Hongfat Hardware & Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd

Buyer’s Nationality:
Indonesia

Seller:
Hongfat Hardware & Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd

Seller Website:
http://www.hongfatmachine.com/

Seller Address:
Yongning Industrial Zone, Xiaolan Town, Zhong Shan, Guang Dong, China

Initial contact with the supplier:
Search Engine

Type of product(s) being purchased:
BOPP Tape Coating Machine

Value of the Purchase Order when the incident occurred:
100,000 to 1,000,000 USD

Destination market of order in question:
South East Asia

Type of Complaint(s):
missed lead times, contract violations, scams & other unethical activities

Stage of relationship with the supplier at the time of the incident:
Initial Order

User Experience:
Long story short, we tried to purchase a set of BOPP Coating Machine from this manufacturer. The contract clearly states the machine specification as well as the brand of all components of the machine. During negotiation, we chose the high end option, the one consisting of all the European, Japanese or American brands for the important components of the machine (Siemens, ABB, etc), in hope of getting a good quality machine.

The promised to deliver in 6 months, however, after 6 month there has been no notable progress so we decided to visit them. Over there, we found that all components are Chinese brand. And they confidently told us Chinese brand are good too and they actually can just stick European, Japanese or American brand logo on their components and we wouldn’t know but they didn’t do that. This really left us speechless.

After long debate about this, they asked us to give them a chance and ensure us that what really matters is the result of the machine. Our biggest mistake was we gave them this chance. 1 year later, after the machine was setup, the quality of the result was poor and the machine performance was really bad. They tried coming a few times to fix the problem but the didn’t seem to have the necessary skills. When they fixed one problem, another arose as a result of what they did previously. And every time they tried to fix it, they kept using our material. On top of the machine we also spent about $50,000 worth of material, and still the result is none.

Now, the machine is just sitting there in our factory. We tried calling them again to ask for their responsibility and of course we got ignored. The worst is, they have the nerve to post our company on their website, saying how they helped us start from zero. To anyone, looking at their website, it is at the top with the title “Really turn on key base for Indonesia”. Somehow they felt that they have done a good job. In reality, their skill and service is really really embarrassing.

User Recommendations:
I would say the most important lesson is to always bring a professional along when visiting manufacturer in China, someone who has deep knowledge about the field who can easily root out the fraud from the real deal.