Container Scams: How to Verify a Seller Before You Pay

Fraud in container trading repeats a small number of patterns, and almost all of them fail the same basic checks. The patterns, the signals that give them away, and a verification procedure you can run on any supplier in about twenty minutes.

1. Stock that does not exist

A seller offers units at an attractive price in a location that suits you, and asks for a deposit to secure them. The photographs look right. The stock list is detailed. Nothing exists.

What gives it away

The depot cannot confirm the units when you contact it yourself, using a number you found independently. The photographs appear elsewhere online. The seller resists putting you in direct contact with the depot, or supplies a “depot contact” whose email is a free webmail address.

What to do

Never pay a deposit against stock you have not had confirmed by the depot holding it, through contact details you obtained yourself.

2. Payment redirection

The costliest pattern by a wide margin, and the one that catches experienced buyers. The negotiation is real, the seller is real, the containers are real. Late in the process, often at the moment of invoicing, a message arrives announcing new bank details. It comes from an address that looks correct, sometimes from a genuinely compromised mailbox, and it refers accurately to the deal in progress.

What gives it away

The change is announced by email. The reason is plausible and slightly urgent: an audit, a bank migration, a frozen account. The new account is held in a name that is not the company's.

What to do

Treat any change of bank details as fraudulent until confirmed by voice, on a number you already had, not one contained in the message announcing the change. Serious counterparties expect this call and will not be offended by it.

3. The cloned company

A real company's identity is copied wholesale: name, registration number, address, legal notices, sometimes entire pages of its website. The domain differs by one character, or uses a different extension. Emails come from that domain, so they pass basic checks.

What gives it away

The domain was registered recently, while the company it claims to be has existed for years. The phone number differs from the one on the genuine site. The registration number, when checked against the official register, belongs to a company whose contact details do not match those you were given.

What to do

Find the company independently, through the commercial register or a search, and contact it through the details published there, not those you were sent. If both are genuine, you lose two minutes. If not, you have just avoided the loss.

4. Fees to be advanced

The units are ready. Only a modest amount stands between you and release: a storage charge, a handling fee, a customs deposit, a “gate release” cost. It is always small relative to the transaction, which is what makes it easy to pay. Once paid, another appears.

What gives it away

The charge was not in the original offer. It is payable to the seller rather than to the depot or the authority supposedly levying it. The amount is small enough to seem not worth arguing about.

What to do

Any legitimate charge can be verified with the party that levies it. Verify it there, and pay it there.

5. The forged release order

You receive a release order or gate-out document. It carries a logo, a reference, a depot name. The depot has never issued it.

What gives it away

The depot does not recognise the reference. The document format differs from the depot's usual output. The contact details on the document do not match the depot's published ones.

What to do

Confirm every release directly with the depot before considering a transaction complete, and before releasing final payment.

6. Container numbers that do not check out

Container references follow ISO 6346: four letters, three identifying the owner, one identifying the category, six digits, and a check digit calculated from the rest. The check digit is not decorative. It is arithmetic, and a fabricated number almost never satisfies it.

What gives it away

The check digit is wrong. Or the number is valid but its owner prefix belongs to a lessor or line that has no relationship with the seller. Or several numbers in a list share an improbably regular sequence.

What to do

Validate the check digit on every reference you are given. Look up the owner prefix in the BIC code register. A seller offering units they do not own, from a prefix that is not theirs, owes you an explanation of the chain, and a legitimate trader has one.

7. A price well below the market

The oldest signal, and still the most reliable. Containers are a traded commodity with a narrow spread in any given location. A price materially below the market in that port is not a bargain; it is the cost of your attention.

What to do

Compare against two other quotes in the same location before engaging. If the gap cannot be explained by condition, age or a genuine repositioning need, treat it as the primary red flag.

The Verification Procedure

Check the company in its commercial register, call a published number and ask for the named person, validate the ISO 6346 check digit and owner prefix, have the depot confirm the stock, and pay a company account in the name of the company you are contracting with.

Red Flags

Bank details changed by email, payment requested to a personal account or to an account in a name other than the company you are contracting with, a depot that cannot confirm the stock, a recently registered domain for a long-established company, fees appearing after the offer, and pressure to decide today.

How do I check that a container seller is real before paying?

Ask for the container number and the depot name, then verify them independently. A genuine seller gives you an ISO 6346 reference — four letters and seven digits — and the name of a depot you can call yourself. Call that depot and ask whether the unit is there and released to the seller. A seller who refuses either piece of information, or who insists on giving you the depot's contact details rather than letting you find them, is the single strongest warning sign in this trade. Established traders expect this check and are not offended by it.

What documents should a legitimate seller provide before payment?

Three, and none of them is a photo. A proforma invoice naming the seller's legal entity and bank account in the same jurisdiction. A release order or gate-out authorisation naming the depot and the container. And the container's CSC plate details, which carry the manufacturing date and the inspection scheme. For a used unit you should also be able to obtain the EIR — the equipment interchange receipt — showing its condition at last gate-in. If the seller can only supply pictures and a payment link, there is nothing to verify.

Why is a photograph not proof the container exists?

Because a photograph proves a container existed somewhere, once. Container images circulate freely and the same unit appears in dozens of unrelated listings. What ties a photo to a real transaction is the number on the door, cross-checked against a depot that confirms possession. Ask for a photo where the container number is legible, then verify that number with the depot rather than with the seller. A fraudulent listing survives the request for a picture; it rarely survives a phone call to the depot.

What does the CSC plate tell me, and can it be faked?

The CSC safety approval plate carries the manufacturing date, the maximum gross weight, the stacking and racking test values, and the inspection scheme the unit runs under — either PES, with a first examination at five years and then every thirty months, or ACEP, a continuous programme operated by the owner. It tells you the container's age and whether it is legally fit to travel. Plates can be replaced, which is why the plate is a check and not a guarantee: read it together with the container number and the EIR, never on its own.

Which payment terms signal a scam?

Full payment in advance to a personal account, to an entity in a different country from the one on the invoice, or through a channel with no reversal — cryptocurrency, wire to a newly opened account, or a "deposit to hold the unit" before any release document exists. Legitimate container trades are paid against documents: you receive the release order, you verify it with the depot, you pay. Pressure to decide within hours, and a price meaningfully below the market for that grade and location, almost always accompany these terms.