January 8, 2007: In India, there is a proverb, which when loosely translated, means, that thieves and scamsters don’t take long in moving to any new idea or venture that  emerges. So when international trade is growing at such phenomenal rate, could scamsters be far behind. Most countries have set up special cells to deal with such complaints but bet on such scamsters to evolve new means to cheat you. Laws and punishments for such crimes being different in each country, tracking down these criminals is neither easy nor cost effective and thus many victims are not able to pursue the culprits.

In fact, the problem of frauds gets compounded by the fact that it is too easy to create a web site that seems genuine to lure you into a good deal. Here we summarize some common scams, precautions before entering deals over net.

Some common Scams in International Deals

Fraudulent Use of Credit Card: Some sites insist of payment through credit card. If you are a seller, ensure that the credit card used by buyer is not stolen. Some scrupulous buyers resort to Charge Back later on which is mostly allowed by credit card companies and processors. Lay down terms and conditions very carefully. If you are a buyer, make sure site has a Security certificate in place so that your credit card information is not stolen or misused later on.

Fraudulent Immigration: This method is mostly employed by people from Africa or Asia from where getting travel documents to some countries as US, UK or Europe is not easy for most people. These people often tend to show interest in your products and on then proceed to ask for your invitation letter so as to fix one-to-one meeting for negotiation. Actually these people may have least interest in your products and actually need letter of invitation to show to the embassy for getting visa. Be vary of buyer who without seeing much details about your product shows interest to visit you and seeks invitation letter.

Bank Transfer Scam: Most common form of Scam, originally emanated from African Countries, now spread to many east Asian Countries as China, Thailand etc where intended victim receives an email asking his bank account numbers where the sender could transfer the money to be shared in some ratio later on. In the meanwhile, the sender asks for his bank details and password and steals the money or invites victim to his country for documentation and robs him, sometimes with travel documents as well.

Take following precautions before entering any such deal.

1.       Verification: Before entering any deal with new trader whom you have located over internet, call at Telephone and Fax numbers given at the site to check if these are genuine. You can also check with the business registry or trade association of that country to check if the business is genuine or is licensed to operate or alternately ask the supplier to provide credit history  from local credit agency containing their relationship with the bankers. It would be better to rely on a dealer that is member of exportid.com, and you can check his antecedents from the site.

2.       Hiring an external inspection agency: If you are buying in bulk, it wont be a bad idea to hire services of external inspecting agency. In case you own an external agency verifying such supplies, why not post a lead in service providers category in this site. In case you are a buyer, please read another article on this site, which may be helpful to you at this link http://www.b2blounge.com/article-Business-Role_of_monitoring_agencies_to_promote_bb_trade-id-36.html. you can hire such services for various factors as pre-shipment inspection, packaging verification and so on.

3.       Personal Verification: Of course best method to be sure is to verify his facilities in person. Ask for his detailed locations of various warehouses or offices across globe and find one near you or near any of your trusted friend who can verify for you. If not too expensive to schedule a visit, nothing like this.

4.       Credit Security: If you are seller avoid selling on credit and insist on LC from a reputed local bank of the country of buyer. Avoid giving any advance and if you are a buyer avoid sending any payment to name other than the business name.

5.       Nothing beats Common Sense: Rest assured there can not be list of exhaustive check points. Nothing beats common sense and see the focus of the suppliers. Ask for samples where not expensive. Be vary of dealing with countries with high incidence of trade frauds as Africa, Nigeria, Macedonia, Colombia, etc. these countries account for more than 80% of the international trade frauds.

6.       Buyer / Seller Membership: If the potential buyer or seller is member of any Better Business Bureau (BBB), it may mean peace of mind to you. The BBB would respond to your inquiries about organizations and would help resolve disputes through telephone conciliation, mediation and arbitration.

Remedies.

In US, Export Bureau lists some of the sites that have purportedly been involved in such frauds. In case you are a US Citizen, immediately file a complaint with the bureau and forward all necessary details as correspondence, email ID and other known details of the perpetrator of the crime. The Financial Crimes Division (FCD) coordinates criminal investigations involving Financial Crimes, including bank fraud, telemarketing, computer fraud, investigations of forgery, electronic funds transfer, fraudulent commercial crimes. If you are a victim, you can file your Complaint with http://www.ustreas.gov/usss/contact_fcd.htm, http://www.ifccfbi.gov/cf1.asp

Other countries are also waking upto this and Nigerian Government launched a web site where victims from any country can register their complaint http://www.nigerianfraudwatch.org/,  however it has rarely worked and instead redirects the traffic to some shady sites. May be another scam!!!!! Another Site is http://www.nigeriapolice.org/, which on the date of writing this article is under construction.

Besides these, there are some Association of Certified Fraud Examiners with offices in North America and Europe - and chapters around the globe and you can redirect your complaint to them.

Internet Crimes Group Inc. The Internet investigations division also  addresses the complaints regarding frauds  perpetrated via the Internet.

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