Exporters beware!

Exporters beware!

Around the flower holidays we notice a number of well-known, but also less known wholesale companies and florists with bad intentions. This is not limited to a specific country or part of the world. We also see that the Covid-19 lockdowns, with associated store closures and / or reduced revenues, lead debtors to undesirable behavior.

A few examples from USA, Switzerland, Romania, Spain and Poland…

USA: A flower importer from Los Angeles uses different names to buy flowers from farms in Ecuador and Colombia. In 2020 he left several farms with unpaid invoices for amounts between $500 and $10.000. He is located near the Los Angeles Flower Market and constantly searching for new suppliers. All details are known in the AgroCheck database.

Switzerland: In southern Switzerland, near the Italian border, another old acquaintance has turned up. Great stories, with only one goal: Getting products without paying. We wrote about this debtor several times, but he again appeared in the past two weeks. Advice: stay away from this notorious defaulter!

Romania: Identity fraud continues to be used by a group of scammers from Bucharest. People pretend to be another (good) company, but of course they are not. The companies are often located far outside of Bucharest to mislead you, but eventually all flowers go straight to Bucharest. You think you have coverage from your insurance, but they don’t pay out for fraud cases. Suppliers are always responsible to do a proper research to the debtor, to make sure they are doing business with the specific company.

Spain: We already wrote about it two weeks before Valentine's Day. A Spanish scammer from the North of Spain (around Pontevedra and Palencia) who has been in the picture since 2009 and has caused tons of damage over the years. This time again with a new company name and mainly searching for suppliers in South America.

Poland: A lady who has been active for at least 12 years and tries to do business with Dutch exporters with different names and companies. A lot of damage has been caused over the years. Recently spotted again and very cheeky. Threatened with lawyers and procedures when she was confronted with her debts.

You have been warned… AgroCheck members who would like to know which debtors this concerns, can contact us. We advise non-members to consider an AgroCheck membership. From only $450 per year you get full access to our database (35,000+ companies) and Warning list (2,700+ companies).