Top Ten Things to Know About the Alibaba Fair Play Fund

Everyone (David Letterman, especially) likes a Top Ten list, right?

Well, I have gone through and compiled the top ten things that you should know about the Alibaba Fair Play Fund.  Some of it may be repetitive or already has been mentioned on Alibaba Fair Play Facts, but it never hurts to have a list in one place, especially if you have been scammed or defrauded.

Here does:

Top Ten Things To Know About the Alibaba Fair Play Fund

1. The Alibaba Fair Play Fund was established in 2009 and covers disputes between buyers and Alibaba Gold Suppliers.  If you think that you have been defrauded, you may be eligible to apply for compensation.
2. The Fair Play Fund is a process;  if a buyer feels that she has been defrauded, she can present a claim and start a process - but it involves due process of substantiating a claim.
3. Alibaba helps both buyers and suppliers by providing assistance in compiling documentation and other evidence to resolve business differences, and when necessary, to pursue legal claims.
4. To help avoid complaints, Alibaba provides supplier verification services as well as inspection services.
5. Since it's inception, 2,700 complainants with substantiated claims have benefitted from the Fair Play Fund.
6. There are eleven million registered users on Alibaba.com, and 2,700 substantiated complaints works out to .02% of all transactions. 
7. Less than 0.05% of buyers have reported potentially fraudulent activity.
8. Alibaba has paid out more than US $2,200,000 since the Alibaba Fair Play Fund started in 2009.
9. Pay-outs are not dollar-for-dollar.  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.
10. DO YOUR HOMEWORK FIRST on potential Alibaba.com Gold Suppliers and perhaps you can avoid scam and fraudsters altogether - and not have to use it.

Hilarious Alibaba "Fail Safe" Video

I think this video shows that someone at Alibaba.com has a really good sense of humor.  This is one of a series of videos called "Fail Safe."  It's topical, timely and funny as well.

Check it out.

 

Why Does the Alibaba Fair Play Fund Have a Process?

I don't know how many transactions take place on Alibaba.com, but one must assume that there are millions.  Pulling numbers out of the air (STRESSING: I am inventing these numbers), if you figure that there are 10,000 transactions on Alibaba.com that take place per day, that's 3,650,000 transactions per year.  According to Alibaba, less than .05 percent of registered users have reported potentially fraudulent activity.  That is a small, small number.

Let's say that the unfortunate ones who get ripped off don't get a response from the supplier, or something else goes wrong and they lose money.  What do they do?  Well, duh, this Web site is all about the Alibaba Fair Play Fund, a program that was set up to help defrauded buyers get some of their money back.  So there is a way to go about it.  But that's just it.  There is a process.

Alibaba is a big company, but if you work with big numbers, you have to assume that there are a large number of claims coming in to the Fair Play Fund.  If you used my made-up numbers and take .05 percent of the total transactions (as approximated by Alibaba.com), that's still 1,825 potential claims for the Fair Play Fund.  What company could easily juggle 2,000 fraud claims at the same time?

That's why there is a process set in place to establish and verify a claim - no company could possibly have the resources to manage thousands of claims without having a way to collect the right information, attempt to communicate with both the buyer and seller, and determine who has been wronged.  I don't know how much time it takes to process a claim, but according to Alibaba, it can take between two weeks and two months depending upon the complexity of the case.

All of this again tells me that Alibaba.com is doing the right thing by providing due process for both the buyer and the seller, and also by providing a compensation fund for harmed buyers.

There's more information laid our in the Alibaba Fair Play Fund FAQ.