How to Verify a Lime Supplier Before Making Payment

A lime buyer who has been caught once will tell you the same story in one of three forms. The firm was real but the person was not: someone trading on a known name with a borrowed letterhead and their own bank account. The person was real but the firm was not: a registration that had been cancelled, or never existed. Or both were real and the bank details changed the day before payment, by a message that looked exactly like the earlier ones.

All three are stopped by the same habit: verify before you pay, every time, on sources that are not the seller. This article sets out the checks in order and says where each is made. None of them needs a lawyer or a subscription, and a genuine supplier expects all of them.

1. Get the firm's details in writing, from the firm

Ask for the registered name, the GSTIN, the registered address and the plant address, a landline or office number, and the e-mail domain. Ask for them on the quotation or on letterhead, not in a chat message. You are going to check each of these against an independent source, so you need the seller's version first.

2. Verify the GSTIN on the GST portal

Every GSTIN is public. The GST portal's Search Taxpayer tool returns the legal name, trade name, state, registration date and current status for any number you enter. Check that:

• the legal name or trade name matches the firm on the quotation;
• the state code (the first two digits — 08 is Rajasthan) matches where the seller says the plant is;
• the status is active, not cancelled or suspended;
• the registration is old enough to be consistent with the history the seller describes.

A GSTIN that returns a different name is the single most common sign of impersonation. The number is genuine; it belongs to someone else.

3. If it is a company or an LLP, check the Ministry of Corporate Affairs

A private limited company or an LLP is registered with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, and its master data — name, status, registered office, date of incorporation, directors — can be looked up on the MCA portal. A proprietorship or partnership will not appear there, and that is not a warning sign in itself; the lime belt is full of long-standing proprietary firms. What is a warning sign is a seller who describes itself as "Pvt. Ltd." and cannot be found.

4. Confirm the plant exists where the seller says

A kiln is a large, fixed thing. Ask for the plant address and look at it: on a map, in the firm's own photographs, in a video call from the site if you cannot visit. A manufacturer will show you its kilns; Deshwali Minerals publishes its plant and process and its gallery for this reason. A trader will say it is a trader. A firm that describes a plant it will not show is the case to walk away from.

5. Read the quotation as a document

A genuine quotation from an industrial supplier names the product and grade, the quantity, the rate and its basis, GST, packing, the delivery point, dispatch time, validity, payment terms and the bank account for payment — and it carries a reference the firm can be asked about. Call the firm's office number, not the number the quotation arrived from, and ask whether that reference exists. Deshwali Minerals' quotations carry a DM-Q reference for exactly this check; our office will confirm or deny one in a minute.

6. Match the beneficiary account to the firm

This is the check that stops payment diversion. When you add a payee in your banking app or at your bank, the beneficiary name on the account is shown or can be confirmed. It should be the firm's registered or trade name — the same name the GST portal returned. It should not be an individual's name, a different firm, or a name that is "nearly" right. If the seller says the firm's account is "under maintenance" and offers a director's personal account, stop.

Keep the account details the seller gave you on the quotation. If a later message gives different details, go to step 7 before doing anything else.

7. Confirm any change of bank details by voice, on a known number

A change of account number is the moment at which most payment frauds succeed, because the message arrives in the same chat, from what looks like the same number or e-mail address, in the same tone as every earlier message. The rule is simple and absolute: a change of payment instructions is confirmed by telephone, on a number you already had for the firm before the change, never on a number from the message itself. Ring the office line from the firm's website or an earlier invoice, ask for the person named on the quotation, and have them read the account back to you. If they cannot be reached, the payment waits.

Paying in proportion to trust

Verification lowers the risk; it does not remove it. For a first order from a firm you have not dealt with, keep the exposure small: a trial quantity, a smaller advance, payment against dispatch documents, or a bank instrument rather than a transfer. Established suppliers understand this and will usually propose it themselves.

If something does not add up

Do not pay. Say what you found and ask the seller to explain. A real firm with a clerical error fixes it on letterhead and does not mind. If the explanation is pressure — the price will go, the material will be sold to someone else, the account must be used today — that is the answer. The warning signs article lists the patterns; our buyer support page has the official reporting channels for the case where money has already moved.

A note on our own name

Deshwali Minerals is sometimes named by people who are not us. Our GSTIN, IEC and contact details are published on the resources page; our quotations carry a DM-Q reference; our bank account is in the firm's name. If a message claiming to be from us gives anything different, call the number on this website before paying.

Sources

• GST portal — Search Taxpayer by GSTIN/UIN: services.gst.gov.in
• Ministry of Corporate Affairs — company and LLP master data: mca.gov.in
• Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, Ministry of Home Affairs — national cyber crime reporting portal and helpline 1930: cybercrime.gov.in