How to Avoid Being Scammed While Shopping for Your Shipping Container Online

The convenience of online shopping has revolutionized the way we buy everything from shoes to shipping containers. While shopping on the internet can open customers up to scams, the most common ones can be avoided by learning the warning signs, safeguarding your personal information, and buying from reputable businesses only. Here are some proverbs to remember that will help protect you from being scammed while shopping for a shipping container online:

If It Sounds Too Good To Be True, It Probably Is

If you get several quotes while shopping for a shipping container, and one price is significantly lower than the others, make sure you thoroughly investigate the company offering you the lower price. There might be a legitimate reason for the lower quote, but companies typically purchase containers from the same suppliers, so their quotes should be in the same range.

Better Safe Than Sorry

Legitimate companies will only use safe, secure payment methods, which include credit or debit cards, wire or ACH transfers, checks or e-checks, and Zelle. Scammers often ask you to send money to a personal email address using non-traditional payment methods such as Bitcoin, PayPal, Venmo, or CashApp, rather than paying through a secure company website (look for ones that start with https:// instead of just http://) or sending money through your bank.

There’s No Such Thing As a Free Lunch

Beware of anyone offering you “free airfare” or “a surprise gift valued up to $1000” with any container purchase. Legitimate shipping container companies are in the business of buying and selling shipping containers at a fair price, not spending thousands of dollars on high-ticket incentives to lure customers into buying from them.

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

Many scammers have websites that make them look like a legitimate company at first glance. But when you take another look, you’ll see odd phrases, lots of misspelled words, blurry screenshots instead of professional photos, reviews that look like they were all written by the same person using different names, addresses that don’t show up on Google Maps, etc.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Established companies like USA Containers will have photos and videos of the containers being delivered on their website and social media pages. In most cases, we can’t send you photos of the exact container you’ll receive as they are pulled from the top of a stack in the order they are being picked up or delivered, but you can get an idea of the quality of our containers by visiting our Facebook page and clicking on the Photos tab or checking out customer photos and videos on our website.

Even a Broken Clock is Right Twice a Day

Good scammers may know a little bit about the industry they are pretending to be a part of, but the knowledge of a legitimate sales agent will be undeniable. They will be able to answer questions about container dimensions, the delivery process, warranty information, available discounts, payment methods, and much, much more.

Buying a shipping container online can be safe and convenient, but no online purchase is without risk. There will always be scammers who try to steal your hard-earned money using deceptive tactics, which is why we encourage you to be sure you are dealing with a reputable company before placing an order for a big ticket item like a shipping container. 

In addition to the risk-prevention methods listed above, you can also verify that a company is legitimate by asking to see their business license, checking if they are registered with the state in which their headquarters is listed, and reaching out to any membership organizations to which they say they belong. The trustworthy team at USA Containers is happy to provide you with all of the information you need to make you comfortable in the knowledge that you are buying from a well-established and well-respected shipping container company.