You are considering sending five figures to a company on the other side of the world, for a machine you have not seen, on the basis of photographs anyone could have taken of anything.
That is a reasonable thing to be careful about. This post is what to be careful about specifically, from the side of the transaction that has the information. Some of it is inconvenient for us and it is here anyway, because a buyer who knows where the failure points are is a buyer we can actually do business with.
The three places it goes wrong
Almost every bad outcome in this trade is one of three things. Not fraud in the dramatic sense, usually. Just three gaps between what you understood and what was true.
One: the unit that ships is not the unit you were shown. You saw photographs of a clean 2023 truck. What arrives is a 2019 with the same model name. This is the most common failure and it is the easiest to prevent.
Two: the price moves after the deposit. You agreed a figure, sent 30% or 50%, and then discovered a cost that was not mentioned. Inland transport to the port. Export documentation. A modification fee. Suddenly the quote that was the cheapest is not.
Three: the specification is wrong in a way that matters at your end. The truck is left-hand drive and your country requires right-hand. The emission standard fails your import rule. The tyre size is one your local suppliers do not stock. Each of these is survivable and each is expensive, and all of them were knowable before you paid.
Everything below is aimed at those three.
Before you pay anything
Ask for the unit, not the model
This is the single highest-value question in the whole process, and it is one sentence:
Send me photographs of the actual truck I am buying, today, with something in the frame that dates them.
A model photograph is a photograph of a category. It tells you what a HOWO 6×4 looks like, which you already knew. A photograph of your unit, taken this week, tells you what you are buying.
Then keep those photographs. When the loading pictures arrive, compare them. Same truck, same marks, same wear.
Get on a video call from the yard
Ask for a live call with somebody standing in front of the machine, and ask to direct the camera yourself. Under the chassis. Inside the cab. The odometer. Start it and let you hear it.
The reaction to this request tells you more than the call does. An exporter with the machine on their own ground can do it this week. An exporter who is brokering a unit they have never seen will find reasons.
Ask who actually owns the machine
Much of this trade is brokerage. That is not dishonest in itself, and plenty of good deals are brokered, but it changes what your counterparty can promise. A broker cannot tell you the condition of something they have not inspected, and cannot fix it before it ships.
The question is simple: is the machine in your yard, and is the yard yours? Ours are, which is why we can send you photographs of a specific truck the same day and why every used unit we sell goes through our own workshop first. Ask anyway, of us and of everyone else, and notice how long the answer takes.
Ask what has been done to it, and what has not
“Refurbished” is a word, not a specification. Ask what was inspected, what was replaced and what was only cleaned. A straight answer includes things that were not done, because no used truck has everything done to it.
If the answer is only positive adjectives, you have learned something.
Settle the specification in writing, before the deposit
Put these on the Proforma Invoice, by name:
- Model year, not “2020 to 2024”
- Engine output, the actual figure for that unit
- Emission standard, because your import rule may turn on it
- Left- or right-hand drive, and if converted, by whom and when
- Tyre size, because you buy tyres locally for the life of the truck
- What is included: spares, tools, documents, the conversion if there is one
- Which costs are inside the price: inland transport to the port, export documents, loading
That last line is what prevents failure two. A price is not a price until you know what it excludes.
Paying
The account name must match the company name
Payment goes to a company bank account whose name matches the registered company on your invoice. Not to an individual. Not to a differently named trading entity. Not to a third country because it is “faster”.
If any exporter, us included, asks you to pay a personal account, stop. There is no legitimate reason and there are several illegitimate ones.
Do not pay everything up front
Standard practice in this trade is a deposit against the Proforma Invoice, then the balance before loading. That structure exists for your protection as much as ours: it gives you a point, after the work is done and before the truck leaves, where you can look at photographs of a finished machine and decide.
An exporter asking for the full amount before any work has started is asking you to give up the only leverage the process gives you.
Ask for the documents you will actually need
Not just the invoice. The bill of lading, the export declaration, and whatever your own customs requires for a used commercial vehicle. Ask whose name is on the bill of lading, because the shipper may not be the company you have been talking to, and it is better to know that now than to see an unfamiliar name on your paperwork at the port.
The warning about very low quotes
Someone will quote you a number well below everyone else. Here is the mechanism, because describing it is more useful than warning about it.
A quote below the cost of the truck itself is not a deal, it is a hook. What happens next is one of two things. Either the price rises once you are committed and have a deposit at risk, and the new figure is still just about tolerable because you have already spent. Or the machine that arrives is a different and rougher unit than the one quoted, and you are arguing about a specification that was never written down.
When a number is below what the vehicle itself costs, something is wrong with it. Ask what makes it possible. A real answer exists for a genuinely cheap truck: it is older, it has done more, it needs work. That answer will be specific.
What good looks like
For balance, here is what a straight process feels like from your side.
You send the machine, the quantity, your port and your budget in one message. You get back specific units, photographed this week, with the year and the condition of each. You get a video call from the yard on request. You get a Proforma Invoice naming the unit, the specification and what is included, to a company account matching the company name. You get photographs while the work is being done, not only when it is finished. You get told when something is not possible.
None of that requires trusting anybody. It is all checkable, which is the point.
And then check us against it
Everything above applies to us. Ask us for the specific unit, the video call, the account name and the written specification, and if any of our answers do not match what is on this page, say so.
How buying from us works, step by step → · Who we are, and what to check → · What to send in your first message →