WALLBED KING 窩居·家
🔍 Buyer due-diligence guide · 15 min

Run these 8 free public checks on every HK furniture vendor — including us.

Most HK furniture buyers don't know these registries are free, public, and online. 15 minutes of due diligence beats every star-rating ever printed.

· Print-friendly · No login required for any check

Why we publish this

A guide that helps buyers verify any vendor — including us — only makes sense to publish if we expect to pass it. We do. Run these checks on us and on every vendor you're comparing. If we ever fail one of them, send the screenshot to hello@ with subject VERIFY GAP and we publish the correction within 48 hours per our Bill of Rights.

The asymmetry: a vendor's marketing budget is unlimited; the public registries are free. The 8 checks below let any HK buyer reach the same conclusion a paid investigator would — in 15 minutes, for $0.

If you only have 5 minutes

Run these two highest-yield checks first. Most scam vendors fail at least one of them.

  1. ⚡ Check 1 — BR number

    Ask for the BR number. Verify on the IRD lookup. If the seller refuses or the number doesn't match the trading name on the quote — stop.

  2. ⚡ Check 5 — Reverse image search

    Save 3 install photos from the vendor's site. Drop into Google Images. If the photos appear on AliExpress or 5+ other vendors, those installs aren't theirs.

The full 8-check audit (~15 min)

1

Business Registration (BR) lookup — IRD

~2 min · Free · Definitive

Every legitimate HK business is required to display its BR number on receipts, quotes, and physical premises. Ask for it; the seller is required to share it.

Verify on: IRD Business Registration enquiry

  • Pass: trading name matches quote · BR is current (not expired) · type of business matches "furniture" or similar
  • Fail: seller refuses to share · BR expired · trading name on BR ≠ name on quote
2

Companies Registry — Cyber Search Centre

~3 min · Free or HKD 22 for full report · Authoritative

If the vendor is incorporated (most are HK Limited), check active status, current directors, and any winding-up notices.

Verify on: Companies Registry ICRIS — free name search; details ~HKD 22

  • Pass: "Live" status · directors named on quote/website match · no winding-up petition
  • Fail: "Dissolved" / "Striking off" · director name mismatch · recent winding-up
3

HK Judiciary — court case search

~3 min · Free

Search Small Claims Tribunal and District Court records for the company name and director names. Recurring claims by customers is the strongest signal.

Verify on: Small Claims Tribunal · Judiciary case search

  • Pass: 0 cases or 1-2 over a multi-year operating history
  • Fail: repeating pattern of claims by customers, especially deposit-related
4

Consumer Council — complaint history

~2 min · Free

The Consumer Council publishes annual complaint statistics by trade. Call the hotline to ask whether they hold records under the trading name.

Verify on: consumer.org.hk · Hotline 2929 2222

  • Pass: no record under trading name or director names
  • Fail: active or recent complaint records, especially without resolution
5

Reverse-image search the install photos

~3 min · Free

Save 3 photos from the vendor's website / Instagram / quote. Drop them into Google Images or TinEye. Real installs appear only on the vendor's own pages and possibly the customer's social. Stock photos or photos copied from another vendor appear in 5+ places.

Verify with: Google Images · TinEye

  • Pass: photos appear only on vendor's own pages, possibly customer accounts
  • Fail: photos appear on Alibaba/AliExpress, on multiple unrelated vendor sites, or are watermark-stripped
6

Showroom address — physical or Street View

~2 min · Free

Plug the address into Google Maps Street View. Check the building looks commercial, the signage is visible, the ground-floor occupancy matches the trade. Better: drop in unannounced — a real showroom welcomes walk-ins. A vendor with no address (only WhatsApp) is a red flag for HK custom furniture.

Verify on: Google Maps · physical visit

  • Pass: commercial address with signage · welcomes walk-ins · physical mechanism on display
  • Fail: "WhatsApp-only" / virtual office / address that turns out to be residential
7

Social media account age + post cadence

~2 min · Free

On Facebook, the page transparency tab shows the page creation date and any name changes. On Instagram, scroll to the earliest post. A page created 2 weeks before your quote is a major red flag; a page with consistent multi-year activity is a strong green flag.

Check: Facebook Page transparency · Instagram earliest post · LinkedIn company creation date

  • Pass: 2+ years of posts, no recent name change, real customer interactions in comments
  • Fail: account <6 months old · sudden name change · only stock images, no replies to customers
8

Trade Descriptions Ordinance — Customs & Excise

~2 min · Free

Customs & Excise enforces HK's Trade Descriptions Ordinance — the law against misleading representations about goods and services. They publish prosecutions and convictions on their press-release page.

Verify on: customs.gov.hk — TDO

  • Pass: no prior TDO conviction or pending enforcement
  • Fail: any prior TDO conviction (these are durable; treat as binary)

How to score the result

A vendor that fails 1 check might just be small or new. A vendor that fails 2+ is statistically the kind of seller that does not deliver custom furniture as promised. The cost of running these checks is 15 minutes; the cost of skipping them is 30%-100% of the project value.

Run these on us

We pass all 8. The traceable claims and where to verify each one are documented at /verify.html. If you find a discrepancy:

  1. Email hello@wallbedking.com.hk with subject VERIFY GAP
  2. Founder reviews directly
  3. Correction published within 48 hours per our Bill of Rights — and added to the policy changelog

A vendor whose response to "verify us" is "please don't" has already given you the answer. We say "please do" because we already did the work.

Common questions

Why publish a guide buyers can use against you?

If running these checks would disqualify us, we'd rather you find that out before paying than after. We pass all 8. The page exists because most buyers don't know these registries are free and public — knowing they exist is the asymmetric advantage.

What about Google reviews?

Useful but easily faked. Look for reviews with photos that include the install (not stock product shots), reviewer profiles with multi-year history, and dates spread across years rather than clustered. Treat <50 reviews with suspicion regardless of star rating.

What if a vendor refuses to share their BR number?

Hard stop. The BR is public information by design — every legitimate HK seller has one and is legally required to display it on receipts and quotes. Refusal is itself the answer.

A vendor passed all 8 — is that enough?

No. These checks rule out scammers, not bad fit. Once a vendor passes, the next layer is quote quality (see /how-to-spot-a-fake-quote) and physical mechanism quality (visit a showroom, touch the bed). Verification is necessary, not sufficient.

Can I share this guide?

Yes — we want HK buyers in general to know the registries exist. Print-friendly stylesheet included. No attribution required if you want to copy the structure for another category of HK service vendor.

Related buyer-education pages

A vendor that welcomes verification is the easiest one to verify.

Most HK furniture buyers don't run these 8 checks because they don't know they exist. The vendors who count on that are exactly the ones the checks would catch. Run them on every quote you're considering — including ours.

Run the 8 checks on us →