LA TRINIDAD, Benguet: The Christmas season nears with vegetable trading hitting a peak, so is the peak of deceit, according to Augusto Balanoy of the Benguet Farmers Marketing Cooperative.

Balanoy said that the cooperative has issued a warning so that the farmers will be forewarned and not be deceived by unscrupulous buyers.

Balanoy related that last year; farmers were deceived and lost millions when some fly-by-night vegetable buyers failed to pay the farmers and vegetable traders of the province.

At first, they would earn your trust by paying promptly or even in cases advance their payment. Once they earn your trust, they would request payment after delivery of vegetables, then two to three days after delivery, in the end, they don’t pay at all, she said.

The Christmas season is the peak of vegetable trading, starting as early as November up to the first week of January, he said.

During this period, test purchases are made and building of trust between supplier and buyer.

According to Balanoy, the number of buyers usually double or triple during this period.

In last year’s case, a buyer who duped the vegetable suppliers earned the trust of the latter and was paying the suppliers but toward the end of the month, he ordered a big load of vegetables but did not pay his suppliers.

Last year, a certain Rudy Baja, allegedly duped 22 traders on December 22. After gaining the trust of the vegetable suppliers, he was able to get truckloads of vegetables during that day. He failed to pay his suppliers.

Accordingly, he was spotted at the vegetable trading post sometime last week.

The problems encountered by the vegetable farmers were brought to the attention of authorities, Balanoy said, who are now in the processes of formulating solutions.

Among the suggestions is the proposed is to license all buying transactions in the trading post in order to build a database and to have a profiling of buyers, she added.