| Buy and sell with confidence and trust |
| Gbiz 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 Gbiz 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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| Confirm contact details |
| 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 inconsistent contact details, for example an address in the USA and 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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| Protect yourself when ordering or providing samples |
| 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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| Protect yourself against payment risk if you are the seller |
| 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.
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| Suspect shipping or contact addresses |
| Pay close attention to shipping or contact addresses located in countries with a high reported incidence of online fraud and many e-commerce web sites have found a high incidents of on-line fraud as well, such as Romania, Nigeria, Macedonia, Colombia, etc..
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| Beware of fake e-mail addresses |
| 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 the simple procedure to verify that is listed below to check the email address.
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| Simple procedure to verify |
1. Ask for the phone number and fax number, call the numbers they provided to confirm that they are available with the certain numbers.
2. Check with the business registrar in the country of the suppliers to ensure that the business is legitimate and licensed.
3. Pay for a sample before purchasing in bulk to be sure that the product meets your expectations. Or, ask for the freight collect term of sending the requested samples especially if your product is more expensive among other general goods.
4. Ask for an inspection service to ensure the products meets the required general standard and coincide with the provided samples.
5. Make sure do not pay for the products in cash but select PayPal or Money Bookers instead.
6. If the trader keeps on talking about payment or other sensitive issues rather than pursuing the regular business process, more attention are suggested to be given to the transaction.
7. In addition, you're suggested to take necessary legal measures in the event of any trade dispute or perpetration.
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