Any one who is dealing with M/s. Vallimar SRL or M/s. Ristomar SRL italy, VASEP request you to freeze all deals and not to send them any original documents.
One member of VASEP informed about an Italian buyer’s trick. VASEP would like to announce and recommend all members to be cautious in trading with foreign importers, especially new importers.
Alleging the reason of economical difficulties, wishing to reduce fees, the foreign buyer required to use the payment method of document against payment (D/P) instead of to issue Letter of Credit (L/C). D/P is an arrangement under which an exporter authorizes its presenting bank to hand over shipping and title documents to the buyer’s preventative bank. The importer can only receive the documents once after completing the payment if the importer fully pays the accompanying bill of exchange or draft.
In this case, the buyer asked the exporter to fill in the name of buyer in the line of "consingnee" instead of writing “to order” in this line.
Shipping documents were sent by Vietinbank to B.P.V bank as required by buyer, address: Via Romea N.31 C.A.P 45014 Porto Viro (Rovigo) Rigatello Stefano. Tel : 39 0426 360059. This is buyer’s address, not bank’s address. Vietinbank shifted the documents to address as required and deliver it to buyer. The buyer received all consignments and documents.
Payment by DP poses a lot of risk if exporter doesn’t check carefully information from buyer. Exporter should ask their local bank to check and verify information exactly before trading.
The name of the buyer:
Ristomar S.R.L. Address : Viale Abruzzi N.13/A C.A.P 20131 Milano, Italy.
Tel : 39 0426 360059 - Fax : 39 0426 342958. Representative: Ms. Miriam Tiozzo /Director.
Now an other exporter is trading with the above buyer, after being informed about the cheat, the exporter stopped ships from delivering consignment to the buyer.
Therefore, exporters should be more cautious when trading with foreign importers. If implementing the payment method of DP, they should check and verify carefully information provided by importers before delivering consignments.
On December 13th 2012, the website fis.com also reported the case. See the link for more detail: http://www.fis.com/fis/tradingmarket/read.asp?sector=processing&id=355586&id_reply=355586&l=e