Liquidation scams and red flags
This trade attracts fraud because the goods are hard to verify and the buyers are often new. Here is what to check before you send money.
What the fake-dealer signature looks like
Impossible pricing
An $85 pallet of iPhones does not exist. Neither does a $400 truckload. If the per-unit arithmetic on branded goods looks like theft, it is because it is.
Stolen photography
Reverse-image search the listing photos. If the same picture appears on four other sites, nobody has that load.
No verifiable identity
No street address, no landline, no company name that resolves to anything. A phone number and an email are not an identity.
Payment pressure
Crypto only, or a wire to a personal name, or a bank detail that changes mid-order. Always a red flag, no exceptions.
A manifest for everything
Detailed itemised manifests offered casually on mixed return loads. Real mixed returns are not itemised, and a seller who says otherwise is guessing or lying.
Brand new domain, loud claims
A site registered this year claiming a decade of trading and thousands of five-star reviews. Check the domain age and check whether the reviews exist anywhere you did not land from their own site.
A ten-minute check before any first order
Look up the domain age
A public WHOIS lookup takes thirty seconds. Weigh loud claims against it.
Put the address into a map
A real liquidation operation sits on an industrial estate with dock doors. A residential address or a mail drop is worth a question.
Reverse-image search two photos
Right-click, search by image. Stolen photography is the single fastest tell.
Call the phone number
Somebody who cannot answer a phone during business hours cannot handle a freight claim either.
Read the returns policy properly
A vague or missing policy means you have no recourse. A specific one, with windows and a claims procedure, is a real commitment.
How to hold us to the same standard
It would be hollow to publish this and not apply it to ourselves, so here it is directly.
Our address, phone number and hours are on every page and on the contact page. Our loads are stated unmanifested everywhere, including in the terms. Our prices are what they are, and where a load looks unusually cheap it is because the goods are low-value, not because we are pretending they are not. We accept bank transfer and Zelle, we say so plainly, and we tell you exactly when the details are emailed and how long you have.
We do not publish reviews we wrote ourselves. If our reviews page looks thin, that is why, and you should treat any competitor whose page is full on a young domain with the scepticism it deserves.
Red flag questions
Is a wire transfer itself a red flag?
No. Bank transfer is normal in freight and liquidation because card fees on a five-figure load are punishing. What matters is whether the recipient is a business account matching the trading name, whether the details are consistent, and whether the seller has a verifiable identity behind them.
What about crypto?
Treat crypto-only as disqualifying. There is no recourse and no legitimate reason to require it.
Should I ask for a video of the load?
You can, and a real seller can usually oblige for a specific skid. Be aware that video of a pallet tells you very little about what is inside a wrapped load.
What if a deal is time-limited?
Genuine liquidation stock does sell quickly, but real sellers do not manufacture countdowns. Pressure to decide within minutes is a sales technique, not a supply constraint.
Check us the way you would check anyone
Our address, terms and policies are all published. Ask us anything they do not cover.