Working with contractors that provide freight transportation services, in most cases, is associated with many risks. This market, even when compared to others, has always had many different scams. Among the most widespread are commonplace cargo thefts by the carrier, disguise as a well-known logistics company to get hold of goods, forgery of documents etc. Therefore, before signing a contract with both a new contractor and an allegedly familiar one, you need to carefully check each potential contractor. The analytical system YouControl will help you with this. It provides users of the Lardi-Trans service with a profile of any company by collecting data from 22 open data sources.

Basically, there are a number of red flags that should alert a company that plans to entrust its load to a carrier. However, sometimes even one risk factor noticed at the right time can save you from loss of goods worth tens or hundreds of thousands UAH.

The list of risk factors that YouControl will help identify include:

1. Legal entity status. This information will indicate whether the company is being dissolved or went bankrupt. It is unlikely that such a partner will be keen on fulfilling the terms of the contract.
2. The main activity and the total of other activities. It is worth paying attention to the type of activity the company indicated as the main one and whether it corresponds to the services it offers you. Likewise, a large number of additional activities should also raise doubts. If there are dozens or even hundreds of them, you should be on the lookout and consider what the company actually does and whether it is a fraud.
3. When the company was founded. Who should you give preference to - a company that has been on the market for six months, or one that has twenty years of experience and has built a reputation? Of course, the second option is worth choosing. However, scammers can often "exaggerate" the age of their company in order to impress you. But with YouControl this information can be easily checked. Also, do not forget that often swindlers can register a new legal entity for a certain scam. Therefore, a newly opened company can be created for this very purpose.
4. Place of company registration. It is necessary to check whether the place of registration is Crimea or the Joint Forces Operation zone (the former ATO zone). The company, which is now located there, does not obey the Ukrainian laws, therefore, if something happens, it will be quite difficult to bring it to justice. Indeed, nothing good should be expected of it.
5. Director and signatories of the company. When entering into a contract, you should ask what powers and restrictions the person who signs it has. For example, if the person is authorized to carry out transactions only up to 100 thousand UAH, and your agreement is for 200 thousand UAH, then it will not have legal force.
6. Authorized capital. If the scale of the company's business activity is rather large, if it positions itself as a major market player, you should pay attention to the size of its authorized capital. Since in an unforeseen situation, it is from this money that compensation is paid.
7. Litigation. It's worth paying attention not only to the number of court proceedings but also to the fact whether the company is the plaintiff or the defendant in them. Information about the types of cases is also important, because economic ones, for example, indicate that the company might have breached the terms of the contract. The criminal proceedings, on the other hand, point to serious fraud. The system will also provide you with the possibility to read the texts of court decisions so that you may find out the exact circumstances of the case.
8. Enforcement proceedings. Their presence indicates that the company does not comply with the court's decision. This is an alarming fact in itself. In addition to this, the number and duration of such proceedings are also important.
9. Tax debt. If a company does not settle its accounts with the state, that is, does not pay taxes, it is also questionable whether it will fulfil its obligations to partners. However, types of debts might also differ. In particular, enormous and long-term ones should raise doubts about the accountability of the company.
10. Participation in public procurement. If a company successfully, regularly and for significant amounts provides its services to the state, this may just be an argument in its favour. Although the lack of information about cooperation with the state cannot indicate that something is wrong with it.
11. Sanctions lists check. If a company features in a list of sanctions (either national or international), this is a reason to think about why it ended up there and whether it is worth having any relationships with. After all, sanctions are imposed against companies that finance terrorism, for instance. Dubious "achievement", isn't it?
12. First level connections. Using this tool, you can find out about persons related to the company, including founders and managers, about its branches, subsidiaries etc. This information helps to reveal whether the company is registered at the place of mass registration or whether its director is the head of dozens of other companies. In certain circumstances, this information may indicate that the company is a sham and requires careful verification.

It will take you just a few minutes to view information on these twelve points in the profile generated by the YouControl analytical system. This is a fairly small time investment that will help you protect yourself from losses and find truly reliable partners with whom you can build long-term business relationships.