Tianjin Frette International Trading Co.,Ltd

Buyer’s Nationality:
United Kingdom

Seller:
Tianjin Frette International Trading Co.,Ltd

Seller Website:
http://www.china-frette.com/cp.asp

Seller Address:
The Yellow River Road No.473, Room 2017 North Building, Nankai District, Tianjin City, China

Initial contact with the supplier:
Online Supplier Directory

Type of product(s) being purchased:
Bright copper wire scrap

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

Destination market of order in question:
Western Europe

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

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

User Experience:
I ordered 44 tonnes of bright copper wire scrap from Tianjin Frette International Trading Co.,Ltd. trading address Tianjin city,Nankai District the Yellow River Road No.473room 2017 North Building. I was dealing with Amy (possibly Zheng Lulu), & I paid the deposit in December 2015. The total I paid was USD 113,520. This was paid as 30 % deposit with the remainder being paid after I received an emailed copy of the B/L. After receipt of the emailed B/L as well as CIQ certificates, I checked with the shipping company, ANL, as to the authenticity of the B/L – They said all was OK. After paying the balance for the order I then started to have trouble in getting the courier tracking information for all of the original documents. Several email requests & phone calls to Amy brought me no truthful information. It was only 10 days after the ship arrived to the UK port that I received the original documents via a courier, & that was only due to ANL putting pressure on the suppliers to send the documents.
The original documents showed the 2 x 20′ containers contained 880 bags (44 tonnes) of Bentonite (some sort of clay product). It was shown on the B/L, Commercial invoice & packing list. It had a total value of only USD 17,600.
What Tianjin Frette International Trading Co.,Ltd had done was to alter EVERY document (Invoice, B/L, CIQ certificates) which they emailed to me to fraudulently get my payments. ANL checked the contents of the containers & it is not the copper wire as ordered, & I have not accepted the containers. Currently ANL are dealing with the disposal of the contents.

User Recommendations:
Unless you have the correct & true original B/L in your hand it is quite possible for the shipping company to send the full containers back to the supplier. It is as easy as that – the supplier withholds the original documents (possibly claiming non-receipt of the balance payment) & they get all the goods back because as far as the shipping line are concerned, they still own the products.
I will now have independent companies in China verify all information about the suppliers before I order from new suppliers. I will also now start to pay by 100% bank Letter of Credit. If the suppliers are not happy with that, shop elsewhere as I would expect them to be scammers.