[Asterisk-biz] Fraud Alert: CGC Technologies (HK) Limited & Digiumchina.com

[David Liu]

Dear All In The Asterisk Business Community,

We have been a victim of this company called CGC Technologies (HK) 
Limited (www.cgc.com.hk) and I believe the community deserves to know 
about this.

Earlier this year in March, we were approached by Kent Wong and Billow 
Li of CGC purchasing Digium hardware and Asterisk consultancy services 
for "resell" to a customer in China.

The story basically goes about CGC acting as the middleman and took our 
hardware and services to turn into cash and run away.  To make the long 
story short, we delivered hardware and integration services in May 2005 
to CGC's customer.  The system went live and CGC's customer accepted the 
system and paid CGC in full.  Since then, we have been chasing for 
payment from CGC countless times.  The standard reply from Kent Wong 
(General Manager) was always "We will bank-in payment to you next 
week").  Of course when next week came, we didn't receive a single dime.

Finally, after countless attempts, we received a post-dated cheque on 
9th August, 2005, see (http://fraud.deltapath.com/dishonoredcheque.jpg)

Unfortunately, that cheque failed to clear on the cheque date as they 
have insufficient funds in their bank account. (Source: Phone 
conversation with Anny Choi, Administration & Accounting, CGC, 7th 
September, 2005)

International Collection Agency reported to us that CGC's Hong Kong 
office address is only a virtual office address that is only used for 
receiving mailings.  And the office in Guangzhou, China has been shutted 
down early November by court bailiff, recovering the property for the 
landlord.  We were told by the Management of that office building that 
CGC failed to pay rent for several months already.

These guys are very clever in finding loopholes in the system.  Instead 
of having the cheque dishonored due to insufficient funds, they would 
make a stop payment to the cheque and then claim the item was never 
delivered or doesn't work.  This changes the case from criminal to 
civil.  This means the police can't help you (at least not in Hong Kong).

They are now re-advertising themselves again on the Wiki and presenting 
themselves as digiumchina.com.  So I'd like the community to be aware of 
this and don't get burnt like we did.  Whether you are a customer or a 
supplier, do beware!

Scammers Involved:
Kent Wong, (based in Hong Kong), Mobile/Cell: +852 96475105
Billow Li, (based in Guangzhou, China), Mobile/Cell: +86 13929562515
Peter Ong, (based in Singapore), Mobile/Cell: +65 94501178

And a word to the wise, it is important to seperate Sales and Finance 
even in a small business.  With rigid control enforced by a non sales 
person, you avoid situations like above where a scammer can not sweet 
talk you to accept less deposits and deliver first before payment.

Seasons Greetings to the Asterisk community.

David Liu
Deltapath
Hong Kong

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David Liu
Chief Operating Officer
Deltapath Commerce & Technology Limited
Direct: +852 2127-0700
HK Tel: +852 3107-1333
CN Tel: +86 10 5873-1727
US Tel: +1 313 228-0906
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SIP Technology Provider!
www.deltapath.com