Question
I have a friend who makes high end custom jewlery.
Lately he's gotten wholesale orders from Indonesian's claiming to have stores in Banda Aceh. While he has Paypal on his site, they use a CC, not Paypal.
His stuff is very NON main stream. More at home in NYC, L.A. and London.
Is there a market in Banda Aceh?
Alarm bells or what?
If it is a scam how libel is the seller? Will the CC co come in and try to take back the $?
Thanks.
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Maybe he could ask for bank or other references. Like most businesses do in the US before contracting for services/products.
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Is there a federal trade/import/export website that might have information/alerts on doing business with the various countries? I'd search, but don't have time right now.
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Someone I know sold a high dollars camera with BIN to that province. The buyer suggested a high BIN price be added to the auction to get the item "quickly" and paid credit card. I think that it took the stolen CC number 2 weeks to filter through the system, and the CC company reversed it without appeal (he was warned immediately by a mutual friend, who gave me the story - and this was about 3 years ago and he just saw the dollar signs and went ahead with the deal stupidly).
Banda Aceh was one of the areas most affected by the tsunami last year. I would assume that "high end jewellery" would have a particularly limited market there, as only about a quarter of those who lost their homes have had them replaced (and many won't because they either lost their land deeds, or never had any in the first place).
Tell your friend to discuss this with their CC company in detail. They will (should) give them the low down on fraud out of Indonesia, and what time frame a stolen card would take to be identified - if they suggest that the card is okay GET IT IN WRITING for the first transaction. Then suggest to the buyer that the "first" shipment would need to be delayed by xx days for security clearance from the bank, under their instructions, in case the buyer is legitimate (although every instinct I have says it's not). If they happen to be genuine they will know the problems with CC's from that part of the world and should agree to the initial delay if they want an ongoing business relationship. If they try using more than one card (or changing cards after the first deal), walk away from it entirely.
My alarm bells are ringing also, but I would take the extra time in case an ongoing wholesale relationship is possible. However, the Banda Aceh area adds to the skepticism very much because of how devestated it was by the tsunami.
If they do not want to jump through those hoops, tell them to walk away from the deal immediately, because at best it is VERY high risk.
Kind Regards, Kevin
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Thanks Kevin_T, I'm going to send him to this forum so he can see what people are saying.
I'm not sure...but didn't ebay used to post regular warnings about Indo?
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Originally Posted by smx1313
Thanks Kevin_T, I'm going to send him to this forum so he can see what people are saying.
I'm not sure...but didn't ebay used to post regular warnings about Indo?
I don't know about Ebay, but my private insurance carrier that I use for my shipments won't insure anything to Indonesia, period. Your friend may well be courting a world of trouble on this one...
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PayPal Lists of Places they allow. I know they said CC but thought this might give some guidance.
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I wouldn't. Sounds like trouble.
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I have experience with indonesians and I have even been there for a long time for business, so I know the type of people there.
I would treat indonesia like nigeria. banda aceh is actually well known for aggressive crooks. Jewelry in indonesia is actually better than from USA honestly , specially they also deal mainly in higher 24 carat gold.
There are an overload of jewelry stores mainly dealing in gold ran by mostly chinese people. Imagine 10 stores per block. But the indonesians usually cause riots and or rob those stores.
So if I were you, I would put them on block.
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Originally Posted by smx1313
I have a friend who makes high end custom jewlery.
Lately he's gotten wholesale orders from Indonesian's claiming to have stores in Banda Aceh. While he has Paypal on his site, they use a CC, not Paypal.
smx1313,
It's clearly a scam. Indonesian fraudster uses stolen credit card number to buy expensive items and hopes your jeweler friend ships before the card number is flagged as stolen. This leaves your friend less the expensive items and (probably) Courier shipping.
On an aside - back in the 80s I used to regularly visit S.E. Asia including Bali to buy beautiful handmade ethnic silver jewelry for resale in very upmarket stores in London, L.A., N.Y., Paris, etc. It often retailed for 10x to 15x what I could source it for. Sadly many of the artisans have retured or died out and the quality had declined as production became increased for export.
p.s. as Kevin pointed out Banda Aceh province was largely devastated by the 26 Dec 2004 Tsunami and is still in ruins.