My new e-bike – I’m totally bemused

I can’t quite understand what’s going on. After contacting la Poste this morning to find out why I haven’t received a parcel that it said had been delivered into my mailbox, out of the blue I’ve just received an email from Aliexpress saying that my order has been cancelled and I’m being refunded the full purchase amount.

There can’t be any connection between the two events because there’s no reason why la Poste should have been in contact with Aliexpress so it would appear that Aliexpress has itself become involved independently behind the scenes with the seller.

When I checked my order status on the Aliexpress web site the information given is to the effect that the order was cancelled and refunded due to an incorrect order tracking number having been provided by the seller who will be sanctioned in accordance with the platform’s (Aliexpress’s) rules.

OK, that’s good as far as it goes, but although the original web page for the bike I ordered has now been taken down, there are still several in a similar style on Aliexpress, probably from the same ‘seller’, for similar bikes several of which are now even cheaper than the price of the one I ordered. If the ‘seller’ is a scammer, surely Aliexpress should have picked that up, closed them all down and booted the ‘seller’ off?

And there’s another thing. How come la Poste could provide tracking data for ‘my’ parcel right up to the point of delivery? There’s one explanation I can think of, which is that a legitimate label was created by this, or another legitimate, seller for a real bike being delivered to a buyer in France. The scam ‘seller’ then spoofed a copy of the label with my name and address on it and sent it to me.

Are you with me so far? The legitimate sale would then track properly through the system until it was delivered into its buyer’s mailbox – which wouldn’t have been mine, which is why it wasn’t in my mailbox even though I had been told that it had been delivered. It would also explain why my ‘delivery’ appeared to be early, as the label that had been spoofed was probably by then a few days old.

I don’t know how Aliexpress got onto this but fortunately I paid using Paypal so I’ll get my refund in a couple of days, although buyers who used other payment methods could have more difficulty. I’ll be able to relax once I’ve received it and then I’ll be able to decide whether to go for another new e-bike at the proper price, especially as I’ve already bought my safety helmet 🙂

It’ll also be interesting to hear what la Poste have to say when they come back to me as I think they’ll say yes, the parcel I queried was delivered correctly – just not to me 😕