March 16, 2007

When  you’re starting out in business, often you’re dealing with suppliers you have never met. It’s a pretty touch-and-go process sometimes. It’s difficult to be 100% sure that the supplier is legit.

I had an experience in August last year with an Indonesian scammer called Itech Technology ’selling’ Plasma TVs

I was making enquiries about prices and also their identity. They told me that they would prove their honesty by beginning the shipping process and getting me a tracking number. Then I would pay the amount and the shipping would continue on its merry way.

I had not yet decided to order when I was told it had been processed and they gave me a tracking number with www.indo-express.com - their shipping company -  to look at.

I inserted my tracking # and yes, it did look like I had a big package sitting at Indo Express in Jakarta.

 However, the shipment, which they said had travelled from Bandung, was missing a free PS2 that they said came with every order of 5 tvs.

I then emailed Indo Express to ask I really did have a package from Itech sitting in Jakarta. At this point I really did believe that Itech had a shipment sitting in Jakarta. (Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to pay. I had decided on the day previous that I didn’t want to import Plasmas. But someone who was still looking for Plasmas could have been sucked in.)

While waiting for a response from Indo Express I emailed Itech and told them they had stuffed up the order, and not put the PS2 in. They apologised for the whoopsy and suddenly the PS2 showed up under the tracking number- despite the fact that the shipment was already supposed to be hundreds of kms away from Bandung.

Then a reply came in to my email to Indo Express. But it wasn’t from the Indo Express.com domain. It was from a domain called TearsGroup.com. I visited TearsGroup.com and it was a website selling TVs and other electronics - almost exactly the same as Itech.

A more thorough check of Indo Express reveals it is a fraud. Just look at the testimonials here and ask yourself whether a fluent English speaker would write like that!

I was happy to spot three fraudulent websites in one hit.

Collis is a brand new blogger who is off to a great start. Recently he wrote a post that ’stuck’ and crashed his blog. A comprehensive guide to starting your freelance career is a huge guide to starting out by yourself. A wonderful post and deserving of all the link-love it is currently getting.

Sometimes press releases don’t work out. Tyler Cruz spent $169 on getting his out there but noone picked it up. Read about it as there are some lessons to take out of this. The problem for him was that his release wasn’t newsworthy - a fact he acknowledges. It was an experiment for him which will prove to be a valuable experience. (For a related post read 7 things you need to know about dealing with the media. )

Darius at Young Go Getter is talking about branding made easy and cheap. Apparently Google, Coke, Starbucks and Apple - four of the world’s most famous brands - all created their brand with barely any cash. He shares some basic hints (learnt from Guy Kawasaki) on creating a new brand.