China Supplier Verification
Verify who you are actually paying before you wire the deposit.
Who we are
Procubility is an independent China supplier verification and supplier risk intelligence company. We work for overseas buyers — importers, brands and procurement teams in the US, UK, EU, the Middle East and Africa — and we check Chinese suppliers from inside China, in Mandarin, before money leaves the buyer's account.
A verification answers the questions a quotation cannot: is this a legally registered company, who owns it, is it a manufacturer or a trading company, does its production capability match the order, and does its commercial history support what it claims. We are paid by the buyer only and take no supplier commission or transaction-based kickback.
Why verify before payment
In most China trade, the buyer's leverage disappears the moment the deposit is sent. A standard 30% advance on a first order is an unsecured payment to a company in another legal system, negotiated in a second language, often through a sales account rather than the legal entity behind it.
Verification is the last point at which a problem is still cheap to fix. Confirming the entity, the ownership and the manufacturing status before payment costs a fraction of a disputed shipment, and it is far more effective than pursuing recovery afterwards — cross-border recovery in China is slow, expensive and frequently unsuccessful.
What we verify
Limits of verification
A verification is an evidence-based snapshot, dated and sourced. Where evidence is unavailable or inconclusive, the report says so rather than filling the gap with an assumption.
Process
Ask for the business licence and the unified social credit code — not the trade name used on the platform or in email.
Confirm the bank account name is the same legal entity you negotiated with. A mismatch is the single most common fraud signal.
Confirm the registered scope covers manufacturing your product category, not only wholesale or import-export.
Establish whether production happens at the registered address or somewhere the supplier has not disclosed.
Check certificates against the issuing body's own register, not against copies supplied by the seller.
Have someone stand at the address. Photos of premises and activity resolve most remaining doubt.
Use a dated, sourced verification report — red, amber or green — as the basis for releasing the deposit.
How we differ
Alibaba and similar platforms confirm that a company is registered and has paid for a membership tier. Useful as a baseline.
We check ownership, manufacturing status, address and commercial evidence independently of any platform membership.
SGS, Intertek, Bureau Veritas and QIMA run standardised inspection, testing and certification programmes at scale. Strong for product conformity and audit standards.
We focus on the buyer-side question of who the supplier is and what risk it carries, and we work on single-supplier investigations rather than programme audits.
Supplier-introduction services help buyers find candidates and may use different fee models.
Our verification finding is buyer-paid and independent. Any separate supplier-identification brief is disclosed, fixed-scope and carries no supplier commission.
Where you are in the buying process
Supplier risk looks different at each stage of an order. Start where you are.
You do not yet know whether the company exists, who owns it, or whether it manufactures anything at all.
China supplier verification →02Bank details, entity name and quotation may not belong to the same company you negotiated with.
Verify an Alibaba supplier →03Capacity claims, subcontracting and process control are invisible from outside China.
Factory audit in China →04Defects found after arrival cost far more than defects found on the factory floor.
Third party inspection →05Supplier stopped responding, bank account changed, goods do not match the approved sample.
Supplier fraud investigation →06The company you pay may be a trading intermediary for an unknown factory.
Reverse manufacturer identification →Free download
The exact 10 signals our investigators use to spot a trading company posing as a factory — before you waste another week of negotiation or wire a single dollar.
FAQ
China supplier verification is the independent process of confirming that a Chinese supplier is the legally registered entity it claims to be, that its registered scope and premises support manufacturing your product, and that its ownership and commercial history match its own account of itself. The output is a dated, sourced report with a risk assessment rather than a pass/fail badge.
Because leverage disappears once the deposit is sent. Before payment, you can still walk away at no cost; afterwards, you are pursuing a company in another jurisdiction and legal system. Verification is deliberately positioned at the last point where a problem is still cheap to solve.
A standard verification takes about 72 hours from receipt of the supplier's company name, contact details and any quote or platform listing. Cases requiring a physical visit further from Guangdong, or additional document tracing, can take longer; we say so before starting rather than after.
No. Those statuses confirm a paid membership tier and the existence of a registered company. They do not establish that the company owns a factory, that it has capacity for your order, or that the bank account you are given belongs to the same entity. Treat a badge as a baseline, not a conclusion.
Compare the registered business scope and VAT invoicing scope with the product being sold, check whether the registered address is an office or a production site, and look at whether shipment evidence is consistent with a producer. Any single indicator can mislead; the combination is what makes the distinction reliable.
The business licence and registry record, ownership and legal representative details, tax and litigation records where published, claimed certifications checked against the issuing body, and any invoices, quotations or contracts the buyer already holds. We state the source and date of each item.
Yes, where the address is reachable and the scope includes it. A physical check with photographs of premises, signage and visible activity resolves a large share of cases that documents alone leave open.
No. Procubility is buyer-paid only. We accept no factory commission, no introduction fee and no share of the trade, which is what allows the finding to be reported as we find it.
No. Our primary work is supplier verification, investigation and audit. Where a buyer separately commissions supplier identification, it is a fixed-scope, buyer-paid intelligence service; we do not purchase, resell, hold stock or take supplier commission.
You receive the evidence behind the finding — wrong entity, no manufacturing scope, undisclosed relationships, litigation, address mismatch — and a clear recommendation. What you do next is your commercial decision; we can verify alternatives or escalate to a full factory audit.
No, and any provider who says otherwise is overselling. Verification establishes who you are dealing with and what risk is visible today. Delivery, quality over time and future conduct are managed through inspection, audits and contract terms, not through a one-off check.
Yes. Document and registry work covers the whole of China. Physical visits outside Guangdong are arranged case by case; we confirm feasibility, timing and cost before the work starts.
The supplier's company name in Chinese if you have it, the contact details you are using, the platform listing or website, any quotation, proforma invoice or bank details you have received, and a short description of the product and order size.
The report is a structured record of what was checked, when, and from which source, including photographs where a visit took place. It is written to be readable by your own legal or finance team, but it is an investigative report, not a legal opinion or a court document.
Verification answers who the supplier is and whether it should be trusted with your money. A factory audit answers how well a confirmed factory actually produces — systems, capacity, process control and conditions on site. Most buyers verify first and audit before or during the first significant order.
Continue reading
The 5 China Supplier Scams
Ghost factories, bank-account swaps, sample-bait, hidden subcontractors and phantom shipments — and how each one is caught.
Read →Suspect a Scam? Open a Case
Wire intercepted, supplier silent, paperwork forged — what to do in the first 48 hours.
Read →Supplier Stopped Responding?
The forensic playbook for re-establishing contact, or proving the entity has vanished.
Read →5-Minute Supplier Risk Self-Test
Score your current supplier against the 12 most common pre-shipment fraud signals.
Read →Hidden Subcontracting
Why an audited factory can still ship product made in an unaudited workshop next door.
Read →Forensic Factory Audit
When verification escalates: a full on-site audit with photographic and AIC evidence.
Read →