Common scams in the foreign trade industry, foreign trade professionals should pay attention!

1、 Bait scam

Foreign trade scammers usually pretend to have many business needs, gradually gaining your trust through email or instant messaging tools, and then asking you to pay some fees in advance, such as translation fees, inspection fees, etc. Once you make the payment, they either disappear or make new demands until you realize it. For example, a Guangzhou businessman was approached by a representative of a South African company and was informed of an order for 500000 pieces of clothing, and was advised to pay a "service fee" of 00 to secure a contract opportunity. Actually, this is a typical bait scammer

2、 Empty handed trap of white wolf

Scammers exploit legal loopholes in certain countries to defraud imported goods through legitimate channels, resulting in non payment or underpayment of the goods. After the goods arrived at their destination, they managed to take possession of them. Even if the goods are not in their possession, it can create various obstacles that prevent you from retrieving them smoothly. For example, a Chinese company exported a batch of electronic products to a country in Eastern Europe. After the goods arrived at the destination, the importer invested in research and payment. The goods were auctioned off by the customs on the grounds of "unclaimed", and the importer bought them at a low price and resold them at a high price.

3、 Contract Trap

Scammers often use false information and incomplete contract terms to commit fraud. They will provide fake companies, fake addresses, fake supply and demand information, and set various change clauses and unreasonable requirements in the contract, such as changing the contract subject, transportation method, or payment method.

4、 Letter of Credit Trap

Letter of credit is a commonly used settlement method in international trade, but some non issuers may include "soft terms" in the letter of credit, which often make it difficult for the beneficiary to fulfill payment terms. Common soft terms include letters of credit that are temporarily not in effect, payment after inspection of goods upon arrival at port, etc

5、 Falsification of documents

Various documents in import and export trade are tools often used by scammers. They will forge customs declaration forms, foreign exchange receipts, contracts, bills of exchange, bills of lading and other documents, and even create fake documents through splicing, alteration and other means, so that banks can make unconditional payments based on the appearance of the documents, ultimately achieving the purpose of fraud

6、 Transportation trap

Scams in the transportation sector often hide the deepest. Scammers will take advantage of the complexity of the transportation process, collude with unscrupulous ship owners or agents to forge transport bills of lading, defraud domestic payments, and then flee. In addition, there are issues such as backdating bills of lading and advance borrowing bills of lading.

To prevent these foreign trade scams, companies need to be vigilant, strictly review cooperation partners and contract terms, familiarize themselves with foreign trade processes, and ensure that every link is effectively monitored.