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Company Name: Shenghe Performance Co., Ltd.
Contact Person: Mr. Stone Yang
Street Address: Room 210 No3 Gaopeng AV chengdu city ,sichuan Province. China
Zip: 6100041
Telephone: 0086-28-85130186
Mobile Phone: 008615928080732
Fax: 86-28-85181547
Website: http://www.syperformance.com
http://shengheperformance.en.alibaba.com
This experience involves the search for a company to produce a Crank Arm set for our customer. I made my usual inquiries to find a suitable supplier and Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co. Ltd replied with a suitable price. We further inquired about the cost of making a sample of each arm ( ie one left and one right. These arms are mirror images of each other). The sample cost quoted was $1500 or 10,500RMB.
Naturally our customer was weary about handing over this amount of money for samples that may be no good. We discussed our worries with Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co. Ltd and the owner, "Stone Yang", offered to refund the sample fee should the Crank Arms not be made to specification. Below is a quote from his email on Feb 25 2008 15:48 :
"Hi James:
Customer worry receive the sample with problem . the roter reason we think it is lack of the trust each other. as this is the first deal with us . i can understand this case. what we worry is crank arm will take many mould on the plate cutting . if only it is only one time business. our effort on the project will becomve no any sense . i mean after sample finish, there is not more order .... . must have one side come to term . so, my suggestion is as following
1500$ will be paid first . then we start the sample process . this charge will be retun to customer after batch order. .following is the detail we suggestion
1)We subject to approvea l 2 sample . 1*Left hand and 1*right hand
2)inspected standart is the customer drawing.
3)When we make send the sample. we will also send the inspected report togehter
4)If our product out of the drawing specification will be our posiblity. we will refond the money to you
5)product is with the drawing specification. then the tooling cost will be keep in our side till customer order the parts. . i mean
6)If the order is not place, this tooling cost will be pay as customer "
It was point number 4 that was of most interest to us. He offered to refund the fee should the Crank Arms not be to specification. It was due to this promise that we proceeded with Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co Ltd.
Following this communication, Stone Yang of Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co. Ltd offered to come to Wuhan to meet and also allow him to inspect a sample of one of the arms that had been sent to me by my customer.
Stone Yang of Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co. Ltd came to meet me in Wuhan on March 21 2008. He inspected the Crank Arm and assured me of his ability to reproduce it. He seemed to be a very nice man, understanding of our worries about the project and did his best to reassure me of all my worries. I invited him out to lunch once we had finished our meeting, but he insisted on paying for lunch as he said it was Chinese custom. After lunch I helped him load the Crank Arm sample into a taxi as he headed for the airport.
Following the meeting I sent Stone Yang the following email on March 22 2008 10:02 to reconfirm the terms that we had agreed upon :
Hi Stone
Very nice to meet you in person.
I think you should wait until I confirm with the customer that they don't mind you cutting open the crank arm sample.
It should be ok, but its better to check first.
So please wait until I email you that it is ok to cut it open and take it apart.
Please also send me an invoice for the $1500 for the first 2 samples. Please have the following terms on the invoice :
1.) We require 600 off in total – 300 Left Hand and 300 Right Hand assembled units as per drawings @ $80 per unit.
2.) Production will not begin until the customer has approved/tested 1 x samples of each arm.
3.) If the samples are not as per drawing and rejected by the customer the factory is to refund the tooling fee ($1500.00).
Thanks
James
Stone Yang of Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co. Ltd sent the following reply to the above email :
Hi James:
Sorry for delay reply
As to the sample. we waiting for your confirm if we can open the crank. open the sample is not mean we will broken the sample. it is only inspected the function
The term of1.2,3, We can confrm with you now. after you confirm if we open the sample. then we will send the PI to you
we waiting for your answer
best regards
stone
At this point we were happy to proceed as it was clear to us he would refund the $1500 should his samples be not to requirements. He also provided us with the following invoice clearly stating the refund terms
On the 10th of March we deposited 10,500RMB into his account. On the 11th of March I sent an SMS text message to Stone asking him when the 2 Samples would be ready. His reply was simply "30".
On 11th March I again re-confirmed this with the following email sent at 23:20
Hi Stone
Now that you have the money, please estimate for me when will the samples be ready ?
Also, do you use MSN Messenger ?
