ChaosNation
Shared on Fri, 12/15/2006 - 11:06I don't mean any offense to any one that may be from Nigeria. I am sure it is not all bad, but the number of scammers that operate from Nigeria make me want to bomb the place!!! I don't understand how all of these scammers can operate and not get shut down. I was on an import/export site looking to buy some items for my business. Since I know nothing about import/export I decided to stick with companies that said they were in the US. Well they can say they are from anywhere of course. Every company that said they were from the US, that I dealt with, and there were about 5, turned out to not be from the US at all. I actually had one scammer tell me that they ship the item from their Nigerian office. What the heck???!!! Why on earth would a US company have a Nigerian office?
Once the US companies didn't pan out I decided to try some UK companies. I found a few sites that you can check if the company is actually a registered company in the UK. I thought that was great. Turns out that is not so great. Some of the scammers got smart and decided to take the public information for the companies and use it as their "fake" company. They give you all of the information for the company and it checks out because they took it from the public info on the registration sites. Now you have to get even more in depth in your search to find out if the company really exists. Google is definitely a good help, but some companies don't have black marks against them yet.
I did find out that all companies in the UK need a VAT ID. This is basically their Tax ID. I guess the scammers haven't figured out how to fake these VAT IDs yet so if you ask them for their VAT ID they are likely to not give it to you. Another tip off is the phone number they are using. Many of the scammers use a +44 702 and +44 703 numbers, which are forwarding numbers. You dial the number and you are then forwarded off to a new number in a entirely different country.
One other big tip off to a scammer is if their prices are just waaayyy tooo low. Some of these scammers say they are selling items for a lot less than they should be. For example, some of the scammers list Apple Ipod 4 GB Nano for $90 USD. The Nano retails for $199. Extreme price drops like this are too good to be true.
On a positive note, I am learning alot about researching companies validity!!!
Once the US companies didn't pan out I decided to try some UK companies. I found a few sites that you can check if the company is actually a registered company in the UK. I thought that was great. Turns out that is not so great. Some of the scammers got smart and decided to take the public information for the companies and use it as their "fake" company. They give you all of the information for the company and it checks out because they took it from the public info on the registration sites. Now you have to get even more in depth in your search to find out if the company really exists. Google is definitely a good help, but some companies don't have black marks against them yet.
I did find out that all companies in the UK need a VAT ID. This is basically their Tax ID. I guess the scammers haven't figured out how to fake these VAT IDs yet so if you ask them for their VAT ID they are likely to not give it to you. Another tip off is the phone number they are using. Many of the scammers use a +44 702 and +44 703 numbers, which are forwarding numbers. You dial the number and you are then forwarded off to a new number in a entirely different country.
One other big tip off to a scammer is if their prices are just waaayyy tooo low. Some of these scammers say they are selling items for a lot less than they should be. For example, some of the scammers list Apple Ipod 4 GB Nano for $90 USD. The Nano retails for $199. Extreme price drops like this are too good to be true.
On a positive note, I am learning alot about researching companies validity!!!
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Comments
Submitted by SGreth on Fri, 12/15/2006 - 11:40
Submitted by codemonkey on Fri, 12/15/2006 - 11:45
Submitted by SGreth on Fri, 12/15/2006 - 11:49