I have a friend in China I’ve known for 2 years. We’ve never met in person, but we trust each other as friends. They once even sent me a gift in the mail, a set of earbuds from Acefast. Anyway, they recently asked me to start a business with them. They sell cheap jewelry in China (in many places online) at a huge markup (items that cost $5–$9 sell for $44). They wanted to expand operations to the U.S., so they had me open an Etsy store to list their products. They said we would split profits: they get 60% because they do all the work, and I get 40% because I opened the store, created and handled the listings and customer service. I thought it was straightforward, a 40% share of the sale. They said it would be free shipping, and I assumed they had the inventory ready to go. (They showed me photos of many items which looked like tons of inventory at their home) And then again, I have to translate everything he says from Chinese to English. He also made the idea seem appealing by saying I’d become very rich fast, making $500-1000 a day minimum and be living better/get out of poverty, etc etc. it seemed appetizing to me Basically, customers buy the items on Etsy, and the products are drop-shipped from China. (This is mentioned on every listing very visibly, “shipped from China” which is the reason my Etsy (our) store hasn’t gotten any sales in many months, and yesterday was our first. I wanted to be honest and transparent and not mislead anyone. I didn’t know that the way they calculated the split would include them ordering the item to their home, then shipping it to the buyer overseas, and then me getting just 40% of what remains. For example, our first sale was a $44 ring. After Etsy fees, the total was $37. I expected to get 40% of that, but they said I’d only get $5 because it costs them $9 to buy and $13-15 to ship. Once they even said the item only cost $5, which confused me further. If I had known that I’d only get $5 for all my work, I wouldn’t have opened the store. Plus, I paid $30 to open the Etsy account and $0.20 per listing, which they haven’t compensated me for, though I assume they know it costs something to run a store. They also expected me to copy the listings from their TikTok shop (over 500 listings). I never did, I only listed 5 items because of how much work it was, being like I’d add more after our first sale to see if it was worth continuing. Every listing took me about an hour, keywords, wording, changing descriptions. I even had to find and edit some of the photos myself to make them less “generic” looking, backgrounds and all. Now after this, I don’t see it as worth continuing and I’m glad I didn’t do the 500+ other listings They want me to handle the monthly billing cycle for the account, by keeping it linked to my account. but they wanted the deposits in their account. When I said that might risk their account being billed, they said “never mind” and suggested keeping it in my name. I feel kind of bad for being suspicious about them, he seemed like a very nice person (I say them because he works with his wife), like maybe I’m overreacting or being greedy, but a part of me just wants to close the account. Any opinions?