A freight forwarder was criminally detained, and the amount involved in the case exceeded 4 million!

Low-price cargo solicitation has always been a disaster area in the logistics industry. It has been tried and tested many times and has never failed. One of the important factors involved in the UPS account leak some time ago was low-price cargo solicitation. Now another freight forwarder has been arrested, also suspected of the same factor.

Not only freight forwarders, but also a group of cross-border sellers in Guangzhou and Shenzhen got into trouble when the peak season arrived. They did illegal things to make quick money and were eventually caught.

A freight forwarder was arrested for defrauding freight

Recently, Shandong police announced a case in which a freight forwarder purchased goods at low prices and defrauded export freight.

Cui from a supply chain company in Shandong handled export transportation business and used prices lower than the normal market price as a gimmick to solicit large quantities of goods, collecting more than 400,000 yuan in fees from a steel company in Shandong. He then entrusted the goods to a superior freight forwarding company at a high price, but did not pay the superior freight forwarding company on the payment date.

As a result, a Shandong steel company was unable to obtain bills of lading for goods exported to Hong Kong, which ultimately caused economic losses of more than 4 million yuan to foreign customers, and the cargo owner ultimately borne all the losses. It took Shandong police a year to finally secure evidence of his crime. The suspect has been detained and the case is under further investigation.

In fact, such things are not uncommon in the industry. Under the circumstances of weak overseas demand and insufficient cargo volume, many freight forwarders have tried every trick to attract cargo, such as offering free return rebates for the entire journey to the West Coast of the United States and sea freight prices as low as 2 yuan/KG. They have lowered their quotes and profits in the hope of getting more orders.

However, the internal competition of the transition has also made the chaos in the industry more and more serious. Not only freight forwarders that focus on the first leg of ocean shipping, but also cross-border logistics companies that focus on overseas warehouses have run away. Freight rates have plummeted, and the contract price and market price have been inverted. Some relatively small freight forwarders who can't bear it will choose to run away to stop losses.

As we all know, logistics is long and complicated. Not only is the transportation cycle long, but the various links are also complicated, and the freight payment period is relatively long. Some bad freight forwarders often do something after buying goods at a low price, such as using regular container numbers to load goods on ordinary ships, playing word games with compensation plans, and shipping goods on the same ship as dangerous goods.

Of course, the more serious cases mentioned in the previous article are cases of defrauding export freight. Generally speaking, after the goods are loaded on board, the shipping company cannot collect the freight when due. Even if the goods have arrived at the exporting country, foreign customers cannot pick up the goods. If the time exceeds a certain period, the goods may be auctioned off at the port.

As internal competition intensifies, malicious competition among logistics peers has never stopped.

In the first half of this year, there were constant reports of four freight forwarders, including Kaiqi, going bankrupt one after another, which caused heated discussions in the industry. However, these companies subsequently issued solemn statements, saying that these news were all rumors and that they were malicious operations by their peers to snatch customers. The collapse of freight forwarders and the spread of the collapse of freight forwarders also reflect a phenomenon: the competition in the freight forwarding industry is becoming more and more fierce and has entered a white-hot stage, and the risk of freight forwarders going bankrupt is also increasing.

Affected by the UPS account leakage, Shenzhen International Freight Forwarding, which was established eight years ago, announced the suspension of receiving goods; another old freight forwarding company that has been in the industry for a decade issued a notice to suspend the receiving work of international express export business channels; and a Shenzhen freight forwarding company even announced the cessation of business with a notice. It can be said that the old freight forwarding company that has been in the industry for many years has not been able to survive this logistics winter.

Freight forwarders were hit by internal conflicts, and cross-border sellers here also ran into trouble.

Before the peak season, a group of cross-border sellers were arrested

A few days ago, a cross-border seller in Henan was caught for selling counterfeit Underarmour and FILA products, which caused a sensation in the industry. However, because the seller started to engage in cross-border e-commerce at the beginning of this year and the value of the counterfeit products was not high, the seller has been released on bail pending trial.

This situation has been getting worse in recent days, and another seller has revealed that a group of sellers in Guangzhou and Shenzhen have also encountered problems.

Due to engaging in the gray and black industries such as special goods, counterfeit brands, and goods that do not match the pictures, several large sellers in Nanshan District and Baoan District were directly taken away by the police, and all their products were also sealed. According to people familiar with the matter, this group of sellers are mainly concentrated in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other regions, and most of them are independent website sellers.

It is understood that these unscrupulous sellers always try to make a lot of money by taking small risks. They think that independent websites are not strictly regulated and they can exploit loopholes and skirt the rules. They are the only ones on independent websites and make a lot of money by doing all kinds of tricks. On Amazon, there are frequent cases of goods not matching the pictures or even empty packages.

"These people are only interested in making quick money and don't consider whether they have violated the law. Now the entire Guangdong Province is conducting a strict investigation, and it is estimated that two small targets have been fined," a seller revealed.

In addition to the above-mentioned black and gray operations, follow-selling is a common occurrence. Some sellers dare not speak out, while others directly report follow-selling sellers on social platforms. Some sellers even complained: "I found a follow-selling king. He followed more than 100 products and 140 sellers. It's really abominable." In the past, at most one or two sellers were followed. This seller really refreshed the three views of people in the industry. The key is that this seller is a new store located in Nanning.

A big seller with annual sales of more than 10 billion yuan offered a reward of 500,000 yuan to find the company that maliciously followed the seller after being attacked by a follower using a zombie account from the United States . It is understood that the follower maliciously used the cannon fodder account to follow the seller at a low price, hoping to bring down the price of the big seller's products, thereby affecting the big seller's flash sale price. In the end, the cannon fodder account was closed, but it might also cause the big seller to miss the flash sale and lose tens of millions of yuan.

Even if the sellers are angry, they cannot directly chase away the copycat sales. This is related to the brand abuse incidents that have been frequently discussed by sellers in recent times. If the sellers do not operate properly, it is very likely that the brand will be abused and removed, which will result in greater losses.

Nowadays, not only cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon are using various means to crack down on sellers engaged in black and gray industries, but even the country is accelerating its crackdown on these sellers. Sellers should strictly observe the red line, be cautious, and never fall into the vortex of making quick money.

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