$1.51 + Shipping LBOTs mechanical keyboards @Aliexpress on the 11/11/2014

[NeoNoeN]

Full layout ($1.51 + Shipping): http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Big-black-red-tea-cherry-shaft-backlit-mechanical-keyboard/1751484162.html

TKL ($1.31 + Shipping): http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Cherry-black-tea-red-shaft-backlit-mechanical-keyboard/1751500736.html

They're currently over $100 but they go 99% off in an hour and a half.

The boards appear to be rebrands of the Flashget g600/g800.

For those questioning the legitimacy of this deal:

EDIT: Looks like prices have been reverted

[fanpeople]

I just jumped on this. Had the discounted price and everything when I went through checkout. It still ended up charging me full price in the end. Have emailed seller to see if I can get money back.

[berserkfan]

So it was too good to be true? Methinks they intended to give 10% off so probably system did just that?

[swathe]

I was too chicken to order, glad I didn't.

Hope you get your cash back.

[berserkfan]

The person who ordered successfully should shout out here.

Swathe, that tough looking guy on your avatar doesn't look like a chicken to me but neither did it look like a guinea pig...

But seriously, when I see fanpeople's sheep avatar being slaughtered by Aliexpress billing, I couldn't help but think...

(in Chinese, being 'slaughtered' means to be cheated)

[fanpeople]

I was too chicken to order, glad I didn't.

Hope you get your cash back.

So do I, we will see what happens. I will update once I hear from the seller. If I don't hear from them I will open a dispute. In the end its approx $100 if it doesn't work out, it will just be a moderately priced lesson.

So it was too good to be true? Methinks they intended to give 10% off so probably system did just that?

The price charged ended up being full price. Maybe a disconnect between the checkout basket and the payment system.


I think the sale is going for a while so if it works out I will post asap. I could still work out to be a legit deal.
 

[NeoNoeN]

Ordered a TKL and two with TK, got charged the appropriate amount ($43.45).

Payment still verifying on AliExpress' side though, my CC only got charged the sale amount.

Others on reddit have also been getting the error where they are being charged the full amount, I think you have to empty your cart and put the items back in.

[berserkfan]

Ordered a TKL and two with TK, got charged the appropriate amount ($43.45).

Payment still verifying on AliExpress' side though, my CC only got charged the sale amount.

Others on reddit have also been getting the error where they are being charged the full amount, I think you have to empty your cart and put the items back in.

A pity that by the time everything is delivered and considered a legit transaction, this deal is long over. Otherwise it could be a great source of parts.

[NeoNoeN]

Pretty sure Aliexpress allows you to get a refund if the item isn't as expected or isn't delivered, there isn't really any risk.

[Evo_Spec]

Yeah i went through this to payment and it's just sitting on, "Your Payment is Being Verified " i'll update whether this gets accepted to canceled since prices are back up to their original prices.

[yomammary]

Everything went smoothly here, I paid the discounted amount (it shows up on my credit card) and I ordered the TKL.
So we'll see!

[berserkfan]

OK, what else is a good deal? I'm waiting for people to post here. I personally don't have any mechanical keyboard thing that I really want anymore that is produced in China.

[welsinki]

 

[minh278]

I bought the full and tkl version for discounted price. You had to wait for them to update the price as i had your problem but i just kept refreshing.

[yomammary]

I received a notification that the payment was succesfully made.

[minh278]

I have also received a notification of payment. I am hoping like crazy that the seller wont cancel on us, there has been talk on Reddit that the seller might have made a mistake with his 99% off. From reddit there is also belief that the mechanical switches are possibly legit cherries.

[berserkfan]

If I was the seller I would cancel and apologize. 99% off is seriously too big a mistake. I'm not wishing anyone who bought ill; I just don't want to be reading about disputes and filing complaints and all kinds of bad stuff in a few months time. The emotional energy involved in disputes is not worth the time.

[fanpeople]

If I was the seller I would cancel and apologize. 99% off is seriously too big a mistake. I'm not wishing anyone who bought ill; I just don't want to be reading about disputes and filing complaints and all kinds of bad stuff in a few months time. The emotional energy involved in disputes is not worth the time.

