AliExpress cash back denied even though Rakuten was clearly active. Has anyone dealt with this?

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to share my experience and see if anyone else’s been through something similar (and actually got it resolved).

Back on August 18, 2025, I bought a 3D printer on AliExpress for about $350.
Before checking out, I clicked through Rakuten, and I even got the banner that said “25% Cash Back Now Active” — the Shopping Trip ID was #60229920774. I have a screenshot of that.

Same day, my browser history shows:

-Activating Cash Back

-Payment – AliExpress

-Please Confirm Your Order – AliExpress

All in sequence, same session.

So it’s pretty obvious I did everything right.

I sent all this to Rakuten (screenshots, receipts, everything). After weeks of waiting, they replied saying AliExpress hasn’t paid them a commission yet**,** and that means there’s “no funds to pass along.” Basically, even though I followed the process perfectly, they can’t credit me unless AliExpress decides to pay them.

I get how their affiliate system works, but that seems kinda unfair when the user can literally prove they shopped correctly through Rakuten. Their help pages even say to reach out if you believe you should’ve earned cash back — which I clearly should have.

Has anyone successfully gotten Rakuten to manually credit your account or escalate to their affiliate team in cases like this?
How did you get it resolved?

Appreciate any advice or similar experiences.