While this warning is issued with regard to EPAL pallets, the current tight pallet market worldwide makes such scams more enticing to pallet buyers. Caution is advised when dealing with such offers.
The current increase in prices for wood and pallets is apparently being exploited by some people and companies, to fraudulently offer to supply EPAL Euro pallets.
Over the past few days, many companies in Europe have received emails in which offers are made to supply EPAL Euro pallets at strikingly low prices. On enquiring, it is pointed out that due to the new business relationship, the pallets must be paid for up front (advance payment).
EPAL strongly warns against these pallet offers.
In the past, it has frequently been found, that once the prepayment of the purchase price has been made,
no pallets were delivered and the supposed seller could no longer be reached. In these cases, reimbursement of the purchase price by legal action is usually not possible. It is highly likely that the money is lost.
There is reason to doubt that a sales offer is serious if any of the following apply:
- the price is oddly low (often with free delivery);
- the supplier requires advance payment of the purchase price;
- the supplier doesn’t have an EPAL license themselves;
- no evidence of the origin of the EPAL Euro pallets is provided on inquiry;
- the company information for the seller is either incomplete or bogus.
If in an offer to sell EPAL Euro pallets one of the above characteristics applies, we strongly recommend that you check the other characteristics very carefully and if in doubt, you refrain from ordering.
In fraudulent offers of pallets, the Licence Certificates of EPAL licensees are occasionally sent as a PDF. If this happens, it is recommended that you make contact with the EPAL licensee named in the Licence Certificate and ask if they have a supply relationship with the seller of EPAL Euro pallets. The contact details of all EPAL licensees are listed on the EPAL website (www.epal.eu). In a case that most recently came to light, the seller referred to a website, which gave a professional impression. Even in this case, it is not impossible that the offer is fraudulent, so you should still carefully check for the presence of the above-mentioned characteristics.
For questions on current unsolicited offers for Euro pallets, from unknown people or companies, users of EPAL Euro pallets can contact EPAL or the EPAL national associations at any time. EPAL will support the user to check offers, and make recommendations.
Düsseldorf, 01/06/2021