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JimTrade is committed to making your trading experience
safe and simple. By providing you with as much information as possible
about potential buyers and sellers, we help both you and your trading
partners make informed business decisions. These Safe Trading Tips are
designed to help you take advantage of JimTrades' services in identifying
trustworthy trading partners as well as online and offline resources that
can help to make your internet experience more secure and safe.
There are a number of actions you can take to research your potential
business partner whom you have met on the internet, so that you can reduce
the risk of being subject to a fraudulent transaction or business misunderstanding.
These include:
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Verify the Identity of Supplier/Buyer |
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Always confirm if the address, phone number and email address given to
you by your trading partner belongs to the same company. If a trader provides phone number from another country, we recommend you look up the address
in the local phone directory and obtain the local phone number, and call this number to confirm that the person you are in touch with actually
works for the company. Similarly, if a partner's email heading states that they work for a certain company, you should verify this. Be aware
that some scam artists could alter their return email address heading to make it look like they work for a company that they don't.
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Check the Partner's Background |
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Background checks from independent third-party sources include a search
for legal registration and credit reports. In many countries the existence
of a company and its legal status is a matter of public record. Check
with the companies registry in the partner's country to ensure that the
company exists with a valid registration. If you cannot have independent
access to your partner's registration information, ask your partner to
provide you with a Certificate of Good Standing issued by the companies
registry of his country or state/province. You can also gain further knowledge
about your partner by ordering a credit history report from a local credit
agency. Credit history reports contain information about the partner's
business history in their relationships with banks and other trading partners.
Go to contact credit agencies which can provide credit history reports.
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A Personal Meeting |
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Whenever possible, meet your business partner in person and visit his
company's facilities. While the internet offers you a wealth of information
on your potential partner which enables you to make an initial assessment,
there is no substitute for face-to-face contact.
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Protect Yourself When Ordering or Providing Samples |
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As a buyer, order a sample before committing to a purchase order to be
sure that the product meets your expectations. As a seller, request payment
for a sample and/or payment for shipping costs before you send out the
sample, especially if your product has a high resale value.
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Pre-Shipment Inspection Services |
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If you are a buyer, you can protect yourself against poor quality by ordering
a pre-shipment inspection of the products. You can demand the inspection
as a condition to payment.
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Protect Yourself Against Payment Risk |
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If you are a seller and have not been doing business with your partner
for very long, avoid selling your products on open-account (in which case
you are extending credit to your buyer). Instead ask your buyer to open
a letter of credit (an "L/C").
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Protect Yourself Against Payment Risk-You Are The Buyer |
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If you are a buyer, sometimes a supplier may ask you for a deposit before
he accepts the order. While this is not unusual between long-standing
trading partners, if you are doing business with the supplier for the
first time, make sure you have done sufficient background checks on the
supplier before you agree to the deposit, or ask for a different form
of payment, such as a letter of credit. If the seller seems more focused
on payment than any other issue, or indicates that cash payment must be
made urgently, more caution should be given to the transaction. Be extra
cautious when the seller asks you to send money to an account whose real
owner cannot be traced; for example, you cannot trace the real name of
the person behind an account with a wiring service such as Western Union.
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Fake E-mail Addresses |
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It is possible for anyone with some technical knowledge to send an email
with a fake address. When you receive an email from someone you know or
whose email address appears legitimate, but the message of the email looks
suspicious, you can verify whether the email came from the person whom
the sender claims to be by using a simple procedure to check the email
address.
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