This piece is dedicated mainly for the international traders. Today is very easy to close business agreements and contracts on-line. You can trade practically with everything you can imagine. But there is a big danger behind. Scammers. On B2B sites, on-line exchanges or just on small webmarkets - they are just everywhere. How to recognize them? How to avoid to be victim of a financial crime? This is very difficult part of your on-line trading. But if you keep basics rules, you can eliminate the risk of fraud.

Scammers

This term perhaps is today widely known because of the fenomenal success of B2B sites such as Alibaba. Scamming is connected mainly to Chinese and African traders. Of course that the suscpicious individual you can find all over the world. Scammers have one aim - sell the fake good to you or the good that actually does not exist. The worst possibility is stealing your ID information, bank data etc.

Cheap is strange

If somebody offers you extremely cheap products that embodies a different price range on the market - probably it is a first signal that is something wrong. This applies especially for the electronic devices such as laptops, mobile phones, tablets etc. What is also usual today is, that defrauders want to earn money just for postal costs. You ask for the sample, pay hundreds bucks for the DHL services, but you never receive anything. If your business partner is trustful, he should send the sample for free. If you ask for example for the sample of laptop, just choose the payment after delivery.

Conditions changed last minute before signing an agreement

Wow, this really happens. If you spend couple of week with negotiating of the conditions and after all your contact changes them, it is time to leave. You are smarter, do not regret anything.

Personal meeting required

Although I wrote that you can start to do business on-line, there are still many entrepreneurs that just take a plane and fly to meet their potential partners. If you do this, prepare yourself for the loss of investment (flight ticket, hotels, food, etc.). None of the meeting could be successful. On the other if your partner denies to meet you, it is probably a cheater. As minimum I always use the question: "Can we arrange a meeting where we can discuss further details?" You can see, if your partner is willing to accept the proposal.

INCOTERMS (CIF ASWP)

When you run the international trade agency, probably you know the INCOTERMS rules. They define mostly the conditions of transportation between two entities - buyer and seller. Sometimes you get the offer with the price CIF ASWP (Any Safe World Port). This is really ridiculous thing. Or do you think that the Chinese seller should give the same price to customer in Japan and Germany? If you get a offer with this CIF price, never trust your counterpart.

Useful links

INCOTERMS 2010
Fight Identify Theft

Foto: Dreamstime