Truth About Payment Method

Supplier requests payment by Western Union only. While Western Union provides a great service, it is very difficult to confirm and/or track down the person that received the funds, hence scammers like Western Union. With a bank account, at least you can (in theory) get details on the owner of the account as part of a prosecution. Most experienced suppliers do the majority of their financial transactions by wire transfer; if a supplier only accepts Western Union, they unlikely to be an experienced exporter and more likely to be fraudulent.
Supplier requests payment to a bank account that appears different than the company account or company name.In most cases, this will actually be a legitimate request. The supplier may be operating under a new legal entity; his account may not yet be set up to accept foreign currency, etc. To protect itself, one western company that has been confronted with this issue several times asks the supplier sign and chop a letter saying that they are requesting the funds be sent to another account, and that the supplier will treat payment to that account as payment to themselves. Another Western company says they ask both the business owner and the bank account owner to sign and chop such a letter.
There are also tax reasons at work here. China has a 17% tax and therefore to remain competitve a company may request you transfer to a personal account rather than a company account. Unless you are willing to pay an additional 17% on top of the price quotes it is worth noting this point.