your guide to fake chinese sellers

Generally these websites can be lacking in quality and professionalism. Certainly you should expect a far greater quality website especially when they express they are such a large and successful wholesaler. You might see a PayPal image, but the websites Payment options make no mention of PayPal.

People who have English as a second language may only a rudimentary grasp of the language. They copy impressive-sounding pieces of text into their site, with little or no knowledge of what the words mean. A professional business would not allow such errors to appear on what is essentially their store front.

Cell phones are completely anonymous, which is obviously useful to someone doing illegal acts who doesn't want to be identified. Many scammers use cell phones or redirection service and can pretend that they are in any location, or part of a larger company when they are sitting in their parents basement.

There is no such thing as cheap branded electronics, clothing, or other such products sold from minor websites from China, but there are hundreds of scam sites feeding off this dumb myth. Companies who produce the product are bound by agreements with the brand owner and are not allowed to sell the products to just anybody. Brand owners, in turn have their own authorised distribution networks.

Many of these will also scam you, sometimes only depending on which salesperson you are talking to. These companies are operating outside of the law already so they have little incentive to actually deliver anything, and frankly it's a lot easier to just scam people.

If it's too good to be true, then it probably is. Check prices against well known local reatailers in your own country. e.g. Amazon

EBay and other auction site users are a great target for scammers, as they believe they will be able to make large amounts of money peddling the junk on the site and not having a real job

All these sites have some sort of paid members who are verified in various ways. For your own safety you should not assume that this means anything at all. Many sellers (including the fraudsters) have a "Gold Supplier" Seal or something similar that is being obtained by the trading site. These "shiny" seals are more or less worthless though and prove nothing

What is the website name? How does it lend itself towards the company? Often these websites are just junk phrases like shoe776539.com, or they use brand names in the website name as an attempt to impress. Domain names like googlenike.com are simply illegal as these are names are copyright-protected.

A great deal of these scams began to surface in early 2006, and due to slow Chinese authorities many of the websites are still running. You should compare the dates in the WhoIs results against the dates on the website itself, as often dodgy sites claim they have been in business much longer than they actually have, or they claim to have thousands of customers even though the website might only be very new.

If a scam website does get shutdown it is easy for the scammer to setup another, as a result, new websites are appearing all the time. You should compare the dates in the WhoIs results against the dates on the website itself, as often dodgy sites claim they have been in business much longer than they actually have, or they claim to have thousands of customers even though the website might only be very new.

The scammers are often too cheap to register the website for more than a year at a time knowing it could be shutdown at any time. You should compare the dates in the WhoIs results against the dates on the website itself, as often dodgy sites claim they have been in business much longer than they actually have, or they claim to have thousands of customers even though the website might only be very new.

If the address is lacking you should be suspicious. Often they only give a name and a postcode. You need to ask yourself if you trust someone who intentionally hides information

Fake phone numbers are a dead giveaway, there is simply no excuse for fake information

Free email services while convenient are also easily abused. Reliable and honest internet companies should not use free services for email. Hotmail, MSN, Yahoo, Gmail, should all be warning signs if they use that for their points of contact.

Credit Cards are one of the best means to purchase for the buyer, as they often provide protection. Do not pay by Credit Card if you are paying into someone's bank account or purchasing a Money Order. This is treated as a Cash Advance from your Credit Card, which means that the funds sent to the account are sent as cleared funds which are unable to be stopped, as a result you are not protected.

Saying they accept Credit Cards but only for local purchases is a way of pretending to accept Credit Cards, since they are only targeting foreign victims.

Western Union is being used because it's totally anonymous and there's no way to recover the losses. Western Union itself has a warning on their website that their service should only be used to send money to someone you know

When you use a Credit Card to pay in this manner you cannot reverse the charge as it is treated as a Cash Advance

You do not have to pay any money for the goods to leave the country. They are simply fleecing you for more money

Paying by an unsecure means offers you no recourse or protection if anything goes wrong, which is exactly what the scammers want

Fake shipping numbers are used to distract you and allow the scammer more time to make more excuses why your delivery has not arrived. They will even supply tracking numbers from previous clients (victims), some of whom were actually sent empty boxes.

Scammers create fake documents using programs like Photoshop or MS Word. These look artificial... there are no creases or shadows as would be present in a scan of a real document. They also doctor passport images. Again, different fonts or colours can be seen in these fake images

Many anti-scam sites keep forums where common scam websites are discussed. So doing a Google search for keywords in the website (e.g. the person's name, the name of the company, or even the events described) will often find a historic record for you to look view

Here you can confirm the validity, and if the company is legally registered. You can also check if it has certificates for foreign trade. If the company you check turns out to be illegal or fraudulent, then the local relevant authorities will take action to terminate it

It is common for the sellers to mislead over the quality if the items. They will use terms such as A++++ quality, or high grade, high quality etc...

It's difficult for scammers to use services like PayPal and they often make excuses why they cannot accept this method

Once a scammer gets your money they have no reason to have any further communication with you

In the real world competitors do not blackmail each other

Trying to encourage you to increase your order size can be a risk, and the scammer attempted to take more money from you

Many of these scams orginate in China, where corruption and disinterested Law Enforcement means that fraudsters are unlikely to be prosecuted