I just find it fascinating that you are adding a video reviewer as part of your whole problem. You feel because of him you are in this painful situation because his advise made you buy the wheelset.
Take ownership for pulling the trigger after your research on the internet. Period.
Content owner on the internet can do whatever they want with their content comment section on the internet.

I find it fascinating that you think I feel because of him I am in this situation. Once again I have never said that you did. His advise from his video helped me make the decision to buy not made me Jesus dude. I was posting here to let other folks know about his actions, Elite Wheels, Aliexpress, and most importantly Paypal.  You just have to interject yourself into this thread with your delusional thoughts on what you think I am implying or saying. Obviously we are not going to agree as your reading comprehension is pretty poor. You are offering nothing in this thread. Trace Velo does no wrong in your eyes I get it. Move along dude.

I purchased using PayPal paid via my Visa card and I am glad I did. I literally just got off the phone with a Paypal supervisor today about my claim who stated despite how stupid it sounds customer must pay return shipping on damaged goods in a dispute if the Seller requests it. That is the new policy he said. Aliexpress requests the item be sent back for a full refund. I just started chargeback with my Visa card today on this case as I am not paying to return damaged goods back to China just to be thrown in the trash. It's spiteful and poor business practice along with a waste of money. That's if it even makes it to where it's supposed to go as if you look into reddit on Aliexpress they say to NEVER return items to Aliexpress as it is a very low chance for it to get where it's supposed to.

This whole post was simply for a heads up for other people. I stated facts from my situation in hopes to help other.

Fact - Trace Velo will delete negative experience comments about the company/Aliexpress on his videos. Take that as you will.
Fact - Elite Wheels on Aliexpress will not stand behind any shipping issues or damage and instead refer you to Aliexpress.
Fact - Aliexpress will low ball offer you or offer a full refund if you pay to ship the damaged item back in hopes you go away resulting in you making a claim else where to get your money back if you have that option.
Fact - Paypal will now make you pay for return shipping if the Seller wants the damaged items back in a dispute. I was told this today by a supervisor over the phone.

Biggest fact I can give the community here is at this point in time is if you use Paypal on Aliexpress or any where else at this time be prepared to cover the return cost to China or else where on items damaged during shipping if Paypal is your only way to dispute and the Seller request the damaged goods back. Paypal told me that they can not and will not force them to provide a label.

Most of us ended up in this forum because we started our journey watching Trace Velo and hence built our first bike ourselves and saved a lot of money in the process.
Lots of people here also at one point or the other had issues with dealers. This has nothing to do with whichever youtube reviewers we watched before pulling the trigger.

Just because you had a bad experience with a dealer he reviewed doesn't mean you should come here and run him under the bus.

However, I do sympathize with you on the terrible situation which I feel you should take up with EliteWheels and probably Aliexpress.

Maybe you should make your own YouTube video about the situation and put all the keywords that will direct even more traffic, visibility and awareness to your issue with EliteWheels and Aliexpress.

Try doing something positive for the community first before throwing a major contributor of the community under the bus just because of your one bad issue out of many other successful customers.

In addition, just like Velobuild once did regarding issues with their services, It will be good if Elite Wheels or even Trace Velo can comment on this issue since both have lots of customers and followers here respectively. Always the best to hear from both sides before throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I posted my comment I made that he has erased twice off the video as you requested above. I will address the rest of your post here.

TraceVelo was definitely one of the reasons I found this forum. He was also the reason I made said purchase from Elite Wheels on Aliexpress as he made the video of a 2 year review on said product which he purchased from Elite Wheels on Aliexpress singing their praises. He also made it clear in that video he used his own money and was a customer like the rest of us non youtubers i.e. has no vested interest in protecting Elite Wheel or Aliexpress or so he implied on said product. I came here to post my experience with said vendors he took the time to promote and make a video on along with my experience of making a comment sharing my horrible experience on the same video he promotes them encouraging us to purchase said items that he deleted twice.

Suggesting I make a youtube video on this may be your solution but not mine. Most normal everyday people don't know what it takes to make said video, do ad sense and keywords, etc. to promote the video. You suggesting it is ludicrous. I felt posting my experience on the said youtube video in the comments would be more helpful as I read through most those comments and there was not any blatant red flag comments with reasons not to take Trace's review at face value and make the purchase. Now I know why. I trust this forum's content more than anything else so I felt coming here and posting my experience would be the next step in helping people. I am sorry you don't feel that way and think I am trying to "throw a major contributor of the community under the bus". I would say I am most likely not the only negative comment on products and companies he does videos on that he has deleted. Maybe people should question just how major of a contributor he is with him deleting comments such as mine. That just makes him a salesman at this point and not an honest one. I would have never known about Elite Wheels ENT model on Aliexpress if it wasn't for Trace Velo. They don't sell them on their own website only Aliexpress.
 
I have taken it up with Aliexpress and Elite Wheels. Both have thrown me under the bus. I explained that above but you must have not read through my comments as you were in such a hurry to get on here and defend Trace Velo and try to discredit me. Paypal will now also side with Aliexpress or any other vendor for that matter as of 27NOV2022 as they now make the customer pay for any and all return shipping in claims/disputes despite damage/poor packaging etc. It's not past 27NOV2022 yet you say! Yea I did too. Paypal out of the kindness of their heart has already started using that policy for Sellers. That's pretty helpful information for folks buying bike products off of Aliexpress to know that use paypal. I wonder where I could meet and discuss said products and vendors off of Aliexpress and from China with other like minded people without making a Youtube video?

