FREIGHT FORWARDING SCAM CDT LOGISTICS. BE AWARE
TLDR- Freight forwarder scammed us $1100 AUD to have our stock released after trying to force us to pay outside of ali baba.
Hi we got scammed this week by a freighr forwarder in china CDT Logistics Shenzen and I am sharing this so everyone else is aware of it and dont make our mistake.
They picked up 50k worth of stock from our supplier and once they had it sent me an invoice to pay via bank transfer outside of Ali baba (bypassing the 5% fee they need to pay and removing all trade assurance for us). We actively declined and advised we will only be paying via the ali baba platform as this protects us if anything goes wrong but unfortunantly they wouldnt budge. They advised they wouldnt release our goods until we paid via bank transfer or we could have another freighr forwarder come and collect the goods but pay them $1100 AUD pick up fee for what they were claiming is it cost them to collect it from my supplier (also based on china so this was just extortion). I also threatend to leave 1 star reviews on all my previous orders with them because of this and because I "Threatended them with this' they forced me to request a refund of those orders and have my new freight forwarder reimburse them the same amount in cash when they picked it up. This removes my ability to leave a review or do a charge back on my credit card.
We raised a dispute through ali baba for a supplier who was trying to force us to pay outside of the platform but its been 4 days and I still havent heard anything from them and from what ive read ali baba cant do alot to help and generally side with the suppliers anyway. I didnt have anymore time to wait so we ended up just paying it as we need this stock urgently.
DO NOT GO WITH CDT Logistics Shenzen absolute criminals.