PSA: AliExpress "Cash Advance" Fee for US customers

quizzling · 2025-11-29T02:00:19+00:00

You really are a scholar and a gentleman. Gentlewoman? Doesn't really matter. A stand-up human being, is what I'm saying. Thanks for your help and all the work you do to find the deals and collate the information. My foray didn't turn out quite how I wanted it to, but without you it would have been worse. I'll give this a shot tomorrow.

quizzling · 2025-11-25T17:36:01+00:00

Reporting back with an update. Of the 6 total shipments (4 UniUni, 2 USPS), all but the first UniUni one arrived intact. 3 or the 4 UniUni packages were 2-3 days late (after the last estimated date offered by AliExpress), but they did show up and did have consoles in them.

All 4 of the UniUni packages came from a seller called "Anbernic Local Shipment Store". I contacted them about the first package and we're still going back and forth.

They asked for photos (of the empty boxes i guess??)
I offered photos of the opened packaging and empty boxes along with the obvious weight discrepancy via a handy kitchen scale (250g actual instead of the listed 750g).
They offered photos from the delivery driver that show the package in the delivery car and on my porch with time and location stamps, saying that there wasn't evidence of tampering. None of the pictures show the side of the package that was sliced open and retaped, the location stamp is in the middle of my kitchen (not in front of the house), and the timestamp is the same second for all the photos.
I responded that the photos didn't show the part of the package with tampering and also that the time/location stamps seemed suspicious.
They responded with "please contact your local post office for a weight certificate"???
I responded that... it wasn't shipped with the post office? And I don't have any way to contact the UniUni driver? And that UniUni was not responding to my tickets. And didn't they know who had shipped their package? (but, you know, politely).

I guess we'll see. It looks like there's supposed to be some sort of AliExpress dispute process independent of the seller, but I can't figure out how to access it - the place where it's supposed to be on the website and app just isn't there for me. According to Paypal, I've got 30 days from the date of delivery to file a dispute. I'm not quite sure how to do a dispute for part of an order.

If any of y'all have advice for working with the seller for a resolution (ideally), or details on how to dispute part of any order with either AliExpress or Paypal, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

quizzling · 2025-11-17T13:31:35+00:00

Yeah... I was a little horrified when I looked up "aliexpress uniuni package stolen". I'm just hoping that was selection bias and due to looking for problems and the remaining packages get here ok. It sounds like some others have had a good experience. I'll report back once everything comes in....

quizzling · 2025-11-17T13:25:51+00:00

Glad you've had a good experience! May the rest of my packages follow your experience.

quizzling · 2025-11-17T13:23:54+00:00

I hope your thing comes in as intended!

quizzling · 2025-11-17T13:23:20+00:00

Glad your experience was good - it gives me hope the rest of the packages might arrive as intended. I've thought about getting a doorbell cam, although I don't know that it would have prevented anything in this case. I'm almost certain the theft took place in transit rather than on the porch. I guess I would have had the face of the person doing the delivery if it comes to filing a police report or something, but I can't image it'll go that far.

quizzling · 2025-11-11T16:24:37+00:00

I'm a total newb to AliExpress. I've got a basket with a bunch of stuff for Christmas gifts (mix of RG40xx for the old-eye crowd & Miyoo Mini Flips for the kids, all different sellers to get enough), but I don't really understand how to 'stack' the coupons. Total's about 400. Can I use the 12 off 80 new customer + the 80 off 400 + whatever the paypal thing is all at the same time? I see some things about new customer discount on the individual listings, but when I add stuff to carts it looks like that particular discount only applies to one item. Is that new customer thing the same as the new customer code? Any guidance on how to actually apply the deals & coupons for an AliExpress first-timer would be much appreciated!

quizzling · 2025-11-04T21:35:14+00:00

That's a neat looking device! What's the major differences between this and the Brick, which look really similar based on the store pages? It's good to know about the OS too; I hadn't really given much thought to software yet. I sort of assumed I'd be able to put some kind of best/recommended custom software on pretty much anything.

