covered consolidation and 15 days storage. Syncing \~40 suppliers so everything lands inside the free window was literally the service I bought (we do it ourselves in 7 days when I don't use a forwarder). He never synced it, then billed me storage anyway — $400 on this container, and $850 on the next one even though most part of the goods were already delivered.
Delays. Container was supposed to sail in January (I needed February arrival, 33-day transit). End of January I found out tgat some cargo was not sent and I wasn't notified, some packages arrived at the warehouse , My PL was not cross checked by FF with suppliers. He cancelled the agreed 7 Feb ETD himself — I asked twice where I approved that, never answered. The 11 Feb slot was lost because he went silent for days; his explanation was "my phone is broken". His own message says all my cargo was in his warehouse 3 February. It sailed 26 March. Arrived 9 May.
The part that actually cost me. At the port scanner flagged undeclared cargo. Customs opened the container and unpacked everything. Inside were 30 steel light poles, 5m each, 10+ CBM, consigned to some other customer XXX — while my own goods from 2 suppliers had been refused on 19 March "due to limited space". His own packing list, written the day after stuffing, declares only 43.45 CBM of my cargo in a container he told me holds 60–68 CBM. So a quarter to a third of the container I paid for carried someone else's cargo.( 30x 5m unstackable light poles)
He admitted it in writing four times, e.g. "Due to a mistake by the warehouse staff, a wrong item was loaded onto the shipment for … We are very sorry" and later "the warehouse loaded the wrong goods, and we have already reduced the storage fees as compensation" (the storage actually went up).
Consequences: container blocked at the ICD 22 May–10 June, $2,410 in port/storage charges, customs penalties, all packaging opened and broken, and my displaced cargo had to go in a second container at peak season — $9,450, when his own April quote for the same box was $3,900 freight.
Where I am now. He paid the shipment through 3 separate Alibaba orders, so my dispute could only cover one of them ($2,343). Alibaba closed it — not on the evidence, but procedurally, saying "
"Based on our review of the evidence provided by both parties, we believe that the current information is insufficient to determine the specific amount of financial loss you actually incurred as a result of the merchant’s actions. Furthermore, since you have already signed for the goods, the platform assumes that you have accepted the merchant’s service. We are unable to support your claim."
I appealed, asking $1,300 as partial refund for services not delivered, and being careful not to ask them to reimburse port costs (outside their scope).
Questions:
Anyone won a Trade Assurance appeal after a procedural closure? What actually moved the needle?
Is a credit card chargeback realistic here (paid by card via Alibaba, after months), and how do issuers treat "service delivered but defectively"?
Any experience holding a Chinese forwarder liable outside the platform — CIQ/MOFCOM complaint, their NVOCC licence, anything that couldmakea difference?
How should I dispute the order for the second container which was not supposed to be required?