Maybe it's the shipper at fault instead of Aliexpress. I've ordered about 30 times from Ali and haven't had a problem except for once where customs held the item (was a coffee grinder IIRC). With that situation they also marked it as delivered but I opened a dispute with the seller and was refunded.
its Ali's SOP process
not as much as it used to, because many items are now shipped out of a Aliexpress run warehouse, the sellers never even see the merchandise.
I could ask for proof of delivery but all they do is drop it off in a mailbox and run. Nobody is going to ask for a signature on a $15 item.
the first time i didnt receive my item i was pissed and did this. what was i supposed to take a picture of? The sketch ass delivery company they used kept insisting it was delivered, but thats not what the camera showed. I feel like some of these delivery companies have figured out they can basically just steal cheap items, because who's gonna take the time to fight over a 14 dollar item? What do I do? litigate? (lol) when they keep insisting their driver dropped it off and it was stolen?
So you've had the same experience!
I guess you get the responsibility of the goods as soon as you collect them from the shipper. Delivery company has the interest in marking goods as delivered so that now responsibility is on the recipient. Honestly I don't like this approach and I would enforce by law that the delivery guy collects a proof from the recipient of the goods.
This options does of course exist, it is called "signature required" 😂
I know the signature required option, but that looks extreme solution. I'm a software engineer and I reason more on technology. In my mind I was thinking of a locker that can be open by remote or by unlocking one-time code provided to the delivery company. Once the storage is locked again it can read RFIDs from the box placed inside then release a proof in the form of a QR code. The QR code may "encode" (I'm talking in terms of digital signature) the ID from the RFID, a pic of the package inside the storage and a timestamp. This is pretty much legally equivalent to "signature required" type of delivery. Honestly, I would do the last mile and have the locker connected to the internet and actually deliver the proof to the shipper for doing the marking and to the recipient to alert what was just shipped in the locker. That's not cheap, but having a locker like this in every street could actually solve the issue of both proof of shipment and the issue of recipient unavailable at a sustainable cost.
would your clever box also feature x-ray function to reveal the contents in the box. I mean, I would hate to confirm receive of the goods when all that was inside the parcel was a brick instead of 12 expensive butterfly blades.
I have seen boxes with sensors that tell you when something is deposited. Not X-ray but a motion sensor.
People already do unboxing video to document scam like this. All the cleaver box confirms is that you received a parcel and adds the pic of the exterior. No legal assumption is made on the content of it. I actually encourage to make a video especially with AliExpress. It's known that blades can crack during the shipment. They may argue that blade was well protected and couldn't break.
