We often receive inquiries like this:
“I purchased goods from China, but after sending the payment, the seller cannot be contacted.”
“I transferred the payment to a Chinese seller, but they are delaying the shipment.”
Usually, customers who encounter such situations hope to report to the police and have the other party arrested or use the threat of imprisonment to compel them to fulfill their obligations as soon as possible. However, we have to respond to customers from a professional standpoint that the police may not necessarily accept your case.
 
In China, the police generally handle criminal cases and do not deal with civil disputes or general business disputes. Cases such as property disputes, marital and family disputes, lease contract disputes, and other civil disputes fall under the jurisdiction of civil courts. For example, civil infringement cases involve infringements on reputation rights, image rights, intellectual property rights, and other civil torts. These cases typically need to be resolved through civil litigation procedures rather than police intervention.
 
Similarly, general business disputes such as contract disputes, business cooperation disputes, debt recovery, and other commercial disputes are typically resolved through civil litigation procedures or arbitration institutions, rather than police involvement.
 
In exceptional cases, if during a business activity, it is discovered that the other party had illegal possession as their initial objective and did not intend to engage in legitimate business conduct, the affected party can choose to report the situation to the police and seek their assistance.
 
Furthermore, based on our experience, it is advisable for the victim themselves to report the incident to the police in order to maximize the police’s attention and response.

Our client from Saudi Arabia purchased steel from a seller in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China. After making the full payment, the seller has not shipped the goods. Upon contacting us, we acted as representatives for our client and initiated a civil lawsuit against the seller.
 
During the litigation process, through investigation, we discovered that the legal representative of the seller’s company was actually a minor, and they also had ownership in four other companies, one of which had already been deregistered due to abnormal operations. Based on our experience, we concluded that this was a case of fraud, where someone had fraudulently used another person’s identity to establish companies for the purpose of deception. In addition to pursuing the lawsuit, we also decided to report the matter to the police, hoping that they could assist us in quickly locating the real fraudulent seller.
 
The police have accepted our case and issued an acceptance notification to us.