Flower importer: Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup scam

From: May 12, 2020

13-11-2019

There is a chance that you will be approached by a company from UK who claims to be a consultant of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SCDL) for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup. Everything seems to be completely legitimate, even the website and documents. However, when you take a closer look and do some more research, you can see that it is a complete scam!

One of our Colombian clients received an email from this person from UK. He informs you that the government of Qatar has approved a massive procurement of various flowers for beautification of facilities, offices, stadiums and roads for hosting the FIFA World Cup 2022. Our client answered them and received many documents and additional information. A few days after our client send an offer for the delivery of a big amount of flowers, they received the confirmation that, in an unanimous decision taken by the Qatar 2022 SCDL, they were the winner of the tender. The organization required a processing fee and tender registration fee of $5.500,00 to continue. That’s when our client contacted us to check if everything is correct.

AgroCheck did some research and found out that this is a complete scam. One of the things we found out is that the domain name is registered less than 2 months ago. But it is not a simple scam, these guys spend a lot of time to make it look legitimate. When you go to the website (slightly different domain name than the official website of SCDL), it looks almost exactly like the official website. Just the email address is changed. Our client didn’t transfer the money. However, they will definitely approach more farms and exporters with the same proposal, also outside Colombia.

You have just been warned. Don’t let this happen to you! We noticed that more and more companies in South America are becoming victims of doubtful debtors. An AgroCheck membership can help you to avoid these scammers, luckily a lot of you already know that. An AgroCheck membership is available from $450 per year! We only have to warn you once in a few years and you will easily gain profit from your membership. If you would like to have more information, feel free to contact us.

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