Fraud Case Study from Alibaba: How to Avoid Scams and Rip-Offs

Avoid Fraud on Alibaba.com!

It seems like a firm grasp of the obvious, but there are something like 56 million people who use Alibaba.com.  Even if one tenth of one percent of those people (which would be better than the general population, BTW) are dishonest and want to scam you, preventing the fraud is the best way to go.

I spend a lot of time on Alibaba.com, trolling the site, and found one of their case studies on how to avoid the trap of getting ripped off.  Info is below.

Fraud Case Study 1 - 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.