More Anti-Scam Tips

Further Tips On Dealing With China

Here are a few extra notes on safely sourcing products in China, from the Your China Trading Partner blog. 

Learn what you can from your prospective supplier's website, or lack thereof.

Web Presence

Firstly, if they don't have their own website, drop them like a hot rock. That includes those "companies" in possession of the rubbish little "pages" on Alibaba, etc. 

No Domain - No Hope! 

Although, personally I do know of companies in China who are real, but their marketing sucks so badly they haven't managed to organise a web presence. 

However, I'm a graduate of the 'better-safe-than-sorry' school, when it comes to this particular aspect of doing business in China. If your prospective "supplier" owns a website, then check that the area code, given in the contact section, matches the postcode, or town or city name, given in the address. 

You can check postcodes here. 

If they don't match, drop them like a hot rock. 

The following mobile telephone prefixes will allow you to determine which mobile telephone network is being used by your "supplier", in case you need to connect with the service provider, to check if the number is still working, when calls fail to be answered  by the person you've gone sent your money to, whilst failing to perform any of the checks given here. 

The service provider name follows the prefix number:

130/1/2 . - China Unicom, 133 . – China Telecom , 1340 -1348 – China Mobile, 1349. – ChinaSat, 135/6/7/8/9. - China Mobile, 150. – China Mobile, 151. – China Mobile, 152. - China Mobile, 153. -China Telecom, 155. – China Unicom, 156. – China Unicom, 157. – China Mobile, 158. -China Mobile, 159. – China Mobile, 185. - China Unicom, 186. – China Unicom, 188. – China Mobile, 189. – China Telecom. 

You can visit this very nice page on WikiPedia for a more complete listing of area codes by major municipality and province.  

If they don't have an address on their contact page, forget them. 

After all, if they aren't willing to disclose their address, then you must ask yourself a one word question – "Why?".

On The Subject Of Addresses

My business is registered in a residential property, as we are a Small Office Home Office (SOHO), as we neither manufacture, store, stock, and we very rarely have business visitors; due to the fact we supply nothing more than 'information', we go out to visit Chinese companies, and our foreign clients are just that – foreign, and live abroad, and so we needn't waste money on having an actual office. 

My computer is my office. 

However, someone claiming to manufacture, stock, or supply must have an office, for the same reasons I don’t need one. An office will normally be in a building with a name, for example: Room 602, Floor 5, Great Dragon Bldg., Haidian District, Beijing. 

Whilst a SOHO, like us, will run as above, but minus the building name, and is indicative of a residential area.

About Us

If they haven't included and about us page in their website, or it is very sparse, then drop them. Obviously, if they have little to say about themselves, there's a reason.

Google Them

The next thing to do is Google their company name + scam, and also their company URL + scam. 

That alone should give enough of a heads-up on who you're dealing with.

Mono-Lingual Websites

Finally, as mentioned in my previous article Quick Checklist For How To Spot A Chinese Scam Site, if the website is devoid of Chinese, and only has an English language page, the chances are they're scammers. 

Well, that's it for today.  

Trade Safely!