Why check before the deposit
The deposit is the moment your risk changes. Before it, you can walk away for free. After it, the factory has your money and you have its promise.
Most deposit problems don't start with a factory that doesn't exist. They start with paying the wrong company, trusting papers issued to someone else, or signing a quote that commits the supplier to nothing. Each of those can be checked before you pay.
I sell for a steel structure factory in Shenyang, so treat this as the list I'd want a buyer to run on us.
1. Check the company, not the website
In China, a company's legal identity is its registered Chinese name and the 18-character Unified Social Credit Code on its business licence. The English name isn't part of the registration. Anyone can print one.
Look up the Chinese name or the code on China's official registry, gsxt.gov.cn, run by the State Administration for Market Regulation. The site is in Chinese and needs the exact name or code. Check that the company is operating, when it was set up, its registered capital, and that its business scope covers steel structure manufacturing.
Similar English names are common. In Shenyang alone, more than one steel structure company calls itself “Zhongwei” in English. Their Chinese names are different, and so is everything else. Once you have the registered Chinese name, use it to check everything below.
2. Check every certificate against its issuer
The holder's name and address on a certificate should match the business licence. A certificate in another company's name tells you nothing about this factory.
Read the scope: which product, which process, which site. A welding certificate covers welding. It says nothing about painting or delivery dates.
Then check the number with the body that issued it. For management-system certificates issued in China, such as ISO 9001, the certification regulator CNCA keeps the official register at cnca.gov.cn. For welding certificates, ask the issuing body or use its online register. Our guide to welding documents shows what to check on each one.
3. See the factory, live and on your terms
A recorded factory video proves a factory exists. It doesn't prove it's the one you're talking to.
Ask for a live video call, and choose what you see: the cutting line, a welding station, the paint shop, the yard with finished members. Then ask for something that can't be filmed in advance, such as today's work and the mark painted on it.
Better still, visit, or send an inspection company such as SGS, Bureau Veritas, TÜV or Intertek for a one-day factory audit.
4. Ask for paperwork from a real past project
Marketing material is easy to make. Project paperwork is not. Ask for these, with the client's name covered:
- a packing list (a real one runs to hundreds of lines, down to the bolts)
- mill certificates for the steel, with heat numbers
- a weld inspection report, such as ultrasonic testing
- a shop drawing with part numbers
- photos or video taken during production
A working fabricator can send these within a day. Ours include a two-language packing list of about 200 lines for a warehouse we shipped to Australia in April 2026, and production photos and video of 100 heavy-duty steel road barriers, 70 tonnes in all, that we made for a client in Germany this year.
5. Make sure the money goes where the contract says
Pay only the company named on your contract and invoice. Never a personal account, and never “our partner's account”.
If the bank details change mid-project, stop. Confirm by phone or video with someone you already deal with. Bank-detail fraud usually arrives by email.
Tie each payment to something you can see: the deposit starts production, and the balance follows once you've seen photos of your goods being shipped, or against a copy of the bill of lading.
6. Check that the quote can be held to anything
A quote without drawings, a steel weight and design loads can't be held to anything. The supplier can deliver a lighter building and still be “to spec”.
Ask for these in writing: the steel tonnage, the design wind speed and other loads, what's included and what isn't, the payment terms and how long the price holds. Then ask one more thing: can the price still change after you pay the deposit, and under which clause?
Red flags
- The supplier won't give its registered Chinese name, or the name doesn't match its certificates.
- Certificate numbers the issuer can't confirm.
- A live video call that keeps being postponed, or only recorded footage.
- “Our projects are confidential”, and no paperwork at all, even with names covered.
- A request to pay a personal account, or new bank details sent by email.
- A price per m² with no steel weight, no design loads and no list of exclusions.
How to run these checks on us
Everything this list asks for is on our company facts page: our registered Chinese name, 沈阳众维重工钢结构工程有限公司 (Shenyang Zhongwei Heavy Industry Steel Structure Engineering Co., Ltd.), the numbers of our certificates so you can check them with their issuers, our factory address, and the paperwork we can show from export orders.
For a live look at the shop floor, message me and choose what you want to see.
One question to take to any supplier
“Can you send me your business licence and certificate numbers, and show me your shop floor on a live video this week?” A real factory says yes before you finish the sentence.