The Coronavirus Disease or also known as the COVID-19 Virus is an infectious disease which affected the lives of many to change. The COVID-19 Virus has been taking its victims all around the world with a total death of over Two Million people worldwide (2,000,000) and increasing daily. COVID-19 Virus has caused a lot of businesses to close and rendered several industries paralyzed.
As the case of COVID-19 raises, the demand of certain products for PPE’s or Personal Protective Equipment has raised as well, this includes the Face Mask production and Medical Grade Gloves like Latex Gloves and Nitrile Gloves Production.
As one of the precautions and protection against COVID-19, Face Mask became a daily essential for the lives of everyone in the world, some studies showed that Face Mask can protect you against COVID-19 Virus. The demand for Face Mask has dominated the global market together with other materials like Nitrile Gloves.
As the demand increases, there are a lot of startup companies of Face Mask and Nitrile Gloves and this also gave room for those who wants to take advantage of the current situation and for the increasing demand of these materials.
Recently, our law firm received numerous cases regarding Fraud and Scams involving factories, supplies, or even distributors of Nitrile Gloves in Thailand. You may also look an example of the case from this news: Scammer of Gloves
Majority of the victims are foreigners who are looking to buy huge numbers of supplies of medical materials such as Face Mask, Nitrile Glove, Latex Glove, Rubber Glove, and even hospital equipment and the raw materials used for producing such product like Chemicals, Rubbers, and many more.
The scammers and those people who commit fraud usually tricks the Buyers of the materials like Nitrile Gloves that they have connection with the factory or they have OTG (on the ground) stocks of the products, sending poorly prepared presentations and sometimes, obviously fake documents.
One of the reasons as well why there are a lot of victims is because due to the increasing demand of the product the Buyers tend to miss important details in dealing with such transactions.
As lawyer who always filling the case that relevant to Nitrile Gloves in Thailand, here is a complete guide on how not to get scammed and how to detect if a person is a fraud:
1. DO SOME RESEARCH ABOUT THE MANUFACTURER OF THE NITRILE GLOVES AND THE PERSON YOU ARE DEALING WITH.
Hire a lawyer from the country where you intend to buy the products or where the products will be originating, or if not, do some research about the factory or the name of the nitrile gloves.
It takes less than a minute to type on Google about the name of the products and if it has been associated with a fraudulent activity or has been involved in a scam and it also takes less than a minute to get yourself under a scammer’s influence.
If you are dealing with a middleman between the Factory and You, make sure you ask for the proper documents of the factories, usually if the middleman has a legitimate connection with the factory, they can provide company documents and SGS reports, Test reports, copies of the factory’s certifications, etc.
We highly suggest to do a proper research about the product and/or the person you are dealing with, check their social media profiles, websites, the certifications, background of the person or the factory.
2. ALWAYS ASK FOR A PROOF.
If someone is claiming that they have millions of products available to be sold such as millions of stocks OTG of Nitrile Gloves or Face Mask, chances are they are scammers.
There is a limited number of supplies of these products and majority of the factories cannot product to more than One million boxes per month (1,000,000) with some only capable of producing to Two Hundred Thousand (200,000) to Three Hundred Thousand (300,000) boxes of the products per month.
Ask for proof of such claim, ask that you or your representative in that country go to the factory or the warehouse where they store this product, if they claim that you can only do visit the factory or the warehouse after signing a Sale and Purchase Agreement or paying for a deposit, then there’s a big chance they do not have those products with them or they have not produced those products yet.
Always ask for a proof, also, videos and photos with your name or your company’s name on it is not enough proof.
3. DO NOT EASILY TRUST NITRILE GLOVES COMPANY WHO HAVE ONLY BEEN IN THE THAILAND INDUSTRY AFTER THE COVID-19 VIRUS PANDEMIC.
This is an important advice. Since the Global COVID-19 Virus Pandemic has started there has been a lot of new factories, manufacturers and company of products like Nitrile Gloves and Face Mask in Thailand.
Some of these “new” factories and manufacturers also source their products from Vietnam, China, and Malaysia, usually these new brands of Nitrile Gloves and Face Mask in Thailand are repacked and sold for a higher price, therefore, we advise you as the Buyer to be very vigilant and always do your own research and checking.
When buying products like Nitrile Gloves and Face Mask in Thailand or in other countries, research about the Factory or Manufacturer and make sure they have all necessary certification and test reports are done to their products.
If the company of the manufacturer or producer or gloves was just recently established, make sure to check if they are under OEM, or they are repacking, or another factory is supplying for them.
4. DO NOT PAY BY TRANSFER OR “CASH” ALWAYS DO LETTER OF CREDIT (LC) PAYMENT METHOD.
Some of you who have experience in Trading may disagree with this but during this time where there is a great distrust and a lot of scammers out there are looking for potential victims, we highly suggest that payments should only be done through Letter of Credit (LC) this is to ensure that both you as the Buyer and the Seller are protected against losses.
Majority if not all victims of scams are usually those who pay through Transfer (TT payment) or Cash. This method is very unsafe as most of the cases our law firm handles about scams and frauds usually sent their payments via Transfer and some to the extend that they transferred the payment through money transfer agents like Western Union, Paypal, Transferwise, etc. This is not advisable specially for us, lawyers, we do not want you to engage with this type of payment method.
Furthermore, we highly advise to seek legal assistance and guidance from a Lawyer or a consultant when dealing with high valued transactions.
5. SEND REPRESENTATIVES OR HIRE LAWYERS IN THAT COUNTRY TO BE YOUR REPRESENTATIVE.
As a Buyer it is also your responsibility to protect yourself against potential scammers and frauds.
If you get scammed, chances are you did not protect yourself or you slacked off or you trusted the Seller too much.
If you are buying the product from a different country there will be great percentage that you might get scammed, so in order to protect your interest either you personally engage with the transaction in that country, send your representative, or hire LAWYERS as your representative in that country.
Our lawyer also practice this area to secure an international trader. You can look look our service from here: law firm in Thailand
6. SIAM ATTORNEY’S SERVICE
Our law firm offers Due Diligence service which thoroughly checks and investigate about the legality and authenticity of a company, factory, or even a certain person which you will or currently dealing with. Due Diligence is one of the most important steps usually done by people who intends to buy a Property, Shares from a Company, Condominiums, etc. Due Diligence is done to ensure that you as the Buyer is safe from any liabilities that may be incurred when buying such product, property, shares of the company, etc.
Law firms like ours offers legal representation and services for those who are engaged with high-value transaction.
We have dealt with numerous scam and fraud case even before the COVID-19 Pandemic started and it is not just from buying Face Mask and Nitrile Gloves and most of the victims are foreigners who happens to have no information about how transaction is done in a way that both the Buyer and the Seller are protected.
Our law firm will be more than willing to give advice and to assist with your transactions within Thailand.
If you wish to have a fruitful and success in the Import/Export business you have to either be vigilant and outsmart those scammers or just don’t do it at all.
