Before you send a cent, match three things: the Chinese business licence, the company name on the invoice, and the bank account you're about to pay. Same company on all three? Good. Not the same? Stop. Don't wire until the real factory is on your file.
Gold Supplier felt like enough. It isn't. "Verified" looks like a licence. A lot of the time it's a paid membership, or a visit Alibaba arranged and the supplier paid for. It tells you they wrote a check. It doesn't tell you they make anything.
I see this every week. When the names don't match, a common pattern shows up. The English storefront is one name. The guy on WeChat is a second. The business licence sits under a third. And the payment instruction points at a bank account that belongs to none of them. Buyers are still typing "is this company legit" into Google while the wire is already loading.
Fix the mismatch before the money leaves. Not after. Waiting costs more than the check.
Your own country changed the rules. The importer is you. You now have to show what you did to know your factory. That's why this check belongs on your file, in writing, before the goods move.
I'll keep the regulation short. You don't need a law lecture. You need to know why it matters. Customs authorities in the US and beyond are asking importers to prove they took reasonable care to know who actually made their goods. Kids' clothes and toys already need certificate data filed on arrival. An importer number can get shut down if the paperwork on file is incomplete or wrong. That's how those cheap "DDP, we handle everything" deals blow up: nobody's name is really on the file.
Confirm the current requirements with your customs counsel. I'm not a US customs lawyer. I don't give customs legal advice. And I don't file your entries or your forms. What I do is the part that never changed: make sure you actually know who you're paying.
Alibaba-plus-DDP is over. Reasonable care sits with you now. You have to be involved at the factory. That involvement has to exist on paper, not just in your memory of a nice WeChat chat.
The file. We answer two questions in writing: is this a real factory, and does the name you're about to pay match the licence? That's the Supplier Reality Check. You keep the report.
The contract. A bilingual contract that holds up here, in Chinese, under Chinese law, with the factory's chop. Your English PI and a WeChat thread are not that contract. They feel like an agreement. In a Chinese court, they're barely a conversation.
The review. If the deal's already gone sideways, we read it before your next wire. You already have a name. We don't hunt a new one, because we're not sourcing. We're checking what you've got.
The visit. If you need eyes on the floor, we go into the factory you already buy from. Introduced, not unannounced. The visit is tea with the boss: we sit down with the person who can actually make decisions, if they'll sit. We look at where the goods are actually made, not the showroom. Then we write down what we saw, gaps included. You keep that file too. That's a guided factory visit.
Buying from a trader is fine, by the way. Plenty of good business runs through traders. But the trader has to name the real factory, and the visit happens there. If all you ever see is a showroom and never the place that makes your product, you've been in a showroom. That's all.
The long game. If the orders keep coming, that visit can become a person in that city who works only for you. Same job as the visit, just permanent. They're yours. We hire them with you, and when your work with us ends, they stay with you.
We stand next to you while all of this gets put in order. We don't take your seat. It's your supply chain. We just make sure you can see it.
Stop the wire if the bank account name doesn't match the licence.
Run the Chinese company name against every piece of paper you already have: invoice, PI, WeChat, business card. See how many names fall out.
If you need someone on the floor, send them into the factory you already buy from. Keep what they write.
Know who you pay. Everything else starts there.
Run a Supplier Reality Check — $95
I'm Eldad Shashua, founder of China Agent. I've spent 17 years on the ground in China — reading licences, sitting with owners, checking who you actually pay.
Published: 7 September 2026
Last updated: 7 September 2026