Business People About Hungarians

One European businessman said, “Hungarians are wonderful people socially, but you better be careful when you do business with them. They do not have the same kind of ethics as in the West. Culturally and socially they are western, but in the way they do business they are more Eastern than Western. They always want to come out ahead and if they successfully swindle or deceive you they feel they are smart, not unethical.”

A Romanian businessman said, “The Hungarians are different than the Romanians in that they will not cheat you for the little money. Often in a shop, the shopkeeper will chase you down to give you your change. If you leave something there, they will hold it for you till you return to get it. In Romania, you better be careful to get your correct change and if you leave something behind you may never get it back. However, when you deal in a large transaction, the Romanian will often be in awe of the person who can spend so much money and will be afraid to cheat them. The Hungarian treats a large transaction like a sport and will do whatever it takes to win.”

One English director of a large fertilizer company said it is very important to be careful in making business deals in Hungary. “If you deliver products before people pay, my experience has been that most of the time they will not pay. Instead of taking payment on credit for our products we had to take it from the farmer’s crops- which our product improved the yield by 30 percent.”

I was on a plane with a Pakistani who bought and sold used small aircraft. He made a deal to buy a plane for ten thousand dollars with one of the government ministry departments. He had a contract and a bill of sale for the aircraft on the official documents of the ministry. When He went to buy the plane it did not exist! He went to the ministry department and showed them the contract and was told that the person who signed the contract does not work for the ministry and that someone must have stolen the blank official document that the contract was written on. He left Hungary disappointed with his pockets empty and no airplane.

An Italian businessman owned a factory in Hungary. He noticed that after he hired a Hungarian manager and trusted him to run the company that the income dropped significantly. He found out that the manager was selling the company’s products independently at auto shows and shipping to suppliers in a business under his own name. He also found out that his manager was building a villa in the countryside. The Italian said, “There is no way he could build a villa so fast on the 500,000.- HUF per month salary that he has! When he fired him, the manager was very offended and said that when he was a big boss in Communist times no one would ever dare to fire him.”

Foreigners who have had to do construction have said that if they do not watch what is going on, construction materials disappear and it will always take longer and cost more. They also said it is important to make sure that the materials agreed on in the contract are what the constructor is using on the site.

One Latin American began to buy a home under construction when he went over the contract. The contract said it would use the high quality Bramac roof tiles but he noted what was delivered to the site was a very cheap brand. When he asked the contractor about the change, the contractor said it is impossible to use Bramac, as they are too heavy for the roof supports he is using. He asked the contractor, then why did you put it on the contract? The builder said, “Because it is the best!” He decided not to buy the house and the builder was surprised and angry when he backed out of the contract.

If this is the case why do the business people keep coming and invest and do business with Hungarians?

One business attaché who asked that everything about him be confidential including his nationality, said, “The Hungarians are adaptable. They realize that you can swindle westerners once. But westerners will not do business again with someone who they can not trust. Big business works on a continuing basis and the swindler may score once, but will lose the match. Hungarians realize this and the business climate is changing every day. There are a lot of unemployed managers and defunct businesses who once believed that the one time swindle was the whole match. The businessmen who were swindled still have their jobs and still do business. It is the general opinion of the business community that the Hungarians will adapt and become part of the western business culture. There is an unlimited future here.”

business, businessmen, business culture, work ethic in Hungary