A Common Scam: Famous brands factory direct?

A growing number of listings at Supplier Blacklist involve scams targeting buyers of famous brand electronics. The China Sourcing Information Center did a great video exposing the scam in detail. Find some of his key points and a link to the video in this article.

Should I buy famous brands in China?

A growing number of listings at Supplier Blacklist involve scams targeting buyers of famous brand electronics. The China Sourcing Information Center did a great video exposing the scam in detail. Here are some of his key points:

Yes, Apple products and other famous brand electronics are readily available in China. But if your question is “Can you buy genuine Apple products online from China at a price below what you can buy them in the UK or USA?”, then I am sad to inform you that the answer is; “probably not!

Everybody knows that most of these Apple products are made in China, but what people fail to realize is that due to the tax system in China, the price of the products at wholesale and retail or higher than the pricing you would find back home if you live in North America or in Europe. Also, Apple does an excellent job of controlling their sub-suppliers and carefully controls the amount of made-in-China stock that ends up on the China market.

Warning:
If you are finding pricing from China that is below what you can find back home, be very careful. Scam artists on the Internet prey on foreign buyers who think they are getting a great deal on genuine products. It is not uncommon for these sellers to disappear with your deposit. And if they do ship goods, it is not genuine product.

Why do the scam artists target small-scale foreign buyers of brand name electronics?

  • Most small buyers are working on tight margins and won’t do proper due diligence to verify if the supplier is legit.
  • Most small buyers don’t come to China or engage a third party inspection agent to check the goods before the goods ship out and before the final payment is made.
  • Small buyers generally will not try to track down the scam artist and pay for a legal battle on a small order.

 

Questions:

Do you agree with the points above? Any additional red flags to look out for? Has anybody been able to find a famous western brand in China direct from the factory? If yes, was it a legit product and how was the pricing compared to back home?

4 comments on “A Common Scam: Famous brands factory direct?

  1. Hello dear website.

    I’m author of one of posts about bad suppliers. My supplier has covered losses.
    But this post is killing his business.

    Can you i pay to support your community and delete post? Please contact me on my email

    Thanx.

    1. Q: How to contact SBL?
      Content on the site is designed to be user generated with minimal, if any, involvement by volunteer staff. If you wish to post comments, dispute posted content, or reach out to a SBL volunteer, please do so directly in the comment sections of a listing on the website (as we have no email, physical address or formal staff).

      Q: Can I remove/adjust the listing I made about a bad supplier?
      See https://www.supplierblacklist.com/forum-rules/

      Q: My company is a good company but we are listed as a bad supplier. What can I do to have it removed?
      See https://www.supplierblacklist.com/forum-rules/

      1. Yes, we really understand your rules can not be changed.
        When we were posting, we did not take care to read that we will not be able to delete post. But now we can not continue getting compensation from “ex-bad-supplier” as this post in google destroys his business, so he does not have income to compensate.
        And because of this, our company (who got loss before) can not get rest of compensation any more from this “ex-bad-supplier”

        Thats why just first and last time we kindly ask:
        1) Delete article of supplier we posted
        2) Delete comments https://www.supplierblacklist.com/2020/01/23/banaeast-sp-zoo-spk/#comment-2055 and https://www.supplierblacklist.com/2020/01/23/banaeast-sp-zoo-spk/#comment-2056
        We are ready to give any confirmation docs about loss recovery. And pay you all your costs which caused by this extra actions which breaks your website rules.

        Please help us in this situation.
        As we are not asking to delete posts about other bad suppliers I published under my login.

        Please let us know what we can do

      2. Dear SBL,

        We really ask you to help us in this situation. We dont ask to delete our other posts about bad suppliers. But this is exclusion from rules.
        We have agreed with supplier that he will make second transfer compensation after we delete this article (which is indexed by google).
        So means we can not get compensation from supplier, due to we can not delete article from your website, which really HELPED us to push supplier for communication.

        Supplier will not agree adding just comment below post that is is good now. Is article already indexed by google. And most of his potential customers will not even read comments. But just beeing on SBL website already will kill his new potential customers.

        Please kindly HELP us in this situation !!!!!!!

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