Search Engine Optimization

Online Trade Directories

Internet Crime, Fraud, Scam and GetRichQuick is a multi-billion dollar industry. Up to 70% of all sellers on trade directories are scammers.

Keep that in mind.

This article is your guide to online trade directories like Alibaba, Made-in-China, TradeKey, EC21 and many others.

If any seller, mentions Western Union – delete their email. Western Union is your indicator to run and hide. Period.  It’s a scam 100% of the time, all the time, everywhere.

“Gold”, “Platinum”, “Trusted” and other trust indicators simply mean that a company paid $500 – $20,000 dollars to buy that status. Trade directories will try to convince you of their background checks which are worthless. A savvy enough scammer can easily buy an “identity” from hackers and operate under stolen name and fake company. Trade directories can’t spot that, especially in China, Indonesia, Nigeria and other countries.

On top of weak verification, trade directories make a lot of money by selling “trust” certificates, so it’s in their interest to sell as many as possible. Yahoo bought Alibaba for around $1 billion, so founders cashed out and are having fun with their money. Yahoo shareholders are as  greedy as Halliburton, so don’t expect anyone to care for quality if it affects the bottom line.

A gold member once pitched me cell phones for a believable price. I took his info to a background verification company and he turned to be bogus. Search around the net, you’ll find plenty horror stories with “platinum” and “gold” suppliers.

Scammers know that electronics sells, so expect scam rate to be around 85% in computer and consumer electronics field. Apart from pure scams there are also many fakes. Seller might offer Sony cameras, but ship you cheap fakes that wouldn’t sell for half you paid.

Just not worth the risk in my opinion. If you wanted bag of rise that’d be a lot easier.

Known scammers.

• Suspected Fake Company Sites 5700+ sites
• Suspected Fake Chinese Sellers 2300+ sites
• OFFICIAL LIST OF FRAUD/SCAM COMPANIES IN ALIBABA
• Complaints Board | Alibaba Scams
• Alibaba Gold Member Scam – The Wholesale Forums
• TradeKey – Scam Companies
• More Scammers

Nick Bolton wrote a wonderful guide on how to spot fake sites and trade scammers. Read it from start to the end.

Useful Resources:

• So you wanna deal with a website in China
• The 12 Due Diligence steps for making money
• Alibaba Messenger Scams
• Scam Email Checker
• Anatomy of Chinese Scam
• Fraud Watchers

You can also check different forums and ask around. Scammers are generally smart, so expect to get a dose of “help”:

• Alibaba Forums
  • Due Diligence Alibaba
• The Wholesale Forums
• Fraud Watchers Forums
• The Trading Forums

Trade Directories

• Made in China
• Aliababa
• Esources
• Canadian Trade Index
• Trade Key
• TTNET
• AsianNet
• Wand
• EC 21
• Global Sources
• EC Plaza
• Rusbiz
• Importers.com
• Trade India
• Fuzing
• Offer 21