Preface
This is a true story portraying how Qingdao Jiahe Dadi Technology Trade Co. Ltd. (青岛嘉和大地科贸有限公司, www.zgqdjck.com) – a faux company in China, lure and scam legitimate foreign businesses, from a perspective of a third party.
Part of the names are intentionally replaced to protect the privacy of some parties.
Chronicle IV: The Deception
[Ambushed]
It was the day Liu and his superiors have a meeting with Dad. Worried about keeping the other party waiting, the family settled for breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel lobby.
Unfortunately, the buffet breakfast had finished, at an early time of 9:00AM. Back at home, it is customary for the hotel breakfast to be served at least until 11:00AM, but to think of it, the sun in Qing Dao is already halfway in the horizon as early as 6:30AM.
Fortunately, the restaurant serves simple ala carte menu, consisting of only two items – noodles and soup dumplings.
The noodles in plain soup, when taken with the soup dumplings, was surprisingly good, Nacel thought. The soup dumplings were so much better than the ones served the night before, and the whole breakfast for five only costs around 35 RMB.
The family then briefly discussed how they were tricked into dining in a “tourist restaurant”.
At noon, Liu brought along two other men to the hotel room Nacel’s family stayed in – a medium sized man with a face full of acne scars who introduced himself as Zhou Xin Bo (周新博, Supervisor 总监); and a slightly taller man with a tanned skin, Yu Jie (于杰, Manager 总经理).
Dad was talking to them in the living area, while the rest of the family stayed in the bedrooms to avoid disturbing the meeting.
About an hour later, Liu and his companions invited the family for lunch, again at the hotel lobby restaurant.
The youngsters were given the chance to pick and order the dishes, while the adults continued with their discussion.
As for the drinks, it would seem that it is customary for liquor to be taken – Zhou ordered a bottle of traditional rice wine for the adults and a bottle of Qing Dao beer for each of the youngsters.
Nacel’s Dad obliges out of respect, although he is not a drinker back at home.
Before the food arrived, Dad invited Liu, Zhou and Yu Jie for a group photo. Strangely, they were a bit reluctant.
During the course of the meal, they chatted on topics ranging from the population of Qing Dao, to the higher education in China. Yu Jie even suggested Nacel to further his studies in China.
“Chinese scholars, when working abroad, serve the purpose of glorifying the name of the motherland (China) by providing their expertise abroad; while those who chose to remain in China, are serving and helping the development of their motherland,” Yu Jie said.
“It is good for our Chinese brothers abroad, to return and serve the motherland. We are all the same kind.”
“Son, did you hear what he said?” Dad asked Nacel.
Nacel nodded, for manners’ sake. Deep down, he was thinking about the matter – with all the censorship, filters and limitations placed in China, accessing the latest information is already an obstacle by itself.
Meanwhile, Dad’s face was already bright red, although he barely finished 3 quarters of a glass of that white wine. Mom was worried and kept asking him to stop.
“No, I know my limits. I’m okay.”
Halfway during the meal, Liu whispered to Dad and they both left the table shortly, without explaining anything.
“Discuss about private matters?” Nacel thought.
The remaining of the group continue their conversation as if nothing has happened.
“Why don’t you kids go out and play? You don’t need to accompany us adults,” Yu Jie suddenly said.
The youngsters smiled.
“No, it’s okay,” Sister replied. Having Mom alone with two strangers is not a good idea.
While waiting for Dad and Liu to return, the men drank bottles of beer and smoked packets of cigarettes. They invited the youngsters to do the same, but as non-smokers, the youngsters only drank beer.
“Do you know where is Liu and Dad?” Sister asked the men after waiting for half an hour.
“I’m not sure myself. Let me give them a call,” Yu Jie replied while taking out his limited edition gold plated Nokia phone.
“I have to go to the washroom,” Mom suddenly stood up and left the table.
“It’s fine, you kids can go out and play. We’ll wait for your dad. Don’t worry, we entrusted Liu with your dad’s safety,” Yu Jie explained.
Nacel was puzzled. The thoughts of “where did they go”, “what are they doing” were appearing in his mind.
“Something is fishy. I’ve asked girl to take a photo with the men.” Nacel received a text message from Mom.
It is not until Dad returned, accompanied by Liu, Nacel let out a silent sigh of relief.
“Dad, your hair is messed up,” Sister said.
“Really? Maybe because of the strong wind in the cab,” Dad replied while excusing himself to the washroom.
After Dad returned, they chatted for a while before leaving.
[Crisis Core]
Back in the hotel room. The rest of the family members were curious and started questioning Dad on what happened.
“I’ve received a call from the credit card department on a RM14000 transaction on your card. They said they couldn’t contact you,” Mom said.
“We took a cab to a jewelry shop in a department store, to buy gold bars as gifts to the officers.”
“Gold bars? What were you thinking?” Nacel thought.
“He said the receipt will be reported to the company and the cost will be deducted from the 5%,” Dad appended.
“Do you have a copy of the receipt?” Sister asked.
“No, I don’t,” Dad replied after checking his pockets.
“Are you sure we’re not being cheated?” Mom asked, worried.
“I don’t rule out the possibility of getting cheated. But I’m willing to take the risk,” Dad affirmed.
“Dad, you should have at least insisted on the receipt!” Sister started to panic.
Dad remained quiet.
Nacel sensed something is not going right and opened up his netbook.
“There should be a record of this company somewhere on the Internet,” he thought.
“This is odd,” Nacel thought after checking the whois records of the company website (www.zgqdjck.com), the domain was registered March the same year.
Upon closer inspection on the web pages’ URL, they were oddly named “new_page_x.htm”.
“A large company’s website in HTML, and sloppy filenames to boot, what were these people thinking?” Nacel’s suspicions grew stronger.
Upon inspecting the web pages’ source code revealed that the web pages are authored using Microsoft Front Page. On top of that, a shocking discovery – the forms inside the web pages were all static JPEG images – there is a high possibility that these pages are plagiarized from another website.
“Something is wrong, something is terribly wrong,” the red alert siren in Nacel’s mind started to sound.
“Oh my god,” Nacel suddenly blurted out.
“Dad, you have to see this. The pages are copied exactly from another company’s website,” Nacel announced, after viewing the crosschecking results of Google search on the keywords used in the website.
(i)
骗子网站Scammer’s website：http://www.zgqdjck.com/new_page_2.htm
抄袭来源Actual source from：http://www.cncie.com/about.asp
(ii)
骗子网站Scammer’s website：http://www.zgqdjck.com/new_page_4.htm
抄袭来源Actual source from：http://jbgj.cn/cn/products_list.aspx
(iii)
骗子网站Scammer’s website：http://www.zgqdjck.com/new_page_7.htm,
抄袭来源Actual source from：http://jbgj.cn/cn/contact.aspx
(iv)
骗子网站Scammer’s website：http://www.zgqdjck.com/new_page_1.htm
抄袭来源Actual source from：http://jbgj.cn/cn/job.aspx
“My god…” Dad’s final words before he sat down on the sofa, holding his head.
Its a Sad Story :( , RM14000 is not an amount to be playing with. I feel angry at how they scam innocent people and I feel damn sorry for your dad. Suddenly, I feel China is not a Promising place as the rumor were to be. I pity those who don't even understand Chinese will be scammed even worst.
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