How do you know if a namecard is real?

[JoeChan1080]

I have some concerns about namecards I received during networking events I attended in China (I have heard stories about fake namecards, artificially pumped up titles etc Are they true in China?). Outside of China, I usually rely on linkedin to cross check someone new I met to make sure they are who they said they are. Sometimes when I would like to contact a professional, I would go on to sites like Clarity.fm to search for them. So I'm just trying to verify them using some third party services.

 

Is linkedin.cn widely used in China and is it reliable? I was told that it just went online not long ago. Are there sites like Clarity.fm in which I can use to contact verified professionals? I did some research and only found wokaiqiao.com, which claimed to do something similar but it is not online yet.

 

Any advice or techniques that you can share with me please?

 

Thank you!

 

Joe

[Simon_CH]

In short, you don't. There is an incredible amount of cheating going on, both small and large scale. A very common thing is title inflation - even a tiny company with virtually no operations may have half a dozen presidents, CEOs - or even the reverse; just one CEO but he's just a dummy figure to mask who is behind the company. 

Local companies may pretend to be part of a multinational company when they are just one-time suppliers or subcontractors etc... 

 

Due dilligence is extremely difficult yet important to figure out who you're really dealing with. In the end it's best to only trust actions, not words. Even after several site visits you don't know whether they're just putting on a show. Usually it's best to get acquainted through a common business contact, that way both parties can verify who they're dealing with. 

[abcdefg]

How many times have you seen a sign with “XX大酒店” hanging outside some little two-story dump? Same applies. Like Simon said, above, the help of a known and trusted intermediate is extremely important.