I've had a horrible experience with a purchase on AliExpres. It shoed up several aspects - the bad attitude of the seller, ignorance of the AliExpress customer support and an awful state of the AliExpress customer support system itself. Those who don't want to read long text can find the decision here: I recommend to be very careful when deciding to buy anything more or less expensive on AliExpress. In case of a problem, you cannot expect any reasonable response for the seller, any estimation of the situation by AliExpres and making any fair decision. You will have to be ready to spend many chat sessions on customer support without any result. Let's go by points: 1. I live in Norway, and this country requires paying customs tax when an item crosses the state border. AliExpress became a member of the VOEC (VAT On E-Commerce) agreement and, as such, takes VAT itself which removes the need to pay VAT to the national customs authorities. I bought a thing on AliExpress. The seller forgot to specify the VOEC number on the parcel. The parcel came to my post office, and when I came to pick it up, I was told I must pay VAT + clearance fee. Why? Because the VOEC number is missing on the parcel, which means for them that I did not pay VAT to AliExpress, even though I did it. 2. I contacted the seller. He refused to propose a solution. 3. I contacted AliExpress customer support on chat. The agent responded "No problem. Just pay the claimed amount. You will provide the receipt, and AliExpress will refund your expenses.". Looks good, right? 4. I paid the claimed amount, which was three times higher than the paid VAT because of the clearance fee. 5. I contacted AliExpress customer support via chat and requested to open a refund case. I provided all the documentation required, including the claim to pay and the receipt for the payment. 6. Here comes the challenging point. I did not get any response. It is impossible to communicate with the case handler directly. It is always done via chat and customer support agent. He/she always opens A NEW CASE for your new contact. Everything that was done before gets lost. I contacted customer support six times. The problem was never solved. I had to deliver the same documents for my expenses repeatedly, again and again. 7. On the seventh contact, a case was opened and handled. As a result, I've got a refund of the VAT amount paid to AliExpress BUT not the amount I paid to the local customs, which was three times higher. 8. I contacted customer support again and wrote that it was the wrong refund amount because I would not pay anything to local customs if the seller specified the VOEC number on the package. A new case was created, and some days later, I got a response that I had already received the refund that they did before and that it was a final decision. The bottom line: I paid double VAT, my real problem was ignored by AliExpress customer support, I spent several hours trying to get the issue fixed, the seller was not responsible for the problem caused by him. I paid for his mistake, and AliExpress denied compensating for this. Is it fair? NO. Is it any significant amount of money for AliExpress to compensate the customer? NO. It is simply disrespecting the customer. Hence, I warn those who use AliExpress services that AliExpress disrespect us, buyers, and they never take responsibility for compensating expenses done by a buyer due to sellers' mistakes. In addition, AliExpress does not have any case handling system, which makes the whole negotiation process a nightmare. In comparison, these are issues that I never experienced buying on eBay. Here I can confirm that eBay always respects the buyer and always takes responsibility for any problems with the seller.