Perhaps a scam order from Bejing?

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Greg Fremstad

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Sep 4, 2002
Posts
1,103
Loc
Eugene OR
I've just received an request for quote for 100 bundles of RabbetSpace 1/2 inch from Bejing China - a fellow named George Brown. He wanted to know if we would accept Visa or MasterCard for payment and to get a freight quote as well.

We sell so little of the deeper RabbetSpace that it really smells scammy.

Any thoughts?
 
call the CC fraud dept when and if they give you an account #. And of course do not ship until the card is approved by that fraud department.
 
If this was legit, why wouldn’t they try to get wholesale prices directly from a distributor?

I would ignore them.
 
Mr. Brown seems to be a busy man. I've had several of these type requests from Mr. Brown (although he changes his first name fairly often) from Indonesia, Las Vegas, India, Hong Kong, via the hearing impaired phone system, e-mails, and faxes, and he always wants to know what credit card processing I use. When I tell him I will discuss with him only on the telephone, with him, he disappears.
 
You might note the Greg is from Frame Tek there Bill. As per any international transaction funds should be put into your account via a money transfer to save on the potential hassle (unless you know the CC holder). Naturally an order like this is suspect, but not always fraudulent - give them the option of other payment methods and see if they are actually interested.
 
The other consideration, given that Mr. "Brown" is calling from China, is whether they want those bundles so they can reverse engineer and start producing low-cost knockoffs with slave/child labor.
 
Greg,

If it's not a straight out scam, as these things often seem so,
they most likely want something to model the 'knock-offs' from !!

You should be honoured if so, it means they see an opportunity in a great product,
probably qualified by x numbers of mentions on the Grumble :D
 
Greg, my guess is it's a scam. Tell them you will accept an internationally-certified check for the total, plus shipping, and ship as soon as it clears their bank. Or work through a reputable export broker; they probably earn their money these days.

If the Chinese wanted to knock off FrameTek's products, they could buy little bits from any retail framer. But why would they want to do that? The entire framing industry's annual usage of spacers probably wouldn't fill more than a couple of shipping containers, and when they got it here they'd have no distribution network to get the products out to us. It would not be worth their effort, methinks.

From the standpoint of use in Chinese-built framing, my impression is that Chinese framing factories would not be interested in messing with stuff like high quality spacers; they'd rather use a slip of cardboard under the mat, or just fagiddabaddit.
 
I think its a scam also.
Looking at the previous posters comments, it seems people think that the chinese are not capable of producing high tec equipment or products, such ideas are utterly false.

Talking about the glass trade in Europe, the vast majority of 4mm, and 6mm float glass and mirrors comes from China now.
Costs are around 40% cheaper and thats after shipping. I'm obviously talking about about container loads at a time, the quality is excellent.

Machinery that is made in Italy, ie. Online Shaped Bevellers and Online Polished Edgers have been copied by Chinese companys and are available at less that half the price, and with service engineers in England installing them are servicing them also. The look the same, motors are the same, do the same work, but assembled by using cheap labor, well cheap compared to America or Europe.

Go to any trade show in Europe and you will find the Chinese there in numbers checking out the market.

Greg, your product is safe from that copying, if they wanted to copy RabbetSpace they would not need to get a sample of it from your company, it would be on the market before you knew it.

Besides the real money is not on frame spacers , but it the production of moulding, companys in China are copying well known moulding profiles this minute. There is alot of it coming into Ireland in the last year, which is a small market, so I suspect its around other European countries also.

Its not only Framing or Glass, anything you can think of will be manufactured in China be it copied from other countries or designed there. The clothing / fashion industries are being hit also.

I dont know about the importing of goods from China to America, is there limitations on such imports etc.

But its open season in Europe. As most of you probably know, Ireland is really a small country, and basically 2 major companys supply the ready made framing market, your know the stuff, cheap frames maybe including a mat, that are sold all over the place, they are cheap and look cheap, people still buy them.
The people employed making those frames, choping moulding and cutting mats are no longer employed there, the ready mades come from China now.
Still look cheap, and are away lot cheaper the produce with the costs of labour there.

I know I'm talking alot, so I will stop now. Its just that some people are really not aware how advanced the Chinese have become.

Oh! by the way im NOT Chinese.
 
Oh, there's no doubt the Chinese are capable of advanced manufacturing. My issues with them are (1) they don't give a rat's tuchus about someone else's intellectual property rights, and (2) they are happy to produce goods using slave labor and child labor. And now, with the US deficit at near record levels, the Chinese own a substantial amount of US debt instruments. So we don't dare impose any kind of trade sanctions against them.
 
Maybe they just want to see how you pack 'n ship...?

In any case, I'm sticking with Greg's product. And if my distributor defects, then I'll buy direct.
 
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