Please note I am a UK citizen currently working in Greece I want to protect anyone else who may fall victim to this horrible fraud & phishing scam.
My partner and I were recently contacted by an electronics company via E-bay, we bought goods from a company called www.peercn.com the goods were not ridiculously inexpensive & everything on website seemed to check out, they are even members of the CCBE and China Electronic Commerce Association (CECA) whom apparently vet and approve members to try and raise the profile & reputation of E-commerce between China and the West (clearly e-commerce meaning internet fraud!) I did a Google search and found no complaints about them so we sent them all of our details plus 920 euros, I received an official e-mail 3 days later from Chinese ‘customs' asking me to pay a further 500 euros for taxes as it was goods arriving into EU, (I expected to pay duties anyway) so I sent the money...nothing! no goods, they will not take my calls and have since learnt that are approx 5700 Internet companies in China alone running this scam, it gets worse.. apparently now they have access to all of our personal info then intend use it to de-fraud us further by phishing. We are in a terrible mess, we lost our money, I have contacted the British Embassy in Beijing but have been told to basically forget it, I have contacted the Chinese police & the Bank of China (where the money was sent) nothing..It is an outrage imagine how many thousands of pounds these people are stealing everyday..yet they seem to be above the law, how can they keep getting away with this, I am 1, 450 euros out of pocket & apparantly it's tough luck! People should be made aware of this despicable scam.