"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.