Beware of these companies...

These are all those same companies that Fuzhou Hailian is:

Oukay
Monday International
Xianyou Zhongyi
Licheng District
Datian City
Licheng

66ail, 66oka, 90nike, 66ail.com, 66oka.com

All of these companies have golden rating in Tradekey, Alibaba etc. DON'T TRUST THEM!

Few good china scammer lists:
http://fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=7058 (EXCELLENT)
http://www.busytrade.com/scammer/scammer_list.php

Places to discuss:
http://www.thewholesaleforums.co.uk/forum/bad-supplier-experiences/

Jose's case - Another one who got scammed

I got a comment from Jose and I contacted him. Here is him story with Chinese scammers:

I was trying to get an Iphone almost at any cost. well, the truth is that I'm Spanish but now I'm living in Italy for one year, which means that I should wait until... who knows?!!!. Well, a few weeks ago I stared to discover some wholesellers in china who seems to have the Iphone. Finally a friend and I decided to make a testing: We will start keeping in touch with those people over there, and discover if they really have the Iphone. Well, it took us as long as two weeks talking with TONS of wholesellers who really was trying to send us the phone, but after a while they started to fall one by one by their own weigh. They sended us tons of pictures of the item, including pictures of their stock, explanations, etc... but finally all of them confirmed our theory: the only had china copies...except one. This "company" is called Ectopher Trade Group ltd.. well, after many conversations, and sharing a lot of information, we decided to make a loyal agreement with them, compromising them to send us the described item as an Iphone, they accepted to our conditions and send us back a digital document.

So finally, even taking the risk of making the transaction via Western Union (The guy in the office advice me of doing this also), we did it, my friend and I decided to ask first for a sample phone, and if it finally was ok, just buy a second one.

After a few days (2 or so) they send me a tracking number with EMS, we both were really excited about it, it seems to work correctly...

...One week later we checked on the EMS website and: SURPRISE!, the item arrived to the U.S. instead Italy!!! (WTF? we thought!), well, we contact them again and after ONE day, they told us it was a mistake with the shipment, and ask us for time to resolve it (I'm resuming this a lot, because we had a thousand conversations and mails in between). The item seems to be stopped by customs in N.Y. so we supposed they was turning back the item to Italy, or at least to the departing point in China, but we were wrong once again: this weekend the item released the customs in NYC and was finally delivered.

Now we are waiting for explanations (that will never come probably), but at least we have that digital firm and the rest of documentation, that's a real contract with us, and we are about to send the whole information to a pretty known Judge in Texas, friend of us who will apply an order of arrest to any of the persons involved in the transaction (The one who received the payment and the rest of persons published on the website). That means that: If any of those persons will try to get into the U.S. territory will be arrested immediately, and also if they try it on many of the European Union Countries. By the moment the government in China will open an investigation but we have no warranties about it. Also, the information will reach to the agencies for the legal trade control so probably they will inform us better in a future of what else we can do.

Thank you for being in touch, please feel free to contact me at any time, and also to publish this on your blog (I will really appreciate it if you do).

I feel very sorry about what was happened to you, we both are more or less in the same situation, maybe you can contact the LG representant and they will give you more choices of how to act with those people, LG should be very interested in following and dismantle organizations like those ones.

Few webcam-images

Here you can see few webcam-images of one of the scammers working in Fuzhou Hailian. She is called Sophia.

Today I got a call..

I got a phone call from representant of LG Electronics. The representant was asking if I had bought fake LG Prada lately. I thought that the thing led to this case. Yes, so it was. Instead of the original Apple iPhone I bought, they sent me a fake LG Prada. I didn't even know that Finnish Customs is allowed to open packages before asking permission.

Well the LG lady in the phone was quite proper and told me that LG would want to demolish this item. They would later send me forms to that. I asked what if I won't give my permission, and she said that LG might sue me ;) But wouldn't probably because it's only one piece. Anyway, she said that if I would try to sell the item later, then it would have consequences.

I can understand LG, I myself would like to get fake products out of the market. I will probably give my permission to demolish it. Still feels weird that I just wasted 350 euros and got nothing. Well, I could have lost more...

"Oh, I can buy iPhone abroad?" PART II

Drama.

The scammer (hailian_sophia@hotmail.com) to who I was in contact doesn't reply anymore in MSN. I got contact to some other person in Fuzhou Hailian. This time to Bella (cn90nike_bella@hotmail.com), CEO of the company.

