I always hear stories about the dangers of buying from WIsh.com, Aliexpress, and recently Temu. I’ve jokingly called them “buyer beware” sites even. Yet people still use them, and there’s just as many positive results as negative. But I’ve also heard about unexplained card charges, data hacks, pyramid-scheme-like behavior, etc. So which of those sites, or other similar sites, is the “safest” if I DID wanna shop there?
Amazon
If it’s on Amazon and one of the apps OP named, you’re paying for a dropshipper
I’d pay dropshipping fees just to get Amazon’s no-questions-asked full refunds if anything goes wrong, including delays, broken or incorrect items, or just poor quality (and of course, those two days free shipping with prime if you have that). Amazon, in my experience, always rectified any issue promptly. Those other ones … well, you can try your luck, I guess.
AliExpress is completely fine, nothing sketchy about it in principle. You can find trash on it since it’s a very open marketplace, making it the same as Amazon or eBay.
Except that unlike Amazon, AX doesn’t copy their sellers’ products just to sell them under their own brand and kick the sellers out, nor does it sign monopolistic pacts with Apple. Workers treatment is about the same I guess… So correction, less sketchy than Amazon or eBay.
Wish specialises in dogshit and review manipulation though. Not good for anything more than a phone case, and I’d rather buy those on AX anyway.
Nothing’s happened to me personally from Temu, and I’ve spent maybe $90 over five deliveries. I will say I went in thinking, “What’s the worst they can do? Nobody can mess up making a laundry hamper, right?” and they went below and beyond in terms of quality. It made me laugh, to be honest. The things aren’t all unusable, but quality is pretty clearly inferior. With heavy loads of laundry the ribbon serving as a handle did break.
You wanted something to hamper your laundry process, you got it. I see no issue.
AliExpress has been solid for the past few years. There’s indeed some sketchy sh*t there but it’s usually pretty obvious what to avoid. And, of course, expect to get what you pay for… a $5 tshirt isn’t going to be the same quality as a $25 one from Amazon.
Temu is worse than TikTok when it comes to exfiltration of your personal data.
Yes and usian apps don’t do that and certainly don’t fall under the Cloud Act and Patriot Act
You might want to also look at the Snopes report about TEMU as well. https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/06/05/temu-shopping-app-scam-china-spyware/
