Fraudulent UAE firms pose threat to Vietnamese businesses

Six businesses in United Arab Emirates (UAE), Abdul Aziz Abdul Gaffar Foodstuff Trading LLC, Green Light Foodstuff Trading LLC, Climax General Trading LLC, Loyalpur General Trading LLC, Choice Global FZC/Vital Fresh General Trading LLC and International Dragon Food Trading LLC (IDP), are said to have conducted numerous activities last year that have been reported as showing signs of fraud, according to the Office.

Fraudulent signs include ordering without paying, document forgery and cyber hacking, the office said. For example, hackers could compromise the email addresses of two businesses to monitor negotiations. When a deal is about to be reached, they would either use compromised email addresses or create fake ones to trick buyers with fake account information.

Once buyers transfer money into the fake accounts, believing them to be the genuine accounts of sellers, hackers would take the money instead.

Some Vietnamese businesses have also been careless with their conduct, creating opportunities for fraudulent activity to occur. For example, they may not verify info about their business partners, the quality of products before shipment or send someone from the Vietnamese side to monitor business deals, resulting in cases where they only receive back wrong, damaged or low-quality goods, or are falsely accused of delivering damaged goods and billed for compensation.

Signs of fraud Vietnamese businesses need to look out for include suspiciously easy and quick negotiations, requests for deposits to complete document procedures in the UAE, or soon-to-be expired business licenses, the office stated.

To minimize risks and ensure secure transactions, Vietnamese businesses need to request their partners to provide letters of credit (L/C) at creditworthy banks, first verified by Vietnamese banks. For transactions regarding documents against payment (D/P), businesses need to have proper deposit rates to ensure the safety of their orders, ideally 50 percent or above, it said.