A cross-border e-commerce company went bankrupt

In recent years, the scale of the cross-border e-commerce market has continued to expand, attracting a large number of people going overseas, but it has also attracted many people with bad intentions. They are disguised as cross-border e-commerce, but they are actually doing fraud. Since this year, such incidents have occurred frequently. Not long after the Baiyao cross-border e-commerce incident was settled, a similar incident happened again! Recently, a large number of reports have been received that Zhejiang Suyisi E-commerce Company has defrauded a large amount of funds, and the office is now empty.

The platform has been closed and the office is empty.

Recently, news about Suisse's suspected fraud has been overwhelming on major social media platforms.

Qichacha clearly shows that Suyis was only registered and established in Gongshu District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province in March this year. However, its external publicity always highlights its "strong" background.

It is said that Suez Cross-border E-commerce Platform ( SUEZ) was established in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as early as 2013. It originated from Saudi Arabia's Jarir Marketing Company. In 2016, DP World, the largest local logistics company in Saudi Arabia, became its second largest shareholder. In June this year, it was listed on the Shanghai Equity Exchange (corporate code: 212379), with business covering 69 countries and continents. Even its name is based on the world-class transportation hub Suez Canal.

The level of "packaging" was so thorough that even the deceived merchants had to sigh: "They made it look so realistic. They are customer service, operations, a listed company, a big boss giving classes, and a foreigner as financial director. They have a big name . "

At the same time, it was also claimed that it was a cross-border e-commerce company introduced by Gongshu District of Hangzhou City to "create the first commercial district in the province." Many merchants were confident in investing because they saw that it was a "government-led investment enterprise."

However, what was unexpected was that the company was deserted less than half a year after it was put into operation. Qichacha showed that since the company could not be contacted through the registered residence/business premises, it was listed in the abnormal operation list by the Hangzhou High-tech Zone (Binjiang) Market Supervision and Administration Bureau on August 10. Shortly thereafter (September 11), another company under the name of legal person Cao Jianxin, Zhejiang Suyishi Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (established in October 2022), was also listed in the abnormal operation list for the same reason.

At the same time, the SUEZ platform was also shut down on August 30. "The SUEZ APP cleared all the data of all merchants, and the original merchant backends also disappeared." said a merchant.

Yien.com found that the app could no longer be found in the Android app store. In addition, the company's official account login portal could no longer be opened, and the official account had stopped updating as early as August 3. The official account mini program was left blank, and a large number of "condemnation" messages similar to those of deceived merchants could be seen in the comment area.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of Suez's problems.

When it comes to cross-border e-commerce, the first thing that comes to mind for industry insiders is mainstream platforms such as Amazon. However, these platforms are highly competitive and have a foreign language threshold, so newcomers often have many concerns when entering the market. This just gives criminals an opportunity to take advantage of it. They use "high profit returns" as bait, under the guise of "cross-border e-commerce" and "national policies", and claim that they can provide "full-hosting" agency operations. Those who know little about the cross-border e-commerce industry or have never been exposed to cross-border e-commerce are very easy to be deceived.

Suisse also follows this routine. It claims to have overseas warehouses, cooperative manufacturers, a complete operating system and a professional team, which can help merchants complete product selection, logistics distribution, customs clearance, foreign exchange settlement, tax refund and other tasks, while providing operational support. Merchants do not need to bear the risk of stockpiling goods, and there is no threshold for entry. They only need to advance the payment and wait for the benefits (that is, after the customer confirms receipt of the goods, the merchant will get the corresponding commission and the principal paid will be returned).

In fact, this is very similar to the "no-source cross-border e-commerce" fraud and "agent operation" fraud that the government is currently cracking down on . However, this time the number of merchants defrauded is large and the amount involved is huge.

Funds only flow in but not out, hundreds of millions of sellers' payments were swindled away

According to reports, there are more than 40,000 merchants who have been defrauded, involving hundreds of millions of dollars. The amount of money lost by the victims ranges from a few thousand to millions. They are spread all over the country. In one of the "recovery groups", it can be seen that people have been defrauded in Fangchenggang, Suzhou, Chongqing, Xinjiang, Kunming, Sichuan, Shandong and other places.

At present, a large number of victims have reported the case to the police station.

Many of these victims only realized they were scammed when they had emptied their wallets and had no money to invest and wanted to close the store. "I first saw Suyis cross-border e-commerce in April, and decided to open a store after watching for three months. During this period, my family also advised me several times that it was a scam, but I didn't stop. I didn't find out the problem until I had no money to invest and wanted to close the store to withdraw money. The scammers said 14 days at the first time, and they kept dragging their feet with various reasons. Now, more than 600 people in our group have been scammed, and how many families have been ruined." said a victim.

In fact, merchants had already discovered Suisse’s problems before the explosion and warned: “It’s a bit unbelievable. Although the investment amount is not large, we created a store but do not have backend permissions. Moreover, for such a large company, since it has shipped goods, does it still need that little capital? Why does it want us to operate and make money from it?”

The police revealed the methods of this type of scam: fraudsters post false advertisements to induce victims to register and open stores on fake cross-border e-commerce websites. After a "customer" places an order, the victim is required to advance the purchase price of the "goods".

As long as the sellers put money in, they will face only one result in the end: only money in, no money out. These platforms require that all orders are completed and delivered before merchants can withdraw cash. However, these so-called customers are artificially manipulated by fraudsters in the background. Orders keep coming in, and merchants cannot withdraw cash at all, and the weight eventually becomes bigger and bigger.

When the merchant discovers the problem and asks to close the store and withdraw the money, they will "harvest" again and collect a deposit on the grounds that the seller has breached the contract. After receiving the money, they will immediately clear the merchant's store, leaving the page blank.

According to victims, SUEZ made a fortune before it was shut down: "From August 18, for ten consecutive days, the number of orders increased dramatically, reaching one order per minute. Because if you don't invest, you will be considered in breach of contract and be punished by the platform until your capital is directly reduced to 0 or frozen and forced to close the store. Merchants can only bite the bullet and borrow, loan or swipe credit cards to invest money to process the so-called buyer orders."

In recent years, this type of fraud has emerged in an endless stream, causing great harm to novice cross-border e-commerce sellers, and also making many people look at cross-border e-commerce with tinted glasses. Fortunately, the country has been strengthening its crackdown since this year, for example, social platforms are not allowed to place advertisements related to "cross-border e-commerce". However, Ennet would like to warn all cross-border e-commerce novices that if they want to do cross-border e-commerce, they should choose mainstream cross-border e-commerce platforms. In addition, it is impossible for a business to only make money without losses. Those projects that promise high returns or only make money without losses must have tricks.