Alibaba Gold Supplier Scam? Get Smart!

Found this trolling Alibaba.com.  Again, if those of you who do import/export online or are interested in services like Alibaba or eBay, each service has a special level of seller.  But just like other forms of identity theft, there can be Alibaba Gold Supplier Identity Theft.

Here's what I found on their site.

Be Cautious of Gold Supplier Identity Theft

Case Description:

One of our buyers sent an email to Alibaba service team. It said: "I have received a quotation in my email; the sender said his company was a Gold Supplier. I knew Gold Supplier members are verified, so it gave me confidence in this transaction and I paid 30% deposit to buy the Ipods he provided. But after the payment, I didn't receive my Ipods, nor get any response from them. Their contact person, Tony Yang just seemed to ignore my emails.  Please help me contact this company to either get a refund of my payment or send the items I paid for."

After checking with the Gold Supplier member mentioned by this buyer, the Tony Yang in this case wasn't an employee of this company at all. The so-called "Tony Yang"  was a fraudster posing as a verified company’s representative to de-fraud innocent people on our website.

Be cautious of this type of fraud.  

To avoid a similar situation, please adhere to the following advice:

1. Make your own investigation before dealing with your potential partner. Use the company name they provided to search Alibaba.com to find the company's website.

2. Compare the products listed on the company website. If they are in entirely different categories, for example; the company usually sells shoes but the offer you received is an Ipod, it might be a signal of fraud.

3. Contact the company on Alibaba directly and confirm with them whether the person contacting you is really from their company or not. 

4. Or you can send email to the Alibaba service team; they will help you verify the contact person.