How to identify signs of a Chinese Scam?

You have to be careful about any kind of Chinese scam when planning to start a business in China. What do we mean by a Chinese scam? Well, there are a number of dubious business offers that we find being pushed on the Internet. While not all of them originate from China, a lot of them however do. So we would refer to any kind of too-good-to-be true offer that originates from China, obviously, as a Chinese scam. Sometimes an offer might seem to look like a Chinese scam but in reality could be an extremely profitable deal. Just because is sounds too good, we need not label it as a Chinese scam.

Here are some of the ways in which you can detect a Chinese scam. First visit the website mentioned in the offer to study a little more about the business. Since English is not their first language, most of them struggle to write grammatically correct sentences. You can identify a Chinese scam when they have not taken the time or the effort to coin a domain name that is grammatically right. A Chinese scam would most often have an incorrectly spelt name or one that do not make proper sense. When you see such a site advertising a very attractive offer, it is most probably a Chinese scam. Do yourself a favor and just close the browser. This is one of the most straightforward ways to detect a Chinese scam.

Next, can need to check the “Whois” details of the website. Every domain name has a corresponding “Whois” page which shows you who registered the domain, when it was registered, when it will expire and so on. You can use this information to detect a Chinese scam. The “Whois” page almost always would contain the contact details of the registrant of the website. If you suspect the website is a Chinese scam, you can go ahead and verify using the contact information listed. If it is a Chinese scam, then the company would not exist in the address mentioned on the “Whois” page. You can also check the date of registration of the domain name and the number of years the website claims that the company has been in operation to determine whether it is a Chinese scam. That is another powerful way to detect a Chinese scam.

Once you are on the site, check the quality of the site itself to see whether it is a Chinese scam. A professional company would at least have a reasonably good and professional looking website. A Chinese scam on the other hand would focus more on extracting your money right away. If the sites talks only about how you can pay and not much about the product or service itself, then you might be looking at a Chinese scam. A Chinese scam website is only after your money. Moreover the Chinese scam is not very intent on being discreet. It aims its schemes on the gullible and innocent. If you are shrewd enough, you can protect yourself from a Chinese scam.

If also need to be aware of the fact that a website which collects credit card information always uses SSL for transactions. You can tell by looking at the URL which always starts with ‘https://’ instead of the standard ‘http://’. If it does not use SSL while collecting credit card information, then it is definitely a Chinese scam.