Case Study 1: Going to Court in China Against a Scammer

Introduction: A Deal Too Good to Be True

ABS, PP, and PE are not niche commodities. They are among the most heavily traded petrochemical products in the world, produced at scale, priced within a narrow global band, and supplied by a limited pool of established players. When an offer comes in 15 to 20% under market price, that is not a bargain. It is a warning sign.

A Turkish import company based in Istanbul, a long-standing client of CNAL Consulting, learned this the hard way. Sourcing suppliers across China and beyond, the company came across a chemical supplier on Alibaba offering exactly that: a price far below market, with only a short window to secure it. They wired $36,000. The goods never arrived.

1. How the Scam Unfolded

The supplier's playbook was methodical. An unusually attractive price. A claim of limited stock, tied to other buyers already lined up. Constant reassurance, with every question met with a confident, affirmative answer. A promise of immediate dispatch. And, to close the loop, fabricated Chinese certifications that made the operation look legitimate on paper.

Under pressure to act before the "opportunity" disappeared, the client transferred the full amount without a signed contract and without verifying the supplier's credentials. The only paper trail was a set of chat messages and a payment slip.

The client only brought CNAL into the picture once a digital bill of lading arrived and something felt off. That instinct was correct. A check with the shipping line confirmed that the container did not hold the products described: the bill of lading was fabricated. Shortly after, the supplier wiped the entire chat history. When the client turned to Alibaba for help, the platform declined to intervene, stating that supplier vetting was the buyer's responsibility.

2. First Contact: Trying to Resolve It Without Court

Once the fraud was confirmed, the immediate goal was to recover the funds without litigation. CNAL reached out to the supplier directly, in Chinese, requesting either the goods or a refund. The response was a rotating set of promises (next week, then the following month) that never materialized.

To apply real pressure, CNAL escalated on two fronts: direct calls to the supplier in China, including an explicit warning that legal action would follow, and an in-person visit by a local agent to the supplier's registered address. That visit confirmed the company was a real, registered trading entity. The supplier, unbothered, effectively invited legal action, telling CNAL's representative to go ahead and sue.

3. Building the Case: Four Months of Preparation

With negotiation exhausted, CNAL began vetting law firms in China and selected one in Guangzhou. What followed was roughly four months of evidence-building before the case could even reach a courtroom, a reflection of how document-intensive Chinese civil litigation is for foreign claimants.

The work included:

• Verifying the law firm's credentials and deploying a representative through a local partner to confirm the supplier's registration
• Translating the full case file across Turkish, English, and Chinese
• Recovering authenticated chat records directly from the messaging platform, since the supplier had deleted its side of the conversation
• Compiling payment proof, company registration documents, and every certificate or document the supplier had shared
• Coordinating simultaneously between the client, the law firm, and the supplier, a role CNAL managed end-to-end throughout the process

4. The Verdict, and a Second Trip to Court

The court's first ruling ordered the supplier to repay the $36,000 in installments. The supplier paid the first installment and then stopped. CNAL and the law firm went back to court, and this time the ruling had teeth: the court froze the supplier's accounts and authorized the funds to be seized directly to satisfy the judgment.

Roughly six months after the second ruling (about a year after the case first went to court, and well over a year from the original payment) the full $36,000 was recovered.

5. What It Actually Cost

Winning the case was not the same as making the client whole. Legal fees, translation costs, and CNAL's own fees against the recovered amount left the client with roughly $18,000, about half of what was originally sent.

Beyond the money, the client lost more than a year to the process and, in the interim, lost the downstream customer who had been waiting on that shipment of ABS. A dispute that started over a single supplier payment ended up costing a client relationship and a year of business momentum along with it.

6. The Lesson

The entire case (the four months of preparation, the year in the courts, the legal bills, the lost client) could have been avoided by a supplier verification check costing roughly €250.

That is the real takeaway: in cross-border sourcing, the cost of skipping due diligence is not the price of the check you didn't run. It's everything that happens after you didn't run it.

If your business sources from China or other emerging markets, supplier verification, contract review, and on-the-ground checks before payment can be the difference between a good deal and a very expensive lesson. CNAL Consulting works with importers to vet suppliers, verify legal registration, inspect goods before shipment, and manage disputes when things go wrong.