Bad experiences with a flower buyer in South Korea

From: January 27, 2021

South Korea is not a major market for flowers and only a limited number of farms and cargo agencies are doing business there. We never wrote a newsletter about it before, but this time we do need to inform you about a buyer that keeps making debts to farms and cargo agencies in South America.

It’s a small wholesale company located at the Express Bus Terminal Wholesale Flower Market in Seoul. First time we got this debtor in the picture was in 2017 when they owed a small amount to a Colombian flower farm. After starting a debt collection procedure, the debt was paid. But the real problems started in 2020 and 2021. The debtor orders mainly small shipments from several farms. They make some (pre)payments but suddenly stop paying and stop answering emails and phone calls. The debts vary between $1,000 and $5,000. As the outstanding debts are relatively small and the distance between South America and South Korea is very big, the debtor probably knows that his suppliers will not put to many efforts in collecting the debts.

We know the debtor with two different names, and with different addresses. They still continue to contact new farms and cargo agencies to buy or ship flowers. This will result in more debts as almost every two months AgroCheck is informed about new victims. With the upcoming Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, we want you to be extra careful.

You have to be warned: be extra careful in the coming weeks! Make sure you do a good background research to every new client. Consult the AgroCheck database and request for an up-to-date credit report for each new client, especially in the risk areas. Not a member yet? Consider it: from only $450 per year you can save yourself a lot of misery!

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