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Exporters warned of foreign scams that have left them out of pocket
Some local exporters have fallen prey to foreign scams by paying tender or export fees to phoney organisations or importers with vague credentials, according to a national alert from the Ministry of Industry and Trade to exporters.
In April, a HCM City-based garment manufacturer received an email from a Turkish importer inviting it to bid for bed-clothes orders on condition that it pays a tender fee of US$7,000 to the importer's account in advance.
One week later, the manufacturer was informed that its bid was successful with a contract worth $300,000 a year. No orders have come, despite it trying unsuccessfully to contact ‘the partner' via phone calls and email many times.
Another exporter of furniture said it shipped a cargo worth $40,000 by sea on the importer's promise to make telegraphic transfer right after the cargo was loaded.
But it has waited two months with no feedback whatsoever from the importer.
Both businesses asked to be unnamed.
Some more wary exporters, however, had avoided being scammed.
Drawing from its export experience, northern Vinh Phuc Province-based Viglacera Viet Tri suspected an export fee of $3,500 for a sanitary wares order and found that it was nothing more than a fraud.
Youth Viet Nam Company had the Vietnamese trade mission in Morocco check credentials of a Togolese enterprise which invited it to sign a wheat flour-supplying contract worth $12 million on condition that it pays an export fee of $12,300 and found out that the ‘partner' was actually a fake.
"Most of the scams are initiated via email," warned Ly Quoc Hung, head of the Ministry's Department of African, West Asian and South Asian markets.
On the other hand, some foreign importers were ready to offer high prices and deposit up to 30 per cent of the cargo's value to earn trust from local exporters, according to Dong Van Chung, Vietnamese trade attache in Turkey.
Sometimes, however, when cargos have already been shipped, importers try to lower the agreed price. If the exporter refuses, then the unscrupulous importer refuses to accept the cargo.
The ministry has asked exporters to inspect letters of credit or bank guarantees when they decide to engage with unknown importers, and to study the French banking law to get an insight into banking laws of African French-speaking countries.
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