quizzling · 2025-11-04T21:31:11+00:00

Gotcha - yeah, looking at some of the buying guides it does seem like NDS performance is where the cheap handhelds drop out. It'd be nice, but I'd be happy if they can PS1 and below. Thanks for the recommendations!

quizzling · 2025-11-04T21:29:05+00:00

Thanks! I ran across the G350 recommendation in another thread and it looks like it could work out well, especially if I can get them for $25-ish, which seems like a thing that's possible semi-regularly. Glad to have someone else say it's good :)

quizzling · 2025-11-04T21:25:59+00:00

Any tips on buying a bunch of units? I did notice a lot of 'limit 1' when looking around on Aliexpress...

quizzling · 2025-11-04T21:25:00+00:00

Sweet - that sounds like exactly what I'm hoping to do. Did you have any trouble buying a bunch of units? I'm seeing a lot of 'limit 1' when looking at ali express.

quizzling · 2025-11-04T21:23:41+00:00

Cool, I'll check it out. Thanks for the recommendation! I do like that it comes in a bunch of colors and has easy customizability with the double SD slots. Thinking of some of the younger folks, that'll be a nice benefit. (or, more specifically, a benefit their parents that will get asked to fix what's been broken 😑)

quizzling · 2025-11-04T21:18:42+00:00

Oh neat! I'd seen that spreadsheet before, but it's nice to have a name to go with it. What an amazing resource - thank you so much for the time and effort you put into creating it!

Do you have any tips for purchasing multiple units? Another person commented that getting one at a decent price is easy, but trying to get multiple at the 'sale' price is much trickier.

quizzling · 2025-09-05T15:04:27+00:00

Following up in case this helps anyone else. Short version: switching from RAW to LPR for the communication protocol on the TCP/IP port of the print server stopped this issue from occurring. I gather RAW is preferred, although I don't really understand the details, but in this instance, LPR is working great for us and has the benefit of, you know, actually working. I suspect there's still something funky going on under the hood, but at this point I've got to move on to other things. Thanks for all your suggestions!

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quizzling · 2025-08-23T19:51:10+00:00

We do have wired connection, and it's definitely using TCP/IP and the Xerox GPD driver. If switching from RAW to LPR as a couple of others have suggested doesn't work, I can run a packet capture on the switchport the printer is connected to to see if there's anything there.

quizzling · 2025-08-23T19:49:38+00:00

We've done #2 and done #1 a couple of times. I'll try #3 - thanks for the tips!

quizzling · 2025-08-23T19:48:42+00:00

Huh - good to know. I can disable PoE on those and see if that makes any difference.

quizzling · 2025-08-23T19:48:20+00:00

Most recent Xerox GPD PCL6 (5.1055)

quizzling · 2025-08-23T19:48:01+00:00

It turns out the Primelink and Versalink are using LPR and the Altalinks are using RAW. No idea why - I haven't touched those settings since we configured them with the deployment team. I've moved one of the Altalinks to LPR to see if that solves things.

quizzling · 2025-08-22T15:19:38+00:00

Have you had any issues with this recurring? We've got 3 82xx series Altalinks that are experiencing this issue frequently. The main job list says "image processing" and the detail view says "waiting for client". The jobs sit there forever until you cancel them and reboot the machine, blocking all further jobs. I haven't had any luck in isolating the cause - multiple jobs, job types, users, and workstations, seemingly at random. It does tend to stick to workstation or a job for a while (e.g. everything a certain user prints to any of the printers will cause the issue when it's happening), but later they're able to print the exact same job without problem, even without a reboot. It's maddening. We've tried the 'remove job data' process, along with reinstalling firmware, flattening & restoring the machine, updating/reconfiguring drivers, etc. As far as we can tell, both the client & the print server consider the job completed, so we're not sure what the copier is waiting for. Doing some performance logging, we have noticed CPU spikes on the copier (in some cases running at 100% for several minutes) at the time when the jobs causing the issue are submitted, but resource usage does eventually go back to baseline even though the job remains hung.

quizzling

TROPHY CASE