Anyone buy a phone from Aliexpress recently?

This can happen. Decision is up to you.

I try to use Amazon instead others (I don't mind paying $10 - $15 more) as long as they have the staff ...

The deal is obviously good since they are having trouble sourcing devices without a loss. But if you suspect anything funny then just do nothing (and let it time out) and the system will give you the money back. It's also a way to put pressure on them since they get demerit points for not being able to fulfil an order .. so they would rather you cancel (and take the blame) then them failing at processing the order. Good luck.

EDIT: just a thought, if you bought something which requires "global ROM" on China-domestic device, it can take over 30 days to unlock by Xiaomi which sometimes delays the shipment. Is this what happened?

Ordered the Xiaomi Note 8 Pro on Nov 11 and used the free shipping, received it on Dec 9.

This is my 5+ times ordering from AliExpress, and I always use the standard shipping. The fastest time was 12 days delivery without paying extra. But normally is about a month.

Note: I have experienced several times that they didn't ship the item till 7-10 days after the order though. So, the actually shipping time is actually only 2-3 weeks.

There is a ton of this going on on the OnePlus 7T thread also.

To the point that one ALI Express vendor is telling people their order shipped, giving them a tracking number, then two weeks later sending a message to say that they were accidentally given the wrong tracking number and here is the real one. They only have actually shipped the phone when they give that second tracking number. The first is to hold you off a while longer from complaining.

From the vendors point of view, if you cancel they can sell your phone for a higher price to the next guy which is why they are dragging their feet.

In other news, I ordered a spectre x360 on the Black Friday weekend that still hasnt shipped yet. Every week, they tell me (with some attitude) that it will ship in 24-48 hours. Its like chasing a deadbeat tenant around. The entire time that machine has been "in stock and ready to ship" on the website. Never at as good a price as I got. So maybe everyone is ALI Express now.

After 3-4mth of immersing, I've come to a sad disappointing conclusion that ali, mi & umi can go pound salt, not deserving my patronage. I know I know they could care less.

Hello Moto!

When I ordered a phone, they asked to extend the time ..

Did nothing .. didn't even respond.

It showed up a few weeks later.

miji2 wrote: ↑ The deal is obviously good since they are having trouble sourcing devices without a loss. But if you suspect anything funny then just do nothing (and let it time out) and the system will give you the money back. It's also a way to put pressure on them since they get demerit points for not being able to fulfil an order .. so they would rather you cancel (and take the blame) then them failing at processing the order. Good luck.

EDIT: just a thought, if you bought something which requires "global ROM" on China-domestic device, it can take over 30 days to unlock by Xiaomi which sometimes delays the shipment. Is this what happened?

I bought a "Global Version Xiaomi Mi A3 4GB 128GB" and the total was $205, so yes, a decent deal but I had no idea it would take this long to ship. The status of my order is still "awaiting shipment" with 13 days left.