I say: what have happened to your 66ail-webpage?
Bella says: someone destroied it
I say: i have been in contact with sophia and waiting for my order. but seems that you are scammers? i don't want to blaim you, but is it true?
Bella says: hehe,sophia is a shit
Bella says: 8o|
Bella says: she done the scam,so our company fired her...she together with other person destroied our company
Bella says: 's website
Bella says: shit
I say: yeah right
I say: so im getting my iphone?
Bella says: when u buy it?
Bella says: if u buy it from her,and before yesterday
Bella says: all is brought by her
Bella says: she took ur money
Bella says: but didn't let us know
I say: don't you try to tell me that b******t and refund my money then
I say: i know that you are nothing but scammers, scammers with a good set-up. still i want my money back
I say: it will cost you lot more if you wont return those
I say: SAY SOMETHING NOW!
Bella says: it is no use for me to say any word!I will let u know soon
Bella says: and try my best to manage it for u

While after that I was blocked. Conclusion: the company is honest, but my contact was criminal. How does that sound familiar?

Yeah right, I found a story with almost exactly same thing when searching info of Fuzhou Hailian scam. The contact victim used was fired before the items was shipped.

How on earth can companies like this get some gold-ratings etc. They don't mean nothing, I can see it now.

Rule number one to stop those b**tard scamming you

Only accept Paypal when dealing with unknown sellers. Paypal has the best protection against scammers. Remember, even with Paypal, you can't be sure of getting justice, but it makes your chances a lot better.

With Western union or T/T, you got no chance to get your money back. Western union cares nothing else but it's own business. It is also very expensive way to transfer money when compared to Paypal.

If Paypal is not okay for your seller, you know you're being scammed to.

"Oh, I can buy iPhone abroad?"

Well, no you can't.

Never send your money via Western union or T/T to China!

I just discovered the possibility to buy electronics etc. directly from China where those are mostly made. The truth is not too pleasant.

I was surfing around the web looking for some cool Chinese-branded phone like Cect. I ended up finding lots of wholesaler-listers (Alibaba, Made-in-china, Tradekey). For my surprise I found few wholesalers selling real Apple iPhones. I of course checked all details of those shops. One had all certificates which made it look very reliable shop to buy things. This shop was Fuzhou Hailian International Trade Co, Ltd, being a Goldkey member in Tradekey, Golden member in Alibaba etc. I knew that I can't trust this company anyway.

Well, iPhone is the coolest thing of this season. I wanted it, so I contacted Fuzhou Hailian to see if there's any chance that they are really selling these. I checked the webpage they gave in their Tradekey-profile: 66ail.com (not connecting anymore after a "hacking-attack"). There I found big list of MSN-addresses and huge list of products they are selling. All the photos was taken by them and products looked real. I will post some of these photos to you later.

I added a person with MSN-account hailian_sophia@hotmail.com (Hotmail-address, doesn't look too good) to my MSN. Anyway I talked a while with her and she gave me an information that buying iPhone to Finland would cost 425usd per piece (inc. shipping). Doesn't sound impossible, but does she really think that I believe her?

Next thing what happened was:

Sophia says: do you want to see it?
I say: yes

Then she opened webcam-connection. I was shocked. I thought that all I could see was some lousy photo, but now. There it was - 100% real Apple iPhone, in live webcam-stream. She showed me everything I wanted to see. No doubt that it was real iPhone. Then he turned the camera and I saw dozens of iPhone packages and some employees of this company. Very convincing.

I wanted that phone, but then...

Sophia says: we do not accept paypal
Sophia says: just western union and t/t.

My senses told me I was going to get scammed, but I couldn't resist to try my luck. She was so convincing and promised that she's not fooling me and I would get my iPhone in 3-5 days after payment. Don't you ever make this mistake! Nothing is good enough to risk with dealing Chinese seller via Western union or T/T. Only accept Paypal. I'm not saying that it's competitively safe, but with it you have very good chance to get your money back in case of scam. With Western union or direct bank transfer, there is nothing you can do. I could swear that Western union is designed "from scammers to scammers"...

The reason for this blog is to make even few of those scammers lose some of their "customers". Spread the blog and send me questions about my case. Also, I would appreciate if you could share your own experiences with these Chinese wholesalers. I'll be more than happy to publish those here.