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bbcincorp.com is a Scam company avoid them at all cost for bank account opening

hkohli

New member
Jun 29, 2020
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Hi i am sharing my experience with BBCIncorp | Online Company Formation and Corporate Service although they scammed me but i am no one to judge in your case or services you availed from them, it is general advisory for anyone looking to avail their bank account opening help with Hong Kong or Singapore banks.

I approached them last month to see if they can help in any remote bank account opening in Singapore or Hong Kong for my Hong kong company which is 4 years old and has already have existing bank account with ICICI Bank Hong Kong. They asked me some basic info about the company like nature of business and requested for documents which would be required to open the bank account so they could pre-approve it. And they verified that they can offer account opening for me with DBS Hong Kong ( remotely with video conference call ), DBS Singapore ( remotely with video conference call ) and OCBC Singapore ( remotely with video conference call ).

So i decided to signup up with them for OCBC since DBS had too big of initial deposit and balance requirement. And paid them USD 700. Once i paid them they requested for some additional docs which i provided. This is the first day after i paid them and submitted following docs:

Directors documents
Company Audit Reports for past 3 years
Company Tax Debit notes and Returns for past 3 years
Customer and Supplier Invoices
Client Contracts
Current bank account statement
Bank reference letter
Basic Company docs like COI, BR
And Virtual office lease agreement.

Now before i paid them i asked them specifically do any of the banks require physical office or can they accept virtual office, to which they clearly responded virtual office is no problem.

On 2nd day they came back requesting couple of questions like one of the client contract was over 1 year old and others are also old. So in reality in my business contracts are not a big requirement so its only signed once when we start relationship and out 4 contracts i submitted 3 were signed in last 5 months and other was 1 year old, but since they requested it i somehow managed to ask my client to sign new contract and submitted that as well.

On 3rd day they came up with new request that they need a new address proof, which is what i asked, so they said a latest invitation letter sent by my customer or supplier to my address, which did seem odd to me since i submitted tax returns with my business address, my audit reports and my current corporate bank account statement which also has my address, so i told them getting an invitation letter is impossible since world has been on lockdown for past 6 months or so why and how would someone send me an invitation letter.

Now all this was sounding a little phishy, so i saw there was refund policy on the site stating i can request 100% refund within 3 days, so i asked them to refund my money and they started strolling and offered me other services like auditing and tax filing to which i refused. And at the end denied to refund stating that refund policy says if i fail to provide that invitation letter document so i am not liable to get a refund. I was also willing to go for a partial refund but they denied that as well, so i asked them to lets go ahead open the account only and request a meeting with OCBC bank with existing documents. And its been more than 15 days now since they gave any information for an appointment or even a single piece of thread to prove that they even applied for bank account opening.

I do have all the proofs of our conversation so i have finally filed for a dispute with my bank and going to report them to government authorities as well.

I would highly recommend to stay away from this company.
 
What they are requesting from you is very common and I am sure they did not make up those requirements, it is what local banks ask for. So, do not worry about that part as the account opening in Hong Kong/Singapore is a long and tiring process and the client needs to be ready to come back to the bank with lots of additional documents and data.

What is questionable is the way they handled refund. Firstly, they need to let you know before you pay that the refund is not possible if you are not willing/unable to obtain requested documents.

Hopefully you did not pay them a lot.
 
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Brother i have a bank account with a regular brick and motor bank, ICICI and HSBC, i have all audit docs and tax docs, lease agreement, latest bank account statement and all latest contracts and invoices. ICICI is not good with online banking and management and HSBC doesn’t have good reputation and you never know when they suspend your account so i move less through it. My aim was to get a good bank and a stable one so i opted for Singapore instead of HK banks.

The weirdest document asked is an invitation letter sent by my client or supplier to my address for any latest event, this is not possible to provide in times of covid since all conferences and events have been moved to virtual events. And I don’t even know if it was even asked by bank as even banks are familiar with covid situation and i haven’t received any email from bank about my application or any meeting to be scheduled.
 
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Renewal of a company is easy stuff and can be provided by any agent. I thought if i could adjust my payment with them for audit and accounting so i will get that and at least not loose my money, but it turns out their services are 3-4 times more expensive than other good auditing companies and my auditors who i have been using for past 4 years.
 
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Hi i am sharing my experience with BBCIncorp | Online Company Formation and Corporate Service although they scammed me but i am no one to judge in your case or services you availed from them, it is general advisory for anyone looking to avail their bank account opening help with Hong Kong or Singapore banks.

