Fraud Company Hebei Xuantao Imp. and Exp. Trade Co., Ltd.

We recently got scammed by the company:

Hebei Xuantao Imports and Exports Trade Co., Ltd.

Short version of the story:
They sent us a pretty large inquiry (not too large to believe in). After some more or less typical business correspondence by E-Mail they invited us to China (Beijing), in order to meet for the final negotiation and for signing the contract. During this meeting, which took place at our hotel, they persuaded us to buy some expensive gifts for the CEO and other important persons and then vanished in the haze. No further contact since signing the (fake) contract.

I assume they always start their "business" in the same way. We also found the same text we had got from them on the Website of "21food", where they try to buy walnuts, apples and things like that.

According to information we got from our Chamber of Commerce, there is no entry in the local databases about this company. It simply doesn't exist! So if your company gets inquiries like we did, be careful, be smarter than we were and check existence before you go for an expensive trip to China and come back with nothing.

Contact Persons (probably fake names):
"Mr. Li" alias Li Jinxin, Trade Manager
"Mr. Wang" alias Haitao Wang or Wang Haitao
another "Mr. Wang" alias Wang Jian or Jian Wang, said to be the Vice-President
Qian Jindou, said to be the CEO

Example of Signature:

Mr.Li Manager
[email protected]
Hebei Xuantao Imports And Exports Trade Co.,Ltd
Tel:0086-3125886381
Mob:0086-15231212586
Web：www.xt-trading.com

edit: company name: import corrected to imports, export corrected to exports

sorry you were pulled into this scam. Thanks for posting the information to warn others of these scammers. More information can be found by your favorite search engine with the text ( including quotes) "Guilin scam" an example is here :
http://www.expat-chronicles.com/2010/10 ... lin-china/

For the bots and site killers, the information below...

canonical name xt-trading.com.
aliases
addresses 103.242.101.18
Domain Whois record

Queried whois.internic.net with "dom xt-trading.com"...

Domain Name: XT-TRADING.COM
Registrar: HICHINA ZHICHENG TECHNOLOGY LTD.
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 420
Whois Server: grs-whois.hichina.com
Referral URL: http://www.net.cn
Name Server: DNS10.HICHINA.COM
Name Server: DNS9.HICHINA.COM
Status: ok http://www.icann.org/epp#OK
Updated Date: 16-apr-2015
Creation Date: 16-apr-2015
Expiration Date: 16-apr-2016

>>> Last update of whois database: Tue, 21 Jul 2015 13:17:11 GMT <<<
Queried grs-whois.hichina.com with "xt-trading.com"...

Domain Name: xt-trading.com
Registry Domain ID: 1920260583_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.hichina.com
Registrar URL: http://www.net.cn/
Updated Date: 2015-04-16T07:45:58Z
Creation Date: 2015-04-16T07:45:58Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2016-04-16T07:45:58Z
Registrar: HICHINA ZHICHENG TECHNOLOGY LTD.
Registrar IANA ID: 420
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +86.4006008500
Reseller:
Domain Status: ok http://www.icann.org/epp#OK
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Han Chun Qing
Registrant Organization: Han Chun Qing
Registrant Street: He Bei Sheng Shi Jia Zhuang Shi Yu Hua Qu Ti Yu Nan Da Jie 378Hao ,,
Registrant City: Shi Jia Zhuang Shi
Registrant State/Province: He Bei
Registrant Postal Code: 050000
Registrant Country: CN
Registrant Phone: +86.031213383223
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax: +86.031213383223
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: [email protected]

from their contact page ( translated by Google) :
Contact
Hebei spin Tao Export Trade Co.
Address: Yuhua District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, 378 South Main Street Sports
Phone: (0312) 5886381
Fax: (0312) 5886316
E-mail: [email protected]


Hebei Import & Export Trading Co., Ltd Tao spin

Technical support: outrageous

Thanks for checking whois database and thanks for the link.
We didn't know that kind of scam is so common that it even has already been named. -.-

The address mentioned on the web site of Hebei Xuantao and in the whois query seems hard to be found. We tried it using google maps and baidu maps, but the street name and some other details led us to different places. One detail all these different places had in common: No sign of existence of the company that should be there...

your welcome. Its a hard lesson learned, chances are good it will cost less to learn the lesson than it will to hire a Chinese lawyer, have the criminals tracked down, and prosecuted. That is the reason they give all false information. Its so much harder to find a person / company that does not exist.

The commercial department of your countries embassy in the country you wish to do business with can likely help you determine if in fact a company is real, however they are not a substitute for an actual "Due diligence" company. Some of these impersonators are pretty slick.

China also has a Q&A site, http://gzlynew.mofcom.gov.cn/gzlynew/se ... searchText I can not speak for the speed or accuracy of it.

http://www.cietac.org/index.cms is an arbator, but I have no clue if they would even consider something similar to your situation. It can't hurt to ask though... nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Again many thanks for your kind advice!

We decided not to try to go any further with our efforts to get anything back or to find those people.
We didn't do our home work before the trip, were too sort of drunk of the deal and didn't see the red flags.

All we can do now is to spread the word about it and reach other potential victims, who then can avoid to make the same sad experience.

I am still confused about how much efforts they invested to just get us to the point where we bought some alcohol and cigarettes for 30.000 CNY. All the e-mails over weeks, the hard negotiating, the knowledge about our business they brought with them. All that for 30,000 CNY (if they brought the gifts back to the shop). That's all. Nothing more. And, for us, the useless trip to China. Our loss is much higher than their gain. I can't really understand that and I am still thinking about the reason why. Is there anything more they gained? Anything we can't see? Is that signed contract anything they can still make use of in their country? It's very hard to understand. And if the alcohol and the cigarettes worth 30,000 CNY is all they have now - ain't that simply pathetic?

I am still confused about how much efforts they invested to just get us to the point where we bought some alcohol and cigarettes for 30.000 CNY. All the e-mails over weeks, the hard negotiating, the knowledge about our business they brought with them. All that for 30,000 CNY (if they brought the gifts back to the shop). That's all. Nothing more.

its the same basic reason pet scammers only ask for $50 or $75 for "transportation fees" for animals that do not exist. The person that lost the money does not see it as such a big deal, but their gain is massive. You are talking roughly $5000 in USD that they did not really have to work all that hard to get. Plus now they are that much better criminals. So it is experience to them as well. It goes to show you how much $5K is worth to them. It has nearly nothing to do with you.

I can't really understand that and I am still thinking about the reason why. Is there anything more they gained? Anything we can't see? Is that signed contract anything they can still make use of in their country? It's very hard to understand. And if the alcohol and the cigarettes worth 30,000 CNY is all they have now - ain't that simply pathetic?

I really doubt the contract has any legal use now, as the names of them / their "Company" are likely false. However, it would be a good idea to check with the commercial department of your embassy in CN, and maybe even consult your own attorney about it, if you keep one retained.

with that said, it doesn't mean that they won't contact you and try to engage you again, even if there is no legitimate basis for the contact.