The Safely Sourcing China Blog

I was recently contacted by Eric Vermaas, the CEO of PT Team Wood (www.teamwood.org), a Dutch-Indonesian timber and furniture partnership based in Jakarta, to run a background check on an Import Export company based in Tianjin, China, and which had just placed an order for $915,000 USD in speciality wood furnishings. Fortunately, for Eric I just happened to be in Tianjin at the time, as I was visiting family for the Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the two main traditional festivals along with Chinese New Year, and therefore checking them out was a fairly simple process for me. The Chinese company details are as follows: Tianjin Tanbo Import & Export Trade Co., Ltd., Address: 43 Nanjing Road, Heping District, 300350, Tianjin, China Web: www.sjzdingsheng.com.cn Tel: + 86 228 143 92 09 Fax: + 86 400 67 61 100 ext 1010 Email: heiyexingguang8@126.com, tanbo_2003@yeah.net Trade Manager: Chen Jinliang I quickly discovered that telephone number is not a land line, and is actually a mobile number known as a xiao ling tong, and which looks like a land-line number, can’t be easily traced, and is very cheap to buy. The fax number isn’t in Tianjin and seems to be out of town, and is perhaps a fax service somewhere, hence the extension number; quite probably a big room in a cheap building with a number of fax machines in it – linked to a PBX if the extension number is anything to go by. I visited the address provided on the website and discovered that it doesn’t actually exist. Basically the numbers on that street jump from number 35 to number 57 Nanjing Road, with nothing but an abandoned construction site between these two numbers, and therefore no sign of number 43. Of course, all of this seemed somewhat suspicious at best, particularly more so since I further determined that they allegedly scammed a businessperson from Europe out of 8,000 Euros on or about the 22nd or 23rd of September 2009 (you can find the details here), and have also placed large orders with several other companies, in one case up to $600,000 USD in value, and all since the 31st August 2009. I further discovered that Tianjin Tanbo Import & Export Trade Co., Ltd., also operate under the name of Hebei Dingsheng Import & Export Company, and have the same non-existent address. In consequence to all of the above I strongly advised PT Team Wood to have nothing whatsoever to do with this “company“. Tianjin Tanbo also failed to respond to my repeated phone calls or emails. Particularly when once they realised they had Chinese speakers, currently resident in China, on their tails. The only call we had, and which I instigated, was brief, and led to their prevarication and a lot of stuttering, particularly when I asked for their address, and they said it was the same as the website – to which I responded that I’d been to visit the location, and it didn’t exist. Whereupon they responded that they’d just recently moved. How convenient and how odd they’d forgotten to mention this when first asked, or even to update their website. Finally, I asked them to have a senior executive call me back, and have had no response in the three days since that call – and neither do I expect one.

The CEO Gift Scam Works in the Following Manner:

1. The scammer places a large order with you. 2. They then invite you to China to finalise the contract. 3. When you arrive, they will tell you that in traditional Chinese business culture you should buy the CEO a gift commensurate with his position. This in the case of the last person I found scammed by them was for gold bars worth 8,000 Euros. 4. After you have signed the contract and returned home, they then contact you again and tell you the contracts must be translated and stamped and sealed by a notary, and that the fee for this is 1,350 Euros or something of the type. 5. If you pay that then the next step would be for them to cease contact with you, as they are in no way interested in a purchase.

Gift-Giving In China

Gift-giving in China is common in business, but a bottle of wine or a treat from your own country is usually more than acceptable, and I know of no CEO who would expect me to buy them anything expensive. Moreover, since you are a foreigner you’re usually expected to be ignorant of gift-giving in China, and so are exempt from this. Most gifts between Chinese businessmen are cigarettes, Chinese white spirits (baijiu – a strong clear alcohol), or a good tea; certainly never in the form of gold bars, unless you have plans on bribing your way into a contract. In conclusion, and as a rule of thumb, you should never feel obliged to buy anybody any kind of gift in China during the pursuance of your business interactions. However, out of politeness, a small gift of not-too-great an expense from your own country or culture will be gratefully received and appreciated. Safe Trading!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Moon Festival (smearedtype.com)
• China and Singapore to build eco city (guardian.co.uk)
• Wave of suicide sweeps China’s graduate class (telegraph.co.uk)
• Chinese Handcuffs? No, Chinese trade deficit (blogs.cfr.org)
• China Bans All Online Games Featuring “Gangs” [Mmo] (kotaku.com)
• Gallery: Renderings of Apple’s Giant Chinese Store (cultofmac.com)
• Airbus rides the Chinese dragon (telegraph.co.uk)
• Airbus CEO: Future of jet making is outside current borders (seattlepi.com)
• How to Get the Best of Chinese Wholesale Art & Craft Products (wealthyways4you.com)
• Zhongpin reports production at new Tianjin plant (newstatesman.com)
• The Chinese Drywall Complaint Center Urges All Knauf Tianjin Drywall Homeowners To Get Identified Now (prweb.com)
• China port faces worst ice threat in 30 years (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• You Want Chinese Workers? Think Outside the Guangdong Box. (chinalawblog.com)
• Pfizer Expands Chinese Presence (seekingalpha.com)
• Could Case Western Reserve University agreement to share students with Chinese university lead to something more? (medcitynews.com)
• Wholesale china jewelry supplies,silver jewelry (recycleemail.com)

Originally posted 2009-10-07 22:50:26. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Popularity: 38%

Some Related Websites

• New AOL Desktop 10.1 I'm not a big fan of AOL's software other than the IM. That being said, I found the new 10.1 to be much improved over previous offerings. The 9.x and below took up too much space and added too many 'hidden' programs that sucked your computer's resources. If you are......
• Cap And Trade: Global Warming Solution Or Wall Street Profiteering? The world is getting warmer! Humans are polluting and their pollution is making the world warmer faster! Unfortunately even I agree with this claim. The debate is how much humans really impact the rising temperatures. But that debate is not for today. If we want to curb our use of......
• Beware The Chinese Stock Market On the front page of today’s South China Morning Post, there’s a quote from Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man. As a Chinese, I am worried about the mainland stock market. History shows that any phenomenon whereby shares are priced at 50 to 60 times forward earnings will end in a......
• Benefiting from a Countdown Pregnancy Ticker When you find out that you are pregnant, you may suddenly find yourself feeling overwhelmed. I mean, think of all the things that you have to consider: Morning sickness, pregnancy diets, routine physician visits, keeping all of the dates straight. All of the happy and truly wonderful and exciting moments......
• China-India Water Shortage Means Coca-Cola Joins Intel in Fight 2010-05-25 16:08:53.254 GMT By Cherian Thomas, Unni Krishnan and Sophie Leung May 26 (Bloomberg) -- A fight breaks out as student Vikas Dagar jostles with dozens of men, women and children to fill buckets from a truck that brings water twice a week to the village of Jharoda Kalan on......