I approached them last month to see if they can help in any remote bank account opening in Singapore or Hong Kong for my Hong kong company which is 4 years old and has already have existing bank account with ICICI Bank Hong Kong. They asked me some basic info about the company like nature of business and requested for documents which would be required to open the bank account so they could pre-approve it. And they verified that they can offer account opening for me with DBS Hong Kong ( remotely with video conference call ), DBS Singapore ( remotely with video conference call ) and OCBC Singapore ( remotely with video conference call ).

So i decided to signup up with them for OCBC since DBS had too big of initial deposit and balance requirement. And paid them USD 700. Once i paid them they requested for some additional docs which i provided. This is the first day after i paid them and submitted following docs:

Directors documents
Company Audit Reports for past 3 years
Company Tax Debit notes and Returns for past 3 years
Customer and Supplier Invoices
Client Contracts
Current bank account statement
Bank reference letter
Basic Company docs like COI, BR
And Virtual office lease agreement.

Now before i paid them i asked them specifically do any of the banks require physical office or can they accept virtual office, to which they clearly responded virtual office is no problem.

On 2nd day they came back requesting couple of questions like one of the client contract was over 1 year old and others are also old. So in reality in my business contracts are not a big requirement so its only signed once when we start relationship and out 4 contracts i submitted 3 were signed in last 5 months and other was 1 year old, but since they requested it i somehow managed to ask my client to sign new contract and submitted that as well.

On 3rd day they came up with new request that they need a new address proof, which is what i asked, so they said a latest invitation letter sent by my customer or supplier to my address, which did seem odd to me since i submitted tax returns with my business address, my audit reports and my current corporate bank account statement which also has my address, so i told them getting an invitation letter is impossible since world has been on lockdown for past 6 months or so why and how would someone send me an invitation letter.

Now all this was sounding a little phishy, so i saw there was refund policy on the site stating i can request 100% refund within 3 days, so i asked them to refund my money and they started strolling and offered me other services like auditing and tax filing to which i refused. And at the end denied to refund stating that refund policy says if i fail to provide that invitation letter document so i am not liable to get a refund. I was also willing to go for a partial refund but they denied that as well, so i asked them to lets go ahead open the account only and request a meeting with OCBC bank with existing documents. And its been more than 15 days now since they gave any information for an appointment or even a single piece of thread to prove that they even applied for bank account opening.

I do have all the proofs of our conversation so i have finally filed for a dispute with my bank and going to report them to government authorities as well.

I would highly recommend to stay away from this company.
I can confirm that they do not perform. I incorporated a Belize company with them in January. They failed to get a bank account in Belize and presented me no less than 4-5 banks and every time asking for more and more docs. I finally gave up. To date no bank account from them. For refund when I wanted it since the 2nd day, they said, as well, that no refund is possible as stated in the T&C. Very poor service for bank opening ().
 
An Update on this case - 15 October 2020
------------------------------
Just when i posted this review and on other sites and contacted my bank to report this fraud. I got a mail from their team very next day that your application is approved. I am not an idiot to be fooled and i hope other people are also not, so judge their activity your self.

Here is what they sent me:
" Dear Harsh, Initially, I would be expressed my deep apologies for the bad experience and the late update for you during processing to open a business account. However, I tried to make the effort to remind the bank day by day, but due to the pandemic effect, OCBC bank has responded slowly than they normally do."

Now as i mentioned earlier the bank responded almost everyday when we started the process because BBCIncorp team mailed me almost everyday for first 3-4 days asking more and more documents, and they said they are forwarding them everyday to the bank to get approvals and coming back with new requests and suddenly when i submitted all my docs they ghosted me for 15 days until i didn't report them to bank and wrote about this scam on online portals.

BTW for everyone else OCBC is very responsive bank and as i noticed this companies activities were too phishy so i contacted bank and applied my self and in process of opening account, so they are just BS and lieing.
 
Dear Mr. Harsh Kohli,

Thank you so much for your feedback, your experience is very valuable for us to improve ourselves.

I’m also grateful that OffshoreCorpTalk and Admin give us a place to gain more knowledge and to respond to our customers.


I'm Brian, an officer in the PR and Marketing team from BBCIncorp Limited, Hong Kong branch. Please allow me to explain the more detailed process of your Application to bring the overall perspective.


We received your payment of USD 700 on Sep 21st for banking support (One-time fee for application of up to 5 banks OR till the account opened successfully, whichever comes first).

On Sep 18th, we had also notified you about the pros and cons such as success rate and additional documents that can be requested more by the bank depending on each business/company, under your approval before payment.


