Ripped off by a fellow Broker

I have been in this industry since 1963 and I have never in that time experienced a situation like I have now with a broker in Florida.

They sent me an RFQ a few weeks ago followed by several emails requesting the exact date/week codes of my parts which were brand new and sealed Infineon parts.

I never heard any more from them until recently when then sent over an order which we shipped on Net 1 day terms the same day.

Within an hour or two of the broker receiving my parts they send me a detailed QA report along with many photos claiming that my parts were remarked and fake.

We have never knowing sold any faulty or fake parts - all our parts are carefully sourced here in the UK and we take great pride in our global reputation for integrity and honesty. 

They told me that as the parts were fake and valueless they were quarantining them and we would not see them again.

We said that the parts are our property until paid for in full and gave them the following options.

1] Pay for our parts
2] Return our parts
3] Hand our parts over to our agent in Florida
4] Send all the 1000 pieces to a 3^rd party test house for evaluation

It is very suspicious that the broker  would only commit to send a handful of parts to the test house and not the whole batch. One explanation for this may be that they have already shipped my good parts to their customer.

What they have done – plain and simple is THEFT – they have STOLEN my parts.

The owner of the broker told me that it would be illegal for them to send my parts back and in any case I would feed them back on to the market.

That statement not only questions my intelligence but also my integrity – I am not about to wreck a lifetime’s spotless reputation by putting fakes onto the market.

I then told them that I was going to get the Police involved and they said that they were informing the HSI whoever they are.

We have trading with brokers in the US for 25 years and have always found them to be honest and reliable and have usually afforded them Net terms.

This problem with the Florida broker will sadly force us to re-evaluate our credit terms.

Any help or suggestion from fellow brokers would be most welcome – at the end of the day, my loss is only about $3000 but next time this broker could rip somebody off for many thousands