I sent some inquires about having the difference between the sale and normal price being refunded and got no response. Decided to just request cancellation, 30 seconds later seller accepts. At least get my $120 back now. Its a shame because I only jumped on this for a dirt cheap board for gaming (I hate thrashing my SSK) and it appeared perfect. I don't want to spend much for a gaming board because it is only a small part of my overall computer use. Hopefully other people get the deal honoured as it would be a good score if the cherry switches turn out to be legitimate.

tl;dr getting money back after screw-up (either system or personal) 

[berserkfan]

I sent some inquires about having the difference between the sale and normal price being refunded and got no response. Decided to just request cancellation, 30 seconds later seller accepts. At least get my $120 back now.
tl;dr getting money back after screw-up (either system or personal) 

Well that's reality for you. Seller will always act in his best interests. That 99% discount, I don't know if it was true or not and won't know until at least a few weeks from now.

You did the right thing in getting your money back. If seller'd failed to honor a 10% discount credit card companies will take your side. If you filed a claim saying seller promised a 99% discount, I seriously don't think the credit card company would have taken you seriously unless you had good quality screenshots and saved files of every step of the buying process to show that it was not just a single mistranslation or typo.

But are you sure that the $120 price never appeared at any step of your buying? Sounds too scary. I'd hate to buy from Aliexpress (never done that before) at a certain discounted website price, only to find at the last minute that my credit card is being charged a different (far higher) amount!!

[fanpeople]

I sent some inquires about having the difference between the sale and normal price being refunded and got no response. Decided to just request cancellation, 30 seconds later seller accepts. At least get my $120 back now.
tl;dr getting money back after screw-up (either system or personal) 

Well that's reality for you. Seller will always act in his best interests. That 99% discount, I don't know if it was true or not and won't know until at least a few weeks from now.

You did the right thing in getting your money back. If seller'd failed to honor a 10% discount credit card companies will take your side. If you filed a claim saying seller promised a 99% discount, I seriously don't think the credit card company would have taken you seriously unless you had good quality screenshots and saved files of every step of the buying process to show that it was not just a single mistranslation or typo.

But are you sure that the $120 price never appeared at any step of your buying? Sounds too scary. I'd hate to buy from Aliexpress (never done that before) at a certain discounted website price, only to find at the last minute that my credit card is being charged a different (far higher) amount!!

Well that is the thing, I am in no way a noob when it comes to buying stuff off the internet. I waited for the deal to read the discounted price, added it to cart. I then checked the cart that it had the discounted price before taking the next step. I don't know if I missed something on the credit card processing part (it is possible). it shocked me too because I didn't think it was possible for it to stuff up, if freaks me out also. This makes me think that there must have been human error on my part. But my card payment reads after the start of the discount time and I was sure to check the price at checkout so, I am leaning towards disconnect somewhere in the system (most people will read and and go yeah nah your an idiot you screwed it somewhere and this is really the logical answer).

So I am thinking I may have missed something, but I did check the details at the checkout. 

[berserkfan]

OK, if you read details all the way, does it mean that ONLY AFTER the whole thing was concluded, did you see that higher price of $120? When did you start seeing that price? Or was it afterwards when your credit card company sent an email saying a $120 payment had been made (Singapore banks sometimes do that with their credit cards)? I'm trying to figure these things out. If Aliexpress is bad at protecting customers from (sometimes these are genuine mistakes), then I want to be careful about doing business with them going forward.

[REVENGE]

Probably just a price mistake with the Singles' Day (11/11) discounts.

[fanpeople]

OK, if you read details all the way, does it mean that ONLY AFTER the whole thing was concluded, did you see that higher price of $120? When did you start seeing that price? Or was it afterwards when your credit card company sent an email saying a $120 payment had been made (Singapore banks sometimes do that with their credit cards)? I'm trying to figure these things out. If Aliexpress is bad at protecting customers from (sometimes these are genuine mistakes), then I want to be careful about doing business with them going forward.

I found out it was about 120 after I had paid. I think it came up with your payment of 120 has been successful. I don't recall seeing the price in the card payment area (which was separate to the checkout) so it is possible that it was displayed there somewhere and I missed it. I had never used Aliexpress until then but it appears to be a pretty solid organisation (from what I read in reviews etc. I would personally trust them, unless anyone else has had troubles?

