Arman Food Co., Ltd.

[Alfred]

Hi there
Has anybody worked with the company above.
They have been targeting Model agencies
Please contact us
Many thanks
Alfred

[Nyla]

Some sort of identifying information, where they are supposedly located and background details as to what you sell, how they contacted you and what they are asking for from you would be helpful. It's completely unclear why a "Food Company" would be targeting "model agencies".

Just giving a possibly incomplete company name is like asking if "Bob Smith" is trustworthy.

[Alfred]

Hi there
They are based in China saying they want 20 models for a Car trade show on a tour in China for 60 days. You go and sign a contract in China and you pay a Notary fee and then never hear from them again.
let me know if you need anymore details
Thanks
ALFRED

[bawelna]

Hi there

let me know if you need anymore details

ALFRED
Any details -- your post shows zero information. :thumbup:

[Nyla]

Hi there
They are based in China saying they want 20 models for a Car trade show on a tour in China for 60 days. You go and sign a contract in China and you pay a Notary fee and then never hear from them again.
let me know if you need anymore details
Thanks
ALFRED

Contact information would be a good place to start, so others who search the internet for addresses or phone numbers or names these people used might be able to find this post. Any email addresses or websites used are good. If there's additional information such as the "car show" name or something similar, that would help. Scammers often reuse formats or scripts.

Also, it sounds as though you're already convinced this is a scam, which seems probable at this point. It's fairly common, apparently, for some scammers in China to basically pull a "favors" or "contract fee" scam. They promise you some lucrative business and then ask you to travel to China, where you might pay for expensive gifts like dinners or buying fine art for business contacts to help "grease the wheels" on the deal or they just ask for some signing fee. Then the deal never comes through.

Any identifying information you can offer would be helpful to those doing research.

[zoestica]

Hello,

Our company was unfortunately one of the victims of BEIJING ARMAN FOODS COMPANY.

As explained in the article before everything started with an email from a man called Wang Hongxiang.
They were asking if we could help them to organise a car exhibition with 20 models.
At the beginning it all seemed quite weird. A dairy company organising a car exhibition, etc etc.
After a couple of weeks though it all became quite concrete and we were seriously working on a contract and on the preparation of the exhibition.
All the factors which I was thinking were alarming a fraud were wiped out the more we were in contact.

Anyway. Once the contract was finished and they chose the models I planned my trip to Beijing.

They picked me up at the airport and brought me to my hotel.
Zhao Long Hotel, Beijing.

We met in the afternoon in the hotel lobby to discuss some more details and planned the appointement for the signature the next day with the 'CEO'.

Their office was quite far outside of Beijing, but as the city is just enormous, I didn't feel insecure.
Once arrived I met the whole team and we signed the contract.
As I said. Everything was quite serious and didn't seem weird at all.
I paid a notary fee of 1316 $ which is not enormous either.
I mean, I was saying to myself. If someone wants to is planning a fraud the amount would be much higher.
The contract was over a budget of 900,000 $. So the notary fee was 0.15 % of the budget. Apparently a government notary office.

Before going for lunch, where we should meet the finance manager and the CEO again, Mr Wang Hongxiang suggested me to get a present for the CEO.
As I only brought a present for Wang I even felt kind of embarassed, I mean, I just signed a contract over 900,000 $.
So we went to a department store not far from their office, called BEJEWELED. There, they brought me into the jewelry section and made me by a present for the CEO. They also suggested to get something for the finance manager and finally also for Wang himself, which was a suggestion of Wang's assistant.
In total I bought presents for 4000,00 €.
Some people might say I am stupid and I should have felt something.
But to be honest. If you just signed a contract over 900,000 $, that everything seemed to go the right way and that you actually really didn't get anything for the CEO, you don't really think like that.

Then we met at the restaurant, which seemed to be a very chic one and we had a delicious lunch.

They finally accompanied me to my hotel and that was it.

I still heard from them quite regulary. The day that I expected the advance payment though, I never heard from the again.

I just hope that this post can help anybody who is or was or will be in contact with these people.

[crickets99]

Dear Zoestica:

I feel like you are a long lost friend. I just fell victim to the exact same scam from Mr. Wang, Mr. Liu and Ms. Ma of Arman Foods. I just returned myself from Beijing on September 6, 2009 where we signed our "contract" for marketing services. In fact, the way I realized that I was scammed was when I read your post. They did the exact same thing to me. In fact, out first payment is scheduled for the end of this week. Given that they are no longer responding to my emails and teir phone is disconnected, I will take a wild guess that I will not be getting that first payment!!

I think all in, I lost about $15,000 (this includes the notary fee of $2,200 and gifts about $8,000) - and I traveled all the way from California to Beijing for that previledge.

I just contacted the FBI and the State Department here in the USA. They will do what they can. But while I was there, I luckily took photos of Mr. Wang, Mr. Liu and Ms. Ma. If you would like these, I will be happy to send them.

Lets do what we can to make sure that no one else falls to the scam of Arman Food Co., LTD. in Beijing. But given the volume of emails Mr. Hongxiang Wang has sent out, I'm sure they have spread their net very wide. Not sure about you, but I feel very violated!! Would love to compare notes with you.

John

[yegg]

What both of you described is apparently well known to those who are aware of the many scams going on in the world. Prior to this thread being created, this page existed:

http://resources.alibaba.com/topic/606520/scam_or_not.htm

They bring up an Asian company called "Hunan Hongyuan Import & Export Trade Co., Ltd".

Another user on the site explains:
It could be the well-known Chinese "contract scam". The Chinese company places a big order and then invites representatives of the foreign company to China to sign the contract. After signing the contract they tell the foreign representatives that after a successful business it's tradition in China to give money or expensive gifts to their manager. Because of the big order many foreign companies have no problem paying the requested money to the manager or buying expensive gifts for him. Of course the contract will never get fulfilled.


Another "contract scam" is that the Chinese company asks for high lawyer or government fees when signing the contract. As the foreign company representatives don't know the Chinese laws very well and the contract has a high order volume, they often don't hesitate to pay the requested money. Of course the contract fees are not justified at all and the contract will never be fulfilled.

The WHOIS on bjarman.com (the homepage for Arman Food Co., Ltd.) shows that their contact email as aermanss@126.com. This "Hunan Hongyuan Import & Export Trade Co., Ltd" was also using a @126.com email. These are free webmail accounts. This is not normal for a company that is prepared to seal a $900,000 contract.

These import/export scams are extremely common and happen in numerous countries, primarily in poorer, less policed nations.

I've also noticed that all of these Asian import/export sites always seem to set their company name up as "[company name here] Co., Ltd". The company you mentioned did this, the one on the other forum was like this, I've seen many others like this, and a site someone brought up the other night on this forum also did this very thing (though I couldn't prove it was 100% scam, thought it showed many signs).

The type of scam that lost you some money could have been easily avoided. The FBI probably wont accomplish anything against the company involved, but the best way to keep scammers from making money is by informing others about them. The least you could do is post the emails they sent on here with full header info from the email. It helps future viewers to identify known scams easier and it helps us pin it to other scams before it provides us with much more information.