I hate scammers!
As if wholesaling wasn’t hard enough without these guys around trying to steal our money away. As these guys rely on the victims being too embarrassed to mention that they have been scammed I’d like to let people be aware of those I know about. These scams seem to pop up quite regularly.
1. THE (NOT SO) FREE MARKETING SERVICE.
The most common scam around is an offer for free marketing of a wholesalers trade fair booth, which deep down in the fine print is actually anything but free. Two companies are common exponents: Construct Data -The Fair guide (Austria/Rumania), or Commercial Online Manuals-www.expo-guide.com (Mexico) both send out forms that are made to look like a trade fair organisers documents. The mail says that because the wholesaler is participating in a trade show the wholesaler is eligible for some free marketing. They are asked to fill out their listing and sign the form.
The problem is way down on page 8 in a tiny font in legalese is a hard to read clause which says if you sign this you are required to pay a “membership fee” of around $998 US a year for three years and even then that membership can only be cancelled by sending in a registered mail to the organisers (who probably will never acknowledge the cancellation anyway and continue to charge).
These companies have no problem sending out threatening letters and make regular threatening phone calls to collect their scam money.
Scam.
2. THE ORDER THATS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.
Payless Store (Japan) sends out an emailed order from your website. They pay for a sized good order by credit card and ask you to pay for the freight with the shipping company they use (Global Shipping USA). They say that if successful this could be the start of something big, but because they have had trouble before you must use their shipping company.
The trouble with this one is that the credit card used is stolen. Under the (exceedingly lax in my opinion) Japanese laws, the public have months to report a stolen card. So you pay the freight fee and 6 to 10 weeks later the credit card payment is reversed. Leaving you out of pocket.
Once again a scam.
3. THE BANK ACCOUNT SWITCHEROO.
A Wholesaler gets an email from their supplier/agent using the suppliers/agents email address. The email shows detailed knowledge of the wholesalers latest order.
The email requests that for tax reasons the supplier/agent needs to change the bank account to which you pay for your order. ( this often happens legitimately in some countries such as China or Hong Kong where accounts with high balances are taxed at a higher rate. Suppliers often change accounts to avoid these taxes.
The problem is that scammer can quite easily hack into an email address and send emails pretending to be your supplier. The scammer can easily read your emails over a long period to gather information about your transactions and then strike. The new bank account is a temporary one belonging to the scammer .
Scam.
Here are a few other common scams that have been around forever:
4. THE SHORT CHANGE SCAM.
Overseas suppliers often “mistakenly” send less than they charge for. Or often make up numbers with items which were not ordered.
5. THE “IF YOU WANTED THAT QUALITY YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD US” SCAM.
6. THE CUSTOMS “HOLDING FEE” SCAM. So your fully processed air freight arrives in customs on Friday. Because customs are not open on the weekend the goods are held for longer than the 24 hour grace period. Thus you are charged a significant “holding fee” for customs holding the goods over the Sunday.
There are lots of scams around. Some I have not mentioned as I could get in trouble for even mentioning them. Have you heard of any other scams? The more we know about them the better.