Shanghai Jeufu Construction Machinery - contracted with this company for $21,500 for 2 excavators. They did not deliver and would not refund the money. It was paid in full Shanghai city SONGJIANG DISTRICT

China excavator  equipment rip-off scam to Americans “Shanghai Jeufu Construction Machinery” Vivi Xu and Kaka Wu extortion".  Company aliases are Shanghai Digging Construction Machinery and Shanghai Lizhi Mechanical Equipment Service. All listed at the same address. 

In early March of 2025, I , Tony Jerald, along with a partner contracted Vivi Xu who was reported on Alibaba.com to represent SHANGHAI DIGGING CONSTRUCTION MACHINERY CO.,LTD. We negotiated pricing on a Used Komatsu PC56-7 and a used Cat 305.5 excavator. The negotiated total was $21,500 USD. This was to include new thumbs installed on both machines as well as a quick couple and tiger teeth for the cat bucket. She sent over an invoice for purchase, and I promptly wired her $6,450 as a 30% deposit to hold the machines while thumbs were installed, and an inspection was performed ($268 cost). The invoice showed a vendor of SHANGHAI JUEFU CONSTRUCTION MACHINERY CO, LTD.

The machines failed the inspection, but we opted to proceed as the failure points were not operational in nature. At that point I sent the final payment was wired through Alibaba pay on 3/25/25 with the expectation those funds would be available by 3-31-25 and the machines would ship by 4-2-25 to avoid the risk of a tariff increase rumored to be coming on 4-5-2025

After the final payment was sent, communication became strained and Vivi because very evasive, quoting all kinds of strange reasons for delays that made no sense, yet never responded with pictures after MANY requests to verify that the equipment was not sold to someone else. Sensing concern that Vivi was not being honest, we said we needed to talk with someone. She said she would drive to “the factory” and have someone that spoke English call us. That evening Kaka Wu from SHANGHAI LIZHI MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT SERVICE CO., Ltd. called my partner and I representing himself to be “the factory” and on the video call showed us the equipment outside of his window to prove who they were. He said if we had more problems with Vivi to contact him and he could help. I cannot confirm his role, but he did admit to being the factory that Vivi had mentioned. We did try to do that but he ignored us.

On 4-16-25, Vivi stated that the equipment would not be able to be shipped unless we paid her another $4,500. I tried to offer a compromise to split up the amount between us, her company and the factory. She claims that “the factory” had increased their prices by $4,500 and there was nothing she could do about it, and they would not refund our money. This left us with no machines, no money and the only available option to send yet more money to people that we could not trust. She offered to possibly replace our inspected machines with cheap Chinese machines which were not comparable in value and not sellable in the US. They appear to be the junk that no one else will buy.

One of two things is happening, either they are going out of business, or they are holding the equipment we already purchased for ransom to extort additional money. I don’t know which is true, but at this point trust is shattered, we are tired of the endless lies and a refund is our best course of action. In one of the pics vivi sent, I noticed a very new looking black S class Mercedes that likely cost around $130,000 USD. She claimed it was “the boss’s car”. So, they appear to have a very profitable business, yet have chosen the route of extortion with us. Likely because we are private citizens and not a large company. In the latest communications, Vivi is again blaming “the factory” stating that the tariffs have shifted the market and they are now getting more money from other countries. She will not respond to the fact that we had a written purchase agreement, and payment in full was made. If they are not able to produce the product, laws in both countries would dictate a full refund be given.  

4-18-25 I asked for the physical address of where the machines currently were and received no response.