this one happened to me last year around september/october
my brother and I were organising to ship a mixed 40 foot container of items from China to Trinidad for christmas
we each were shipping different items from different suppliers but were sending them to a warehouse to be consolidated
so i found out that the container would have a bit of extra space and decided that because christmas coming up, might as well bring some christmas lights
i looking on alibaba for suppliers brisk brisk, who could deliver within a week
found one with 99.9 % gold rating, factory established over 10 years, good reviews from independent review websites etc etc,i use google maps to see that a physical factory actually exist at that address etc, so i decide to go ahead
talking to supplier over the course of 2-3 days, they had what i wanted, price was $2,000 US,
a bank transfer takes 3-5 days and i didn't have that time so I wanted to pay with paypal, they said they don't accept paypal only bank transfer and they email me the bank transfer info
so i was looking for another supplier in the meantime because i wanted to pay with paypal and get it sent to the warehouse immediately, couldn't find anyone so went back to first supplier
now..sometime in that time period, the chinese go on holidays for 1 week, complete holidays, i think it was chinese national day or sum so
so i emailing back and forth with supplier from that time during the week, thinking it's normal for sellers to be replying from home etc (apparently its not)
and i confirm with her and tell her send me the invoice and ill do the bank transfer
she tell me i can pay with western union if i want to expedite things, i say no ill use bank transfer (safer in my opinion)
so she gimme bank info, i gone the same day and send the money because time counting down and all the goods hadda reach by the warehouse for a certain day
soo we told the warehouse to expect goods from 8 different suppliers and their company names etc
as far as i concerned, everything in order.
a week before shipment, warehouse email me and say that the 8th supplier (christmas lights) say how the order cancelled because i didn't pay
i thinking..what the firetruck?
email back supplier ask her what going on, she say she organising shipment
2 days later, she email and say the factory burn down and all the stock lost and when they rebuild they will reimburse me
i call the factory number from their website,end up getting through to the person i initially talked to, she tell me how she never hear back from me so didn't bother and her phone was stolen during the week they had holidays
i show her screen shots of emails between us...then she point out that
1) that is not her company banking info
2) it's not even a company banking info (in my hurry to send payment, i didn't even realize i was sending money to a PERSON, not a company name, which a big no-no. i was doing several wire transfers that day so i just print all and take them to the bank
3)the email address wasn't hers
the original supplier email address was
cnjiahoa1@163.comthe scammer email address was
cnjiahAO1@163.com
so i opened case with alibaba, they tell me it's my fault basically, hard luck
but i checked back my emails and initially only ever replied to emails from my supplier and then the scammer email me with the similar email address during negotiations and i just continue replying.
anyway, some of my other suppliers contact chinese police for me and the chinese police say I have to COME make a report in china.
i ask a padna from the bank about it, he say real plenty trinis get scammed in the week that china was on holidays and the most i could do is report it to fraud squad but that would end up being a dead end
i found out after that to open a bank account in some banks in china, you don't have to provide an address, you just need to show one form of ID (address not needed) so tracking the bank account was also futile.
long ass story, but i basically lose $2,000 us dotish dotish
