Sellers on Aliexpress tends to be quite honest about what they are selling, so buying there is reasonably predictable. I have rarely been disappointed by anything I bought from there.

On the other hand, Ebay (and I presume Amazon, I never use them) tends to buy cheap stuff off of Aliexpress, mark it up and resell it, sometimes also faking the brand.

> Sellers on Aliexpress tends to be quite honest about what they are selling

I'm not sure how much is deliberate dishonesty, but there sure is a lack of truth. Product titles are often a mishmash of words copy-pasted in and half irrelevant/misleading, making searching for some things completely impossible. Sellers often use pictures of other companies' products (sometimes multiple different ones), and contradictory specs are not uncommon. They often don't have sufficient English to understand and answer questions trying to clarify. I have rarely been disappointed, but my expectations are always pretty low.

What you say is true. But I have never gotten the impression that this stems from dishonesty. I have the feeling that a lot of the sellers simply don't know how to present their products online, and since everybody else is doing the same thing there is little reason so change.

At least that's the impression I have gotten. I'm willing to accept that others may have had really bad experiences there.

There are tons of shady US sellers on Etsy looking to make a quick buck without any customer service. On there, I bought a poster that was pictured in a frame for $25 and all that came was a wrinkled piece of paper in a tube from a US seller who wouldn't refund a dime.

The honesty of Aliexpress sellers varies. A "blanket hoodie" I bought doesn't even go to my hips.

Many AE sellers, when confronted with insufficient or wrong items delivered, will offer coupons or discounts rather than replacements or refunds. You have to insist on what you want because interacting with Chinese businesses often requires assertiveness.

I'm a diamond-level buyer, so AE pretty much sides with me 99% of the time and since I don't make frivolous disputes.

Aliexpress is a terrible outlet for consumers. The buyer pays the return shipping which is often too expensive to be worth the trouble. At least Amazon/Ebay respect the consumer protection laws and make returns pretty easy.

I'm dealing with an Aliexpress seller that sent me the wrong thing and it's basically not worth shipping back to China. I'm trying to get a few dollars from the seller but they're slippery as hell, want to privately paypal me the money etc. Never again!

Can't you just do a chargeback via your credit card?

You can, but you’ll never be able to order anything through AliExpress again.