Thanks
James
His reply was recieved on 13th March at 11:35 :
Hi James:
The order will be ready with 30 days since 10th . so before 10th May you can receive the sample .Yetersay, i have start make the sample
My MSN account is sypstoneyang@hotmail.com
best regards
stone
Although it's un-related to the Crank Arms sample story, I was having trouble renewing my Visa. I asked Stone Yang to help by providing a letter of invitation for me to stay in the country. He was very accommodating and provided this letter to me. In the end it was useless as I needed a letter from a company in the city that I lived in, but he did try to help.
We therefore were expecting the samples to be ready by May 10th as he promised above. Therefore on May 5th at 12:54 I sent Stone an SMS text message :
Hi Stone. How are you ? How is the Crank Arm samples coming. Will they be ready next week ? Let me know. Thanks. James
His reply was recieved shortly thereafter at 13:25, it simply said "Yes".
Unfortunately, 2 days later China suffered their terrible earthquake. Chengdu, the city of Stone Yang and his factory, was close to the epicentre. After checking that he and his family were ok I inquired about the Crank Arms and I recieved the following SMS text message on Tuesday May 20th at 17:29 :
Sorry, we-stop-working-as-earthquake.waiting-condition-ok.this-week-i-will-send-sample.
Four days later on the Saturday, I expected he had sent the sample as he said he would in his text above, so on May 24th at 10:02 I sent Stone a text mesage asking if he had sent the sample yet. His reply 1 minute later at 10:03 was :
Not_Yet,Assembly.,NextWeek_I_Must_Sent_To_You
I again waited for that week to pass and on May 29th at 18:38 I sent Stone a text asking about the samples. His reply at 22:21 was
Tomorrow take picture to you some item will finish.on finale step.
The next day I recieved an email with those pictures. The samples were by no means near being ready. I waited another week and again via text message on June 5th at 8:45 inquired how much longer for the samples. His reply at 9:04 was :
Next week we sent full two set sample.on final process.I dont loss credit again.
I replied by saying "I hope so". He quickly replied by saying :
From the picture . you can see the semi finish product.i dont lie do on finally step.
Once I recieved that message I decided to text him in Chinese to make sure he clearly knew what I was thinking. I never accused him of lying, however as proven above he many times let me down. I sent him a text in Chinese pointing out how he had said the samples would be sent, and then they weren't. Then another date that didn't happen and so on. I pointed out the facts to him never accusing him of lying. He quickly sent a reply in Chinese saying that he was waiting on different parts etc and then again said "next week"
The samples were finally sent 2 weeks leter (not next week as promised in the conversation above) on June 18th and arrived with me 2 days later. To my utter shock, the samples were not assembled. He had merely sent all the pieces required to assemble the Crank Arm. I called him immediately but he wasn't answering. He didn't answer until a few hours later. We spoke in Chinese and I expressed my shock that he sent me the Crank Arms un assembled. His reasoning was that he thought the customer would want to test each part individually. Never did I give this impression to him. The sample he recieved from me was clearly assembled and I asked that an exact replica be provided. Stone just laughed everything off and said "no problem" just send him back the samples and he will assemble them and send them back to me. I sent the samples back to him the very same day (June 20th) for assembly.
Eventually the assembled samples arrived on July 4th. Of course, again, that was later than promised. The samples were not to specification. The welding was of very poor quality as you can see in these pictures (Picture 1, Picture 2), and what was worse was the 2 samples that he sent me were not even mirror images of each other as shown in this side by side picture. So not only was Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co. Ltd unable to make the Crank Arms to the specifications in the drawings, Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co. Ltd was also unable to make a mirror image of it's own incorrect sample.
Naturally we brought Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co. Ltd's attention to these things and asked for the promised refund. At this point I requested my Chinese partner to help obtain the refund as I knew it would become difficult. Stone Yang of Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co. Ltd first requested a report from the customer rejecting the samples after which they would provide the refund. That report was email to him on July 15th 2008.
He then requested that his 2 samples be returned to him so he could destroy them. Those samples arrived with him on the morning of July 24th 2008. Stone's phone was turned off that day and my Chinese partner was unable to contact him. He eventually got Stone early the next morning at which time Stone Yang agreed to refund the money on the following Monday the 28th.
Of course my partner called on Monday and after some debating with him on the phone finally got a partial refund of 6000RMB (out of 10,500 RMB).
So in summary, Stone Yang and Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co. Ltd broke their agreement to refund the full amount, broke deadline after deadline after deadline and in the end the quality of their workmanship was extremely poor.
This story has also been posted on the Alibaba forum to warn others. The link is found below :
Alibaba - Beware of Chengdu Shenghe Performance Co Ltd - Our Bad Experience
E-mail: blacklist@consultingelite.com |
