Scams of the Year

[Randy W]

from China Law Blog

China Scams: Our Annual Holiday Edition

By Dan Harris on December 12, 2019

 

We are seeing the following old scams in quantity this year:

1. “The come to China to celebrate our deal scam”

In this scam an alleged Chinese company emails a foreign company to express a desire to buy a few million dollars of the foreign company’s product or service. The terms of the deal are quickly (too quickly!) resolved and the Chinese company suggests the foreign company come to China to sign the contract and celebrate the great cooperation and friendship the two parties have established. The foreigner(s) gets to China (usually some really out of the way city in China) and is “treated” to a super expensive meal at which the contract will be signed. After much food and drink the foreign company is then told that Chinese custom requires the foreigner pay for the dinner and buy the Chinese CEO an expensive gift and pay the notarization fee for the contract. The foreigner is then taken to purchase a nice piece of jade and requested to pay a couple of thousand dollars for the dinner and another $3,000 to $8,000 for the notarization fee. Oftentimes the foreigner just gives the Chinese company people cash to go buy the CEO gift on the foreign company’s behalf.

It isn’t until weeks later that the foreigner learns there is no deal and (most of the time) there is no Chinese company either. The big lure of this scam is that nobody wants to fly all the way to China, have a great meal at someone else’s expense, and then be too cheap to spend another $10,000 or so to seal the multi-million dollar deal.