[berserkfan]

I found out it was about 120 after I had paid. I think it came up with your payment of 120 has been successful. I don't recall seeing the price in the card payment area (which was separate to the checkout)

This is exactly what I didn't want to hear. It may still be possible that you were careless and didn't notice the proper price. But I'd say that the difference is very significant and even a casual glance would have alerted you, if the undiscounted price was displayed anywhere at all. There may have been some timing difference between the computers in Alipay/ Aliexpress that resulted in you being charged the undiscounted price.

That doesn't bode well for doing business with Aliexpress. Never mind, I'll let the rest of the world be my guinea pigs for them to perfect their system. By the time all kinks are worked out 2 years from now, I'll be happily shopping on them for everything and no more scummy Singapore retailers to deal with!

[Evo_Spec]

So just to list a couple things, at my last job a ton of people regularly purchased from AliEx on a weekly basis and have always been fine besides the long shipping time which is understandable since it's from China, i've also purchased from Ali before for some super cheap item (don't remember now) and it worked out fine as well. 

Now for the rest, i was one of the people who successfully went through the purchase at the 99% off rate and my order status went from "verifying" to "awaiting shipment" so i'm regularly checking my statement and a payment for the proper amount was charged to my card on the 11th and nothing since and i'm now still waiting for shipment (if it even happens)

I'm really not getting my hopes up for this as i also think this was some sort of human error but i can at least try and so far besides processing time everything seems okay and i will keep this thread updated with my status.

If anyone has questions feel free to ask me.

[berserkfan]

Now for the rest, i was one of the people who successfully went through the purchase at the 99% off rate and my order status went from "verifying" to "awaiting shipment" so i'm regularly checking my statement and a payment for the proper amount was charged to my card on the 11th and nothing since and i'm now still waiting for shipment (if it even happens)

I'm really not getting my hopes up for this as i also think this was some sort of human error but i can at least try and so far besides processing time everything seems okay and i will keep this thread updated with my status.

If anyone has questions feel free to ask me.

SO you got some kind of report along the way that they were about to ship? You got an e-receipt of some sort for the payment you made. There is accountability going on?

I've actually tried buying from Aliexpress a while ago before but payment didn't seem to go through and I lost interest. They never sent any email but my credit card was not charged.

[Evo_Spec]

Like this?




You have to remember that a lot of their system is probably automated so once it verifies the payment i probably automatically switches the status to "awaiting shipment" that doesn't mean he for sure is going to send it out. if i get a shipment update i'll post that too, if not i'll post that it was canceled or something.

[yomammary]

I just got an email saying my order has been shipped.

[NeoNoeN]

I just got an email saying my order has been shipped.

Could I get a pic? Not that I don't trust you but I'd like a bit of verification.

[yomammary]

[kaotikb]

Show Image

That is good news. Still waiting for my order to ship

[orbitsjupiter]

My order has also shipped! I didn't think it would at all. Super happy about it!

[kaotikb]

Well now it's marked as shipped. Awesome

[berserkfan]

I am v happy for everyone. Looks like Amazon has some serious competition!

(You can always see how competitive Chinese businesses are by the level of rhetoric the US uses.)

[dorkvader]

I am v happy for everyone. Looks like Amazon has some serious competition!

(You can always see how competitive Chinese businesses are by the level of rhetoric the US uses.)

Yes, I expected them to ship. Aliexpress (part of the alibaba group) is an excellent e-tailer. If I buy stuff form china, I get it from them instead of eBay. I also ignore Amazon for pretty much everything.

I have some friends that have ordered from aliexpress and had a good experience every time. Both my orders went well.

[Evo_Spec]

i'm curious if maybe these were slightly subsidized by AliExpress to help promote their site and bring more people to buy from Ali.

[berserkfan]

I also ignore Amazon for pretty much everything.

No wonder the US has been acting up in the Pacific recently. American businesses are not happy, and they're letting their political arm (a shady organization called the House of Representatives) take action.

When the American individual fought for taxation with representation, he probably had no clue that in a few hundred years companies would be individuals, taxation of human individuals would take place, and representation of corporate individuals would be the order of the day.

[Sniping]

I wished I looked through the seller's page more thoroughly beforehand; they were selling external hard drives for dirt cheap.

