Doing business with Saudi Arabia

Where does it fit on the fraud scale?

[CernyM]

Anyone have experience shipping goods to Saudi Arabia? Retail or wholesale?

How does it stack up on the fraud scale compared to Nigeria, Indonesia, etc?

[derekwong28]

Thieves get their hands chopped off there. I would say they are barely on the fraud scale, well less than US and even Northen European countries.

[mfmikeb]

I wouldn't assume that jsut because thieves get their hands cut off there's no fraud. It probably is nowhere near the amazing volume from eastern europe but we offer NO sales to mideast countries. For no other reason than past experience, nothing to do with current world events.

[dontgetit]

Never had a problem in about 12 years of trading with them in one form or another, including internet related trading.

[derekwong28]

This is true, the laws can as tough as it needs but there will be no deterrent value if there is little chance of the culprits being caught and the laws enforced. However, in our experience we can trust orders arising from Saudia Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar i.e. Gulf states. But orders from Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Morroco, Algeria and the Palastinian Authority carry a very high likelihood of fraud. Lebanon and Turkey are half-way in between.

In your case, I would urge great caution because the revealing outfits that youe web site sells are completely out of character with the strict islamist culture of Saudia Arabia.

[CernyM]

Its further complicated by the fact that the person that contacted me is out of Florida. She's asking the questions I would normally expect from a potential account and she's haggling - two things I've never seen a scammer do.

Still, if we end up doing the deal, it would have to be a wire transfer drawn on a US bank and held for long enough to guarantee no chargeback.

As far as the clothing we sell, I seem to recall reading a while back that this sort of thing actually did ok in Saudi Arabia. Their customs preclude it being worn publicly or in the presence of non-related men, but as far as my understanding goes, it would not be considered inappropriate when worn only in the company of women.

[sun818]

Or men? ;) I would also be concerned with being added to government watchlists if you ship to specific countries like Pakistan, Iraq, etc. Lingerie is harmless enough, but I sell computer components - remember when PlayStation 2 was thought to be used as a research tool for WMDs [theregister.co.uk]? Whoever sold those units to Iraq could be on a watchlist now...

[CernyM]

We don't sell lingerie.

It would have to be one bored and paranoid bureaucrat to put us on a watchlist for our goods though.

It is a fascinating little microcosm of the world economy. Petroleum products get shipped to Taiwan, converted into nylon yarn and knitted into fabric, which is then shipped to California, where it gets on a truck to Texas for conversion into clothing then is shipped out to people all over the the world.

All this labor and shipping costs still yields a product that ordinary people can easily afford. Simply amazing.