Refusing to separate factory price from agent fee
An agent who only offers one bundled number, and won't explain how much of it is factory cost versus their own fee, is harder to hold accountable if pricing seems high — transparency here is one of the simplest ways to evaluate an agent early.
Requesting payment to a personal account
Payment should go to a registered business account matching the agent's company name — a request to pay a personal account, or a company name that doesn't match previous communication, is a serious warning sign worth stopping to investigate.
Vague or evasive answers about factory access
An agent unable to name specific factories they work with, or unwilling to arrange any form of factory verification, may not have the real on-the-ground relationships they're implying.
No clear inspection process
An agent who can't describe a specific inspection process — what gets checked, at what stages, by whom — likely isn't running one, which removes one of the main reasons to use an agent in the first place.
Pressure to commit before you've verified anything
Urgency to sign or pay before basic verification has happened is a common pattern across most sourcing-related scams, whether at the factory or agent level — a legitimate agent is generally comfortable with a buyer taking reasonable time to verify them first.
Bank details that change mid-order
The most expensive problem in this industry is not a careless agent — it is business email compromise, where a genuine supplier or agent's email is spoofed and the buyer is told that payment details have changed. Wire the money to the new account and it is gone, with no recourse against the company you believed you were paying.
Treat any mid-order change of bank details as a stop-and-verify event: confirm a change by phone or video with a person you already know, not by replying to the email that announced it. Reputable firms understand this and will not be offended by the question.
No verifiable legal entity
An agent should be able to point to a registered company, a business address and a bank account in the company's own name. Where a company name does not match the account receiving payment, or an address cannot be corroborated, that mismatch is worth resolving before any money moves rather than after.
Reluctance to commit anything to writing
Agents who prefer to keep everything verbal are harder to hold to a scope later. A written scope, an itemised fee basis and a stated inspection standard are all reasonable requests, and an honest operator loses nothing by providing them.
Overpromising on price or timeline
A quote that is dramatically below every other one, or a delivery promise that ignores production, consolidation and transit time, usually breaks one of two ways: the specification quietly gets downgraded, or the schedule slips and the excuse arrives afterwards. Optimism is easy to sell and expensive to absorb.
A short pre-commitment check
Before paying anyone, confirm the registered entity, ask for one or two references you can contact directly, get the scope and fee basis in writing, and confirm the inspection process and who performs it. That sequence takes a few days and removes most of the situations listed on this page.