Fake dealers

Ever since, dealers have always been part of the sari-sari store business. There are the soda (softdrinks) dealers, the beer suppliers, bread suppliers, school supply dealers, powdered milk suppliers, cigarette dealers to name a few.

But sadly, there are a number of unscrupulous people preying on the sari-sari biz, they come in all forms and sizes. Due to technology, They show you fake identification cards, give you impressive calling cards, introduce to you their supervisor who speaks in fluent english, produces "official" receipts and even comes with a van full of "products".

At a recent convention ( yes people, we have our own convention -- we, the small and medium entrepreneurs actually make the big wholesaler groceries more richer), the store owners were ask about woes in running this particular business, the problems ranged from very funny to serious.

The most serious of them all was about fake dealers, i rather call them con artists.... or swindlers... they victimize owners without a thought that owners worked hard on the capital they put into the biz.

these are some types of swindlers.

The Fake Rice supplier: This type show you small packs (size of a fist) of types of rice. when one gets to pick your choice they come back with the promised sack/s of rice. when you unpack your rice...you'll realize its less than 50 kilograms, according to the store owners who spoke in that convention he got 39 kilograms for the 50 kilograms he bought.

The Fake Personal Care Dealer: this type gives you a list of the product you want, when you pick up the things you want they deliver and you pay for them, they have real packaging, but with closer examination you realize the smell is missing. for instance a bottle of cologne would have the original bottle but has water in them instead of cologne.

THe Fake School supply dealer: They deliver pens without ink, notebook of 50 leaves when you ordered 70 leaves ( let's face it, if the buyer sees 70 leaves printed on the notebook, you'll assume it to be correct rather than count the pages of each notebook...specially if a buyer bought 10 reams notebooks = to 100 notebooks).

The Mobile Wholesaler: They sell anything and everything. The first delivery is legit, but the second delivery, specially if you order in bulk/boxes, they hit you hard, for each box, the upper half is legit merchandise and the lower half contains packs of crushed coconut shells.

The Fake Detergent Soap Dealers: These type gives you "product" with real packaging but not the real product inside, you'll only know when a "pissed" customer comes back for a refund.




i could go on with the list .... put it this way, think of every kind of product in the market.... for every product, there's like a dozen fake dealers....

so let us all keep our watch .... be alert ... check and double check identification cards.... with the technology now, we can arm ourselves with cellular phones.... yes...the one with the camera, for as real dealer, taking his picture is no big issue... but the fake ones.... lets just say the can join the Olympics... they could be our representative on the 200m dash...they are quite fast :)