Container sales and leasing companies are falling prey to scammers passing themselves off as legitimate suppliers through the creation of bogus websites.
Barron Charsley, director at wholesale container solutions company Speedspace, told FTW they had been aware of website cloning and brand theft “for some time”. He recalled an incident where a client phoned to ask about his container.
“He said ‘I’ve paid you, now where is where my container.’ “Unfortunately we knew nothing about it but on closer inspection we found out that the company he had dealt with was called Speedy Spaces.” Evidently the brand pirates are so good at using another company’s get-up through web-cloning that Speedy Spaces looked very similar to Speedspace.
FTW phoned the contact numbers on the bogus site and neither of the two numbers on the landing page were answered. Charsley said they were aware of at least five or six similar sites where clients were hoodwinked through a fairly professional approach to part up-front with money, only to find out they had been duped.
“The modus operandi is always the same. They promise containers at reduced pricing and ask for payment in advance – an industry standard – only to disappear with the money.” In the meantime the problem appears to be contained, with all the scam sites brought to FTW’s attention still being online – but non-responsive as far as direct communication is concerned. Expectations are that the scamming will rear its head once more.
“They always pop up again,” said Francois du Plessis, CEO of Almar Container Group. “It’s a real challenge for us in the industry. “Unwitting clients buy containers at cut-throat prices only to be left in the lurch when the containers never arrive.” Du Plessis added that they had tried to get SAPS involved, “but the police have too much on their plate.” In the absence of crimefighting support against container fraud, companies like Speedspace and Almar have turned to Google to root out the online rot. That, in itself, seems to be an uphill battle. “Google wants us to come up with concrete evidence against these people,” said Charsley, “otherwise they feel we may just be trying to discredit competitors.”
However, getting Google to pull the ad-words of fake companies was one of the most important ways to face up to charlatans, said Du Plessis. “If we can cut off their visibility on the net and cripple their search engine optimisation, we can make it very hard for them to be found on the internet.” In an attempt to alert Google to the threat of company identity theft and industrial fraud, Du Plessis, who has been instrumental in leading the web-based fight against scammers, has even turned to global watchdog body Container Owners’ Association.
Nevertheless, because it’s an unregulated industry and up-front payment is an industry standard, clients are ultimately left to their own devices and are implored “to be prudent in choosing a container company”, said Charsley.
“We advise people to use benchmark pricing and the old rule of thumb that if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” To this Du Plessis added that, even if all checked out, clients should be extra careful. In the interests of helping customers, Almar has compiled a checklist to assist would-be container buyers.
“Scammers know how to draft invoices and collect money through opening and quickly closing bank accounts, thereby covering their tracks in the shortest possible time.” This was in spite of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (Fica) and other financial regulation restrictions and the reason why, Du Plessis stressed, the business of fake containerisation was being viewed as organised crime. “They are on top of their game.”
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Unwitting clients buy containers at cutthroat prices only to be left in the lurch when the containers never arrive. – Francois du Plessis
