On 29-Jun-12 03:37, Nathan House wrote:
> Has anyone had experience ordering components such as resistors and
> capacitors from China, or Asia in general? I would like to buy reels
> of TH and SMT components and it seems like there are a lot of
> companies in Asia - in China in particular - who sell components like
> these very inexpensively, but I don't know how to weed out the bad
> ones from the good ones.
>
> I found a company on Alibaba who seemed legit - I was in contact with
> them for several weeks, they provided a very legitimate looking quote,
> etc.. - right up until the point where they said they couldn't send me
> samples because it is "very difficult to arrange samples," and they
> said I would have to pay via wire transfer (which has fraud written
> all over it in my mind).

This is completely opposite from my assessment of this. I deal with=20
large suppliers and they often don't send samples and accept only wire=20
transfer. I.e. we do contract manufacturing in Serbia and accept only=20
wire transfer, do not provide samples and some of our stuff is sold at=20
DigiKey/Mouser.

Think about it, if you do wholesale with small margins, you don't have=20
time/money to deal with CC/PayPal charges and samples. Also, it is too=20
easy to send fake samples so samples from sellers are mostly useless.

If they claim they are a manufacturer (sometimes they lie) there should=20
be no problem for samples if you pay for shipping and you require at=20
least a $1000 or more worth of products.

It the account holder name, the alibaba company name and the quote=20
company name and address match, I would consider that legitimate enough.

I would consider a supplier in China that accepts paypal/CC, suspicious,=20
perhaps a small re-seller or if they have a web shop then legit but too=20
expensive. If they accept Western Union, run immediately.

Also, as a standard, you can expect fake or recycled ICs, especially if=20
you want older not widely available stuff. We had fake/recycled Maxim,=20
NXP and 68HC MOTOROLA MCUs and I've heard of power transistors too, but=20
the common for these was that it was all expensive and rare stuff worth=20
faking/recycling.

If you want to get into this seriously, you must have at least a trusted=20
representative in China or go there in person (Russel wrote about this a=20
few times before).

Djula


>
> If anyone has any advice or suggestions, I would really appreciate it!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Nathan
>

--=20
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