There is a safe way to use Alibaba. They are not all scammers. They are not all selling knockoffs(although if something is branded, assume it is not real). They are a great place to get cheap unbranded electronics, but also a ton of other stuff. If you want to be safe, research, research, research. Read up on protecting yourself. There are people located in China who will visit, verify, and even oversee your purchases acting as an agent for you. The prices are very reasonable for many of them and if you research, you can find some that have very good reputations and many satisfied customers. As for payment, there are more options than just wire transfer or western union. If these are your only options, then be wary. I personally only deal with people who do a number of things for me. First, they allow me to make an initially small purchase and work my way up. Second, they provide me with references in the United States. I want people I can talk to from here that can verify that they will get me the product as they claim. Third, I always call all of the phone numbers that they provide me. Scammers love to use fake numbers as a way to make themselves look legit hoping people from the US won't call. I also like to look at addresses. Sometimes, they are really sloppy and have Nigeria and China addresses listed together. Obviously, this is a scam. Next, I always make sure they offer me alternative methods of payment. If you talk to them, they will usually make some sort of effort to help you out. As for the safest payment methods, I would recommend either using an escrow service(although in my experience, this has been difficult to get them to go with as they are worried about getting scammed themselves) or obtaining a line of credit from the bank. I would suggest that you make your initial purchases small until you build up a trust with the company. Now it depends on what you are buying, but say you are buying a cheap electronic item for $10. What I would do is make the initial order for say 50-100. At this point, you do run a risk of losing your money. That is why I suggest keeping it in a range that if you lose your money, it won't cripple you. I usually do all my research and then send the money via a wire. Most of these places don't want to go through the hassle of the other payment methods for an order that small. However, after a few orders of increasing size, I usually jump up to a higher quantity and also tell them that I need to use a line of credit for my payment method. Research your payment methods and international business topics. You will find out a lot. Using everything I have done, I have never been scammed once on Alibaba and I have used many different suppliers. I have come close to getting scammed, but I always did my research. Also, if it sounds too good to be true on there, it is. That especially goes for any name brand product. Anyway, there is just a little something about importing. It is all about the research. Good luck.
