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Alibaba Supplier Scam Alert!
Please do yourself a favor and read my whole post, as what I am about to share with you will save you thousands if not millions of dollars and tons of headache.
If you are sourcing for Sports, Fitness or Home & Kitchen related products. Do whatever you can to AVOID the following supplier (you may want to copy and paste to your notes for permanent reference).
Company Name: Nantong Jinruite Technology Development Company
Company:
http://jinruite.en.alibaba.com
https://ntjingu.en.alibaba.com - sister company
Staff including: April Sue(Sales Manager), Amy Zhao (Sales Director), Rose King (Owner)
We've done business with Nantong Jinruite since Dec. 2014. We have placed numerous orders with them, and their product quality has been somewhat satisfactory with only minor quality issues.
Just when they earned our trust, we placed a very large order with them in the beginning of 2016. At that time little did we know that the factory had decided go behind our back and switch out the material on the most important component of the product just to cut cost and pocket the difference. Because they used an inferior material, the product couldn’t sustain long term use and it actually has become a safety hazard. (Even an inspection company would not be able to detect the problem. As the inferior substitute looked very solid from the appearance.)
So you can only imagine what happened next. As soon as we found out that the product material has been changed, we stopped selling immediately and requested Amazon to destroy all the inventory. But by then thousands of units have been sold. Soon enough the product listing is flooded with negative reviews and our star rating tanked.
It gets worse… The factory agreed to give us replacements only if we agreed to pay for the shipping. So we to pay for the shipping again plus unexpected local charges (they changed from FOB to EXW without our consent) and waited for 40 days for them to manufacture the replacement and ship over to Amazon.
The factory promised to make only the best quality products from then on. But to our disappointment, the replacements arrived with numerous issues and the quality was significantly worse than previous orders.
And the damage didn’t just stop there! Unfortunately just before we found out they switched the material before issuing us replacements, we placed another large order with them. We already lost trust with them, so we asked them to provide samples for our approval before they can start the mass production.
Just as expected, the samples arrived with numerous quality issues again. Products were sloppily put together with ugly-looking weld lines in the plastic. Pins that held the product together were so loose that they were ready to pop. Even the color was wrong on the product and packaging for one variation!
We told them that the samples are not acceptable and the mass production should not be started unless they improve the quality. The factory said too bad the mass production was done and awaiting assembly, before we’ve seen the samples!
After months of back and forth of emailing them, they accepted they are at fault, but later on they would deny and dodge it. Truly, the worst customer service ever! The sales person I dealt with reacted very immaturely and unprofessionally - like a teenage girl. So I asked to do business with someone else in the company hoping to resolve the issues. Contacted the Owner-in both (Chinese and English) but no response. Contacted the Sales Director - no response either. In the end, I saw that they are not going to solve the quality issues and superseding our authority was unforgivable, I told them we will need our deposit back and we no longer wish to proceed with the order.
Their response was:
You know, this is China. According to Chinese law, deposit money is non-refundable. We are a professional and honest factory. That's why we are trying our best to match your requirements, and make you feel satisfied.
Before all these happened, the product was generating about $25, 000.00 in sales for us on Amazon. But with the drop of star rating and sales ranking, now the product is only making 1/4 of what it used to. And we are still getting negative reviews every now and then!
Nantong Jinruite Technology Development Company never held themselves accountable for their actions nor did they care that they had ruined our brand reputation and caused us great financial loss. Instead they continued to boast the replacements as if it was the best favor ever. It’s almost laughable that they still claimed that they are an honest, trustworthy, reliable company.
With refunds, replacements, shipping, disposal fees, lost sales and deposit money, we calculated that doing business with this factory has cost us at least $50, 000.00 to $100, 000.00!
This is a truly a very expensive lesson that we learned. So be wise and DO NOT repeat our mistake. If you are looking for a supplier, look elsewhere. If you are already doing business with them, you’d better switch before they find the opportune moment and pull the same “bait and switch” and “non-refundable deposit”stunt on you and destroy the business that you’ve spent years to build.
Please feel free to reply to this should you have further questions, I’d be happy to answer them.