FAQ About the Alibaba Fair Play Fund

This comes from the Alibaba.com site, and is useful as a quick reference on what the fund is and how to use it:

FACTS:

Established in 2009, the Fair Play Fund initially covered fraud disputes between buyers and China-based Gold Suppliers. As of January 2011, the Fair Play Fund also covers claims filed against Global Gold Suppliers. Guidelines for Fair Play Fund: 

1. To be eligible for the Fair Play Fund payout, claimants must have presented a substantiated complaint before the Gold Supplier was removed from the site. Please note that Gold Suppliers are only removed from Alibaba.com after a complaint has been investigated and substantiated. 

2. Claimants with losses of US $1,400 or less are eligible for 70 percent of amount lost. Claimants with losses greater than US $1,400 will receive a maximum of US$1,000. Two-thirds of complainants lost less than US $1,000 to fraud. From January 2009 to March 2010, 715 complainants reported being defrauded by China Gold Suppliers and substantiated their claims, becoming the first group to benefit from the Fair Play Fund. 

After completing the application process, the complainants received a total of about US $400, 000 in reimbursements. As of December 2010, more than 2,000 complainants have benefitted from the Fair Play Fund and have received compensation totaling more than US $1,500,000. 

Like all other e-commerce B2B platforms, Alibaba.com acts as a marketplace and bears no financial or legal responsibility for transactions conducted between companies that connect outside our sourcing platform, but we do provide buyers and suppliers with assistance in compiling documentation and other evidence to resolve business differences, and when necessary, to pursue legal claims. Notwithstanding the new Fair Play Fund program, buyers still retain the right to pursue legal action against suppliers who don’t perform as expected and our assistance in those rare instances will continue to be available.

Avoiding Scams: Finding the Right Alibaba Partner

A large part of avoiding fraud to begins with is finding the right partner in China.  Again, because the Alibaba.com site is a little unwieldy, I try to find articles and postings of interest from the forums that will help people.  Found one this morning, in fact.  Like many of the posts, the English is not great, my I don't speak Mandarin, so I try to put that in perspective

This forum posting deals with finding a reliable partner.  It's worth a read.

I would like you to give some tips on how to find a reliable partner in china. 

Good advice from a user on how to
avoid fraud on Alibaba.com

Like most of you am also just a simple man trying to find some cheap electronic products to sell them and make some money,i dont have a company just a regular folk.I have been scamed twice so far and finally i have found some lets say reliable partner in china.
First off all you must no that there is no original products like some well known brands for cellphones and laptops in china.If you want to buy original cellphone like nokia N95 8gb or something like that in China you can not get it for less than 400$ per pic.TRUST ME.
The things that they are selling in china and tell you that it is a original is actually high or bad quality copies.So the trust worthy supplier will tell you that at first place.I have seen some good tips on this forums so check them all out before you decide to do any shoping in china in case i forgot to write something down. 

Always try to talk to supplier that have web camera so they can show you the products via web camera,tell them to show you the batterie and to turn it on if possible.  Go on the official site of the brand that you are looking for to find out as many data as you can,you can even find the codes that you type in the cellphone on which you can know if it is original one. 

Always ask them for their business and export licence,phone number,web site etc... and call them and see if all the data matches what they have gave you. 

As far as i know there is no legal way to export copies of electronic products from China,because the company could get caught by their custom and get in serious trouble if caught exporting copy products.I found out that they have specialy arangment with some shiping companies who does not check out the products which they are shiping,and another way is that they first ship them to Hong-kong and then to you.And some thing abit that fraud companies that you complain to alibaba that he does not verified them enough,they are all legale registered companies with business licence to sell in China but what you need is company eho has export licenec issued by the Chinese department of foreign trade ministry. 

Google around the web on the forums to find out more about this company esspecialy on the forums like this one. 

When you are making an order ask them for sample to send you which you will pay for, but tel them that you will only pay 50% advance or even through paypal or something like that. 

And dont take that crap about not paying tax or custom fee that is up to luck they can not know that wheter your custom gonna charge some extra fee.The best thing that they can do is send you as gift-wrap,but if you want to import larger quantities of electronics you will pay custom fee and tax(ask them if they can split that large order in small one and send it on the name of your relatives or friends and also as gift-wrap)
Ok now lets talk about laptops. 

First you must know a difference between OEM/ODM (google it to find out what that means). 

There are some brands that uses oEM/ODM but some like IBM,APPLE does not use that and you can buy it only from cerftified dealers whic are very hard to find in china.If company says to you that they are certified dealer of some brand laptops ask them to send you "third party certificate" and then check out at the factory is that certificate valid.If you want to contact me and i will show you how does this certificate looks like. 

You can buy OEM/ODM laptops like Dell,Toshiba,HP. But you should always ask the supplier what is he selling you and ask them for warranty(for as i know only (OEM have internationaly waranty)the others have waranty given only by supplier.If he tells you that you have internationaly waranty tell him to give you serail number of laptop and warranty list so you can check it out on web or at the local supplier.I dont know if i have mentioned everything but this is basic if you have any question you acn contact me.I will answer to any question  and will recomend you some good companies. And dont forget it,you can make some money buying products from china but dont live in illusion taht you can get fillthy rich in just couple of month. 

I wish you luck.