We really appreciated your effort on preparing documents and we also tried to communicate with the Singapore bank you chose to give appropriate consulting on preparing documents. We are so sorry for late update and the time took longer for this current difficult time with a huge number of applications that the bank and us have to process. After all, good news is the bank has pre-approved your applications on Oct 15th and is waiting for your signed applications forms to continue the opening account process.


However, you said that our effort is a trick even when we provided you an evidence of bank's approval. We're very sad to know that you did an online campaign to attack our reputation on review pages, forums, and also disputed the payment. That's just unfair. And we finally decided to speak up to give anyone a more holistic view of what we have done so far to support you and the overall result of the application.

We have enough evidences to prove our effort on our kind supporting you and communications with the bank on your case and ready to confront with you and bank about what we did.


Please be fair with us. Anyway, we are waiting here to support you to continue the process. Our dedicated relationship manager and the bank is waiting for your signed application of opening bank account.


At the end, we wish you a Successful Business!
 
I will move this to the proper forum, it does not belong here!
 
Hey Brian,

I also have all proofs and i never signed for 5 banks and i signed up only for OCBC bank and gave all docs for pre approval before i signed up and cooperated even after the paying you guys, the only pros and cons of the service is bank denies my application and i know this and I wouldn’t blame that on you. And nor am I claiming about that, since i know thats a part of service.

But issue with your company is your job was only pre approve and decided and guide your customers where are there good chances of approval and just do an intro and thats where you guys failed and the day i posted about my experience you guys immediately came next day saying your application is pre-approved.

That the part where any person in right mind would think that you guys are a total scam, since you guys never told me in pros and cons that you will go silent for 15-16 days , all you mentioned is it takes 2-4 weeks to get a bank account.

And your agent mentioned for 15 days ocbc bank didn’t respond that why you couldn’t reply and when i posted your review they replied very next day.

Don’t take me for a fool.
 
Scam firm, I own several successful businesses since 2005, paid the premium fee for setting up a business in the Caymans islands, and provided all documents as requested, even paid for getting those notarized. Now, out of a sudden, they're canceling my order informing that they would like to refund me less than I paid due to their internal policies. They recommended me a few banks with initial payment, and credit cards they offer, however, Citic Banking Corporation, asks for USD 500.000 initial deposit, and I agreed. Out of a sudden they want to charge me over HKD 920 and just don't open the firm. Scammers.
 
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Scam firm, I own several successful businesses since 2005, paid the premium fee for setting up a business in the Caymans islands, and provided all documents as requested, even paid for getting those notarized. Now, out of a sudden, they're canceling my order informing that they would like to refund me less than I paid due to their internal policies. They recommended me a few banks with initial payment, and credit cards they offer, however, Citic Banking Corporation, asks for USD 500.000 initial deposit, and I agreed. Out of a sudden they want to charge me over HKD 920 and just don't open the firm. Scammers.
Dear Sir,

We're sorry for the disappointment you've experienced. In your specific case, we have already initiated the refund process, as our policy, since we were unable to complete the service you had ordered.

While we cannot disclose specific information for your case rejection due to internal policies, we understand the confusion regarding your payment before consultation.

Nevertheless, please be assured that we are actively working to uphold the commitment and policies that have set our standards and earned trust over the years.


Best regards,
BBCIncorp Team
 
Dear Sir,

We're sorry for the disappointment you've experienced. In your specific case, we have already initiated the refund process, as our policy, since we were unable to complete the service you had ordered.

While we cannot disclose specific information for your case rejection due to internal policies, we understand the confusion regarding your payment before consultation.

Nevertheless, please be assured that we are actively working to uphold the commitment and policies that have set our standards and earned trust over the years.


Best regards,
BBCIncorp Team
I don't understand, what internal policies? You're being paid to offer a service, you're not a financial institution with policies dictated by your AML officer. At least refund the full amount because you are to be blamed for the whole ordeal.
 
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I don't understand, what internal policies? You're being paid to offer a service, you're not a financial institution with policies dictated by your AML officer. At least refund the full amount because you are to be blamed for the whole ordeal.
Dear Sir,

Thank you for sharing your perspective. Please allow us to provide some clarity, BBCIncorp is a licensed corporate secretary firm in Hong Kong and Singapore. And similar to all other registered agents, we must ensure and commit to strict compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) policies and regulations.

In this case where we identified that the client's business activities fell within a restricted category, we regret to inform them that we cannot proceed with the transaction. We have promptly communicated this situation to the client and initiated a full refund to them accordingly.

Please note that the final refund amount may be subject to currency exchange rates and banking fees, which could impact the total amount refunded. And we are doing our best for them.


Sincerely,
BBCIncrop team