It’s an honest mistake.Yup this newbie was quite gullible.
If possible though, could you share the name of the seller on alibaba and the phone number you were in contact with?
It’s not an uncommon scam for someone to pose as a representative of a company, or even making an alibaba account with a similar name.
As a vendor myself, I find precision be be very important - since it takes very little for us to lose credibility in this messy market