If me making this post saves one person the trouble I have gone through it will have been worth it. There is a reply in this thread stating don't buy wheels or frames from Aliexpress but go direct. That is the exact opposite of what Trace Velo is promoting in some of his videos. Trace reaches a lot more people than this forum does so shame on him for censoring comments and shame on you for acting like I am the bad guy for posting my experience with all the involved.

He did help get me into Chinese parts so I will give him that positive. Best thing I have going for me is finding this forum.

Haven't gotten my money back yet... The wheels are shot. They are bent pretty bad. My comment was letting others know Elite Wheels will simply wipe their hands with a customer after they send the product on Aliexpress when it comes to shipping damage and how Aliexpress will try and rip you off on a low ball compensation offer. That is on his video of the ENT Elite Wheels on Aliexpress which are the the exact ones I followed his advice on and purchased. Nothing more nothing less. I'm just the random average person he is making videos for and wanted to share my bad experience on the exact product he's making a video on that helped make my decision to spend my hard earned money on it. He comes off as he is trying to help the community and deleting comments such as mine is sheltering poor practices from both Elite Wheels and Aliexpress on the exact products he's promoting as a "non sponsor" knowing darn well what he is saying is helping drive people to buy said items.

As for the frame I am really interested in the Carbonda CFR1056. Being new to cycling I have a local bike shop here that I met the owner on one of our local trails. Really nice guy and have done some group rides with him. I'm on a Trek FX2 and looking to get into a drop bar endurance road bike which he is a Marin, Fuji, and Cervelo dealer and has given me some options/pricing. He has stressed to me that the last few Chinese carbon frames he has worked on for customers have been so bad that he will not put them together for customers anymore. He is willing to take a brand new Marin Gestalt 1 and strip it down and sell me the frame so I can build it with what I want for about the same money the Carbonda CFR1056 cost me to get to the States. That frame would be aluminum and have a lifetime warranty. Geometry is close to the Carbonda CFR1056.

The damage from shipping is unfortunate but how it was handled help reinforce how difficult it is to deal with Chinese companies on items with issues. My local bike shop guy isn't pushy or trying to just get a sale but was more concerned for my safety and ending up with a problem bike. That also is making it hard for me to take the risk on spending close to 1k on a Chinese carbon frame to my door.  I've seen several posts on here about Carbonda being one of the better Chinese companies which is great but just as you said you had great experiences with Elite Wheels directly on their site and they dropped the ball and left me out to dry on Aliexpress.

Been lurking here for several months as I am a new cyclist with sticker shock on carbon road bikes here in the US which led me down the rabbit hole of Chinese frames and building my own. Finding this forum and seeing several channels on Youtube that are dedicated to the Chinese parts I want to give it a try on building my own. I have been making some purchases and starting to gather parts. Having watched Trace Velo on Youtube I purchased off Aliexpress the Sensah team pro shifters to be used witha Shimano 105 groupset along with some Junitech f1 brakes. It's taken a turn for the worse with the Elite Wheels purchase he recommends.

On his videos he claims he's not sponsored by these companies and he gives his "truthful" reviews. Looked legitimate to me as I have seen some of his videos he did give negatives on some of the Chinese products. With the Elite Wheels ENT set getting solid reviews by him and people in his video's comment section I gave them a look on Aliexpress. They had hundreds of good reviews so I went ahead and made an order with upgraded xray spokes for a total of $500. Fast forward months later the mangled Elite Wheel box showed up on my porch. The hubs were sticking out of the box on both sides. I opened it up to find many broken spokes and some badly damaged wheels. Needless to say they were paper weights at that point. Contacted Elite Wheels through Aliexpress and they said Aliexpress is responsible for all shipping so start a dispute. Once the dispute was started Elite Wheel denied the claim so it went to Aliexpress for decision. Aliexpress offered $100 refund. Of course this was not acceptable so at this point I started a chargeback through paypal. Come to find out Aliexpress bans you for this.

So with this bad experience going down I left a comment on Trace Velo's video on these wheels kinda as a heads up to potential buyers. That was yesterday. I woke up this morning and checked to see if I needed to reply to anyone and to my surprise the comment had been deleted. I posted another comment and added that I am going to post on here to let people know Trace Velo is deleting negative comments on these Chinese companies that he is supposedly not sponsored by. It was deleted in less than 2 minutes. Now I am not the brightest bulb in the pack but for a person to claim they are giving honest reviews and are not sponsored by the company to turn around and have a negative comment deleted in less than 2 minutes speaks volumes to me. With the above said I do have a screen shot of what I posted. I can post it if that would help. I am more concerned with people knowing which youtubers and forums are legitimate advice to listen to and spend their hard earned money accordingly and who is just making content to make money off people.

Needless to say I am still in need of wheels. I am wanting 700c 50mm deep by 25mm wide carbon wheels. It looks like I most likely will have several xray spokes after the Elite Wheel fiasco so I am not afraid to purchase more spokes and hubs to put something together. What are some recommended brands to go with for wheels? What places are legitimate to purchase from? I am also very interested in the Carbonda CFR1056 frame. Is that frame worth buying over a good aluminum frame with a lifetime warranty stateside for about the same price?

Wish my first post here was more positive but if my situation can help save just one person the headache I went through it was worth it.

Thanks,
Kyle