I’ve been running a trading company for over 20 years. We’ve run into a number of problems trying to do good business while avoiding the scammers, but this is the one that cost us the most money and time.
I am a US-based broker dealing in exports to Asia. I ran into difficulties several years ago trying to find new suppliers outside of the US. In the US I have some really great suppliers, but there are many times when market prices don’t work out for my markets in Asia. I primarily sell to customers in Pakistan, India and from time to time Indonesia.
I run a scrap operation in Australia. We were working with a broker a few years ago who was helping us expand into the Pakistani market. We always ship our loads direct so we can have more control over the sales process and make sure we know the end user. It’s part of our standard process to avoid problems we’ve had in the past with some of the traders who operate locally.