[NeoNoeN]

I'm pretty sure everything they had was 99% off, like there were $4000 chandeliers 99% off or something (Not 100% sure about this since I just heard it on reddit, haven't got anything to back the chandelier claim but for everything being 99% off I'm pretty certain)

[Sniping]

I'm pretty sure everything they had was 99% off, like there were $4000 chandeliers 99% off or something (Not 100% sure about this since I just heard it on reddit, haven't got anything to back the chandelier claim but for everything being 99% off I'm pretty certain)

Yeah, but most of the stuff is too cheap to be worth it after the shipping cost.

I didn't realize it at the time, but they were selling $1000 pu-erh cakes, which comes to $10+$5 shipping. The chandelier is interesting, but shipping cost makes it a costly paperweight, unless you happen to be in the market for one

[nubbinator]

Damn, I wish I had seen those Pu-erh cakes.  That would have been killer.

[Evo_Spec]

So in case everyone isn't up to date on what's going on with this on the reddit side of things. 
Apparently someone had their order canceled for their single keyboard order and now the seller has seemed to have deleted their Ali account.
When you try to access their store page you're greeted with "Sorry, your search 'Langui Li' did not match any products. Please try again." and when you try to view the current product page you're met with a 404 error.

Here's the links to the snapshot for anyone wanting to try for themselves
TKL
http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6326763499.html
Fullsize
http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6326763502.html

I'm going to attempt to contact someone from Ali instead of the seller (since i can't now) and see what's going on.

[berserkfan]

So in case everyone isn't up to date on what's going on with this on the reddit side of things. 
Apparently someone had their order canceled for their single keyboard order and now the seller has seemed to have deleted their Ali account.
When you try to access their store page you're greeted with "Sorry, your search 'Langui Li' did not match any products. Please try again." and when you try to view the current product page you're met with a 404 error.

Here's the links to the snapshot for anyone wanting to try for themselves
TKL
http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6326763499.html
Fullsize
http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6326763502.html

I'm going to attempt to contact someone from Ali instead of the seller (since i can't now) and see what's going on.

I don't quite understand why this is going on.

Ali holds payments in escrow, so not as if seller can hope to make a pile from selling things for nothing and cheating you on the shipping. (EG 100000 items at $10 shipping each adds up to a nice income for a scammer but Ali will never let that happen.)

If they made a mistake offering things at 99% off it is only too easy for them to cancel the order later and decline to send you stuff at a big loss.

So what does seller hope to gain from this? Except he will never be able to open a shop with Ali again, and probably has taken a permanent rep hit. If he merely cancelled orders with an apology he won't be in any trouble.

I also find it hard to believe that they 'shipped' stuff to some people and then cancelled their account/ closed their shop. It is bizarre. Don't tell me they shipped garbage? If they shipped legit stuff, they are a legit business, so why close the webpage? Not as if most buyers will not be understanding if they were only able to ship a few and had to cancel orders for the rest; 99% off is not a sound business strategy and can always be blamed on fat fingers keying in wrong numbers eg 11% off not 99% off, errant employee, computer glitch.

Oh well, as my cynical instinct suggested, it was indeed too good to be true.

[kaotikb]

I don't think they shipped anything. I checked the tracking number and it says not found on the china post website.

[berserkfan]

This is really important now. I want to see how Ali handles a cheating/ nonperforming seller. It's the most important thing to me - whether they can be trusted to protect the buyer. Since seller has closed his Ali account it should be obvious to Ali management that seller is not intending on performing anymore, and they should refund quickly. If Geekhackers are forced to go through months of appeals and paperwork, that is not a good sign.

If Ali does a good job, no more buying in Singapore for me! I am tired of the Singapore government protecting the scammers/ shady businesses in this country.

[dorkvader]

It looks like this was a pricing mistake and the vendor has taken (rather extreme) steps. I fully expect aliexpress to refund everyone.

I think if you go into your account order history you can request something, but I'm not 100% sure.

I'm also watching this. It's when things go wrong that the measure of a retailer is found.

[Evo_Spec]

Update on reddit from /u/Xinexz (not me cause i forgot to do it lol) http://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/2mk5at/update_on_uber_cheap_aliexpress_keyboard_seller/

[berserkfan]

I'm also watching this. It's when things go wrong that the measure of a retailer is found.

Extremely true. Buyers should not have to spend the next few months jumping through bureaucratic hoops to get their money back.

[fanpeople]

On the up side, I got my refund and I made $0.61 AUD. Thank you exchange rate. 

[welsinki]