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Vendor fraud? Electromechanical relays

I've been ordering relays from a place online for almost a year now. I order anything from Magnecraft, American Zettler, MEC, Omron, relays, etc.

However, I realized recently that they are stamping the part numbers on brandless relays, and at times, the ink smears onto the cellophane or clear plastic cases.

I found this out last week after I ordered a 4PDT Magnecraft relay, and received a DPDT, but there was a stamp (with what looks like an ink stamper you can buy from an office supply store) that did bear the desired name and part number of the 4PDT part.

It seems misleading for them to be shipping me generic relays from who knows where, when I think i'm ordering a certain brand and paying top bucks. What's worse is that relays with the same pcboard footprints are not necessarily all "equal", each with slightly different characteristics.

If such activity is illegal, whom should i contact?

Reply to
valemike
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You could at least have posted the name of this vendor, so we can all avoid it...

Reply to
larwe

I was very tempted to post the name in the original post, but I didn't want to libel anyone.

So to rephrase my comment... The vendor who sold me relays with stamped-on part numbers that smeared off is

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Reply to
valemike

....

First, preserve as much evidence as you can, yourself.

Second, indeed it is illegal, but as John Woodgate pointed out, the best thing to do is contact the manufacturers whose trademarks are being forged, and let them do some further evidence-collecting and take it from there.

Second choice would be the attorney general of the state where the vendor is located (if they're in the US), but without the trademark owner's cooperation, they might not be able to do much.

Reply to
mc

Hmm. Well, for example they say they are authorized distris for Aromat/NAIS. I looked at Aromat's web site and onlinecomponents.com is not listed as a distri. I looked at Omron's distributor search and searched for "online" and "onlinecomponents" and then all distris in CA, and didn't find onlinecomponents.com listed there either. I then went to National Semiconductor (another company on their linecard), searched on their ZIP code, and didn't find them listed there either.

This isn't proof of anything, of course, but it's an interesting data point. Also note that their contact-us page implies strongly that they're a small dotcom operation and the diversity of merchandise they carry implies they're like a 99c store - they buy up surplus stock..

I don't put much weight on the "stamped number came off" issue. I've seen poorly-stamped part numbers on genuine parts. The smoking gun is that the relay had the wrong number of poles.

Reply to
larwe

I read in sci.electronics.design that snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote (in ) about 'Vendor fraud? Electromechanical relays', on Wed, 29 Dec 2004:

It depends which country you are in, and which country the vendor is in.

You could contact the manufacturers of the relays and tell them that you suspect that inferior products are being 'passed off' as theirs, and leave the action to them.

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only. 
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk
Reply to
John Woodgate

I found out about them since they are listed in American Zettler's list of distributors. azettler.com

Reply to
valemike

Another possible situation is an outfit selling genuine, but recycled, parts as new. I got a tape of Analog Devices op amp chips that were about 50% bad. Some of them actually caught fire! My guess is that they were removed from failed boards (possibly installed backwards on the initial board) cleaned up, retaped and sold as new. The dead giveaway, once I got suspicious, is that the tape had a dozen different date codes on the chips, alternating in bunches of a dozen or less of one date code before it changed. All were in the same year, but scattered all over that year. I doubt AD or anyone else makes a real SMT tape from the factory with such a mixture of date codes.

I think that vendor was Nu Horizons, but maybe don't take that as gospel. This was about 2 years ago, but I'm still steamed about it!

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

There are no counterfeit product reports for any of those manufacturers:

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Reply to
Fred Bloggs

I'd definitely start there... And probably dump the supplier!

Cheers, Anders

Reply to
Anders F

all

smeared

Oh and look, they sell medical equipment too. I can't fathom why someone that's allowed to sell medical equipment would risk that over some relays.

Reply to
Anthony Fremont

"Jon Elson" wrote

Most likely via China and swapped for a real tape w/o vendor's or distributor's knowledge.

The high-price (titanium, class 10, inconel ...) fastener industry was overwhelmed with this about 15 (?) years ago. Structural failure on airplanes, etc.

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Consulting Engineer:  Electronics; Informatics; Photonics.
Remove spaces etc. to reply: n o lindan at net com dot com
psst.. want to buy an f-stop timer? nolindan.com/da/fstop/
Reply to
Nicholas O. Lindan

You might want to think about going to the manufacture's website, finding their American office, email or call to get a RMA(Return Material Authorization), and sending the suspected part to them.

You might be snubbing a perfectly good distributor when its the manufacturer with poor quality control.

Reply to
Sharptop

"Probably" ??

Ken

Reply to
Ken Taylor

in.

you

Well, he might stock hard-to-find parts that I /really/ needed ;-) But you're naturally right....

Happy New Year =) /Anders

Reply to
Anders F

That's actually a fair call. I remembered after posting my post, a few years back when people were getting caught with all those "MILSPEC" bits coming out of India (IC's, plane components, etc). Some of the IC's even had silicon in them! :-) USAF and others were caught, so I guess if they can, then so can a distributor.

Ken

Reply to
Ken Taylor

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