In 2022, several Polish companies planned to purchase paper products from a Tianjin-based import-export company in China. After months of negotiations, the Polish buyers paid the full amount, but the Tianjin company subsequently failed to deliver the goods and eventually cut off all contact, with its representatives becoming unreachable.
To properly resolve the dispute, the Polish companies sought legal assistance from the lawyer team of Larry Zhou at Landing (Shenzhen) Law Office. The team assigned lawyers Larry Zhou and Avon Zhao to handle the case.
After filing the lawsuit, the proceedings proved more challenging than expected.
Polish companies have always thought that the seller is a Chinese company, including the company seal on Invoice, the account name of the overseas collection account is the same as the seller's English name, and the company provided its own company registration number.
Unexpectedly, the defendants denied being the actual seller to the transaction, with its owner and shareholders claiming that the seller was not truly a Tianjin-based company, that they had never been involved in its operations, and that someone had fraudulently used their company’s name to carry out this "scam."
Furthermore, since the Chinese seller used third-party platform to open overseas bank accounts for receiving foreign currency payments, tracing the fund flow was particularly difficult.
After extensive investigation and evidence collection, our legal team submitted a comprehensive body of evidence and supporting documents to the court to rebut the defendants' argument.
Ultimately, the court ruled in our favor, ordering the Tianjin seller to issue a full refund (approximately CNY 200000), along with interests, litigation costs, and attorney fees.
This case or a "trading scam" serves as a warning to everyone:
If a seller requests payment to a non-mainland China account (e.g., a Hong Kong account), buyers must exercise extreme caution.
Offshore account names in English often do not directly correspond to mainland Chinese companies, and despite the bilateral judicial assistance agreement between mainland China and Hong Kong, mainland courts rarely enforce such claims in practice.
Without legal intervention to prove the connection between the recipient and the trading party, such cases can face significant evidentiary challenges.
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