By Sun Jin(Marlow), China attoney at law

  QUESTION:  
  Hello Sir, I have sent money to a company in Putian City, Fujian Province, China and never recieved the goods and tried to contact the company many times, but I never got any answers. I need your help.  
     
  ANSWERS:  
     
1. Related Guide:  
 

If you had been scammed by a PUTIAN scammer, as a criminal case you would have to report it to Putian local police.

Some telephone numbers may be helpful as following:

Putian City Police Office Urgent Case Report Hotline: +86-594-110 (Online police officer maybe can not speak English)

Economic Crime Investigation Team of Putian Municipal Police Office
Telephone: +86-594-2772023 (Online police officer maybe can not speak English)

 

 
     
2.
Related Chinese Laws  
 

PRC CRIMINAL LAW

Article 224. Whoever, for the purpose of illegal possession, uses one of the following means during signing or executing a contract to obtain property and goods of the opposite party by fraud, and when the amount of money is relatively large, is to be sentenced to not more than three years of fixed-term imprisonment, criminal detention, and may in addition or exclusively be sentenced to a fine; or be sentenced to not less than three years and not more than 10 years of fixed-term imprisonment and a fine, if the amount of money is huge or there are other serious circumstances; or be sentenced to more than 10 years of fixed-term imprisonment or life imprisonment and a fine or confiscation of property, if the amount of money is particularly huge or there are other particularly serious circumstances:

(1) sign a contract in the name of a made-up unit or under somebody else's name;
(2) use forged, altered, or invalid negotiable instruments or other false certificates of property rights as guaranties;
(3) fulfill small-amount contracts or partially fulfill the contract, instead of actually fulfilling the contract, to inveigle the opposite party into continuing to sign and fulfill the contract;
(4) go into hiding after receiving goods, payment, advance payment, or property as guaranty from the opposite party;
(5) defraud the opposite party's property through other means.

 
     
3. A Piece of News: The foreigner took it seriously, and the PUTIAN online swindler was arrested  
  Date: March 30, 2007
Source: China Procuratorial Daily (Held by The Supreme People's Procuratorate of PRC)

Online swindler Li Peng can not imagine it even in his dream, that his so-called CLIENT will come from Italy thousands miles away to China to report the case to local police, for USD2100 only. In recent days, Li Peng was arrested by police under approval of Putian Procuratorate, for the reason of suspicious that he had committed a crime named Contract Fraud in PRC CRIMINAL LAW.

In Jun. 2006, Li Peng established an online shop in a commercial B2B website, to do online-trade. In November of the year, he found SONY brand PS3 was very hot in markets world widely; he managed to get a sample PS3, and ask his clerks to post online to advertise that he has lots of PS3 in stock, and his quotation was much lower than the normal price in the market. In Dec. 22 of the year, a client from Italy got in contact with Li Peng via email, and decided to purchase 5 sets of PS3. In Jan. 2 of 2007, the Italy client wired USD2100 of payment according to mutual agreement to Li Peng's account. After Li Peng got the payment, he asked his farther to buy a pair of shoes, and couriered it to the Italy client. After the Italy client getting the courier parcel, he expressed his doubts at once. But Li Peng gave him lots of reasons such as Customs and Courier Company's working mistakes. Feb. 6, the Italian who thought he was scammed, came to Putian City, Fujian Province, to report the case to local police. (Reporter: Wang Lei, Lin Guoqiang)

 

 

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