Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Alibaba Gold Supplier and TrustPass Impersonators

There are many examples of fraudulent suppliers with Alibaba Trustpass or Gold Supplier status (here, here, here). If these suppliers are supposed to verified by an third party verification service, then why are there so many scammers with this "trusted" status? Let me explain why this is happening...

Here is an example of a scam we try to detect:
1. A scammer finds a legally registered Chinese company which has been in business for many years but doesn't do foreign trade (and therefore doesn't have an Alibaba profile).
2. Obtains a copy of the Chinese business registration certificate and related documents (for example, by approaching the company as a prospective customer).
3. Sends this to Alibaba to obtain a Trustpass / Gold Supplier status in the name of that company.

An unsuspecting Western buyer then finds this Alibaba Gold Supplier and assumes it's safe to trade with given its Trustpass or Gold Supplier status. Only later do they discover the person who created the Alibaba profile was only impersonating as a real company. Alibaba's third party verification services don't really detect this. Alibaba's third party verification service just verifies that the company is legally registered and do not verify that the person requesting the Trustpas or Gold Supplier status really works for the company.

Learn more about iSafeTrade's Supplier Verification Reports