xccarbon scammers

You would think that, after 32 years of importing products from overseas, I would be able to spot scammers and dishonest suppliers early. But XC Carbon won this time. Here’s the story.

We have been importing carbontex sheet from China for many years. The product we distribute is top quality and very well priced. We supply an A4 envelope size sheet for just $26, including delivery anywhere in the world. With careful cutting (using braid scissors, and a power drill for the centre hole) enough drag washers for 4 to 7 spinning reels can be made from each sheet. Very economical. But two months ago, when the virus hit, our usual supplier’s factory was hit very hard too.

carbon washers

 

The story with carbontex is, you must have 100% pure material to make good washers easily. Clients who think they are saving money with a cheap deal on eBay usually end up with sandwich material. This is a sheet of fibreglass board, with super thin strips of carbontex glued on either side. Way cheaper for the factory to make but much more difficult to cut washers from. Because we supply so much carbontex I am constantly approached by other manufacturers wanting us to buy their product. But we just stick with our 100% pure product which all our clients know and like.

However! Due to the virus closures our usual supplier couldn’t make any carbontex for weeks. Orders were piling up but we didn’t have supply. I wrote to all clients explaining the problem and asking them to have patience. But a couple of weeks went past and still no supply. I had to find another supplier of pure carbontex fast.

XC Carbon is a Chinese company who constantly offer carbontex to us. One of the people at that company, Yvonne Ling, is even a friend on my private Facebook page:

Yvonne Ling XC carbon

 

Their printed catalogue shows they make pure carbontex – as well as carbon + (fibre) glass, which our customers don’t want:

 

xccarbon scam catalog

 

I ordered an A4 sheet of pure carbontex last month after double checking on their website:

http://www.xccarbonfiber.com/plain-matte-carbon-fiber-sheets.html

When the sheet arrived it was pure carbontex and good quality. So I placed an urgent order for a much larger quantity. That arrived last week and our warehouse guy shipped out the backorders. What we didn’t know was, XC Carbon had shipped sandwich material - instead of pure carbontex like the sample they had sent us on the previous order. We didn’t pick that up because straight line cutting is easy on both sandwich and pure carbontex. It’s the little drag circles which are hard to cut, with sandwich material. Why did they send it? Sandwich carbontex is much cheaper to make, so XC Carbon’s profit margin is higher. Like most greedy people these scammers only thought about the next order for a few hundred dollars. What they didn’t realise was we buy many thousands of dollars worth of carbontex every year.

Over the last few days complaints have come in from our clients. One sent pictures of the carbontex peeling off the fibreglass sheet:

xc carbon poor quality scam

 

I immediately wrote to my contact at XC Carbon – Ivy. Asking why they sent me pure carbontex in the sample order, and fake carbontex in the larger order. Here’s her response:

XC Carbon lying response

Let’s break Ivy’s excuses down:

  1. ‘the email was missed’ and she will ‘check the reason later’: the email wasn’t missed and I never heard anything later about the reason;
  2. ‘I told you our sheet is made of fibreglass and carbontex’: if that’s true, why would I say we had to inspect the sample first? Here’s an email I sent at the start of April:

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downriggershop correspondence

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  1. their own catalogue says they offer ‘pure 3K carbon.’ That’s what they sent in the sample shipment;
  2. ‘you approved (carbontex and fibreglass.)’ she has no email showing approval because I would never approve sandwich material;
  3. ‘maybe we can offer cutting service.’ Ridiculous.
Sandwiched carbon fiberglass xc carbon scam

With no explanation or alternative I wrote an email to everyone waiting for their carbontex back orders, and explained the situation honestly. Of course I offered a full refund. The replies were nothing short of fantastic. We have some great people amongst our clients. Here’s a sample:

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Thanks for chasing that up Andrew. It's a shame you were deceived that way.

I'll try to re-order once your stock arrives.

Cheers, Paul.

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Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the update and sorry to hear that.

I'll definitely order some more when you have stock available again.

Regards,

Steve

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No worries, Let me know when you have some of the genuine stuff available and I’ll buy another sheet.

I actually looked at a sheet I bought elsewhere a while ago and it looks to be exactly what you describe. Thin layers of carbontex with a white fiberglass core.

I have been duped before buying solid carbon fibre sheets which upon investigation turned out to be black fiberglass.

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No worries Andrew, thanks for the update. 

I trust you guys so don't stress mate.

Cheers

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Thank you Andrew,I knew it was not right, happy to wait for the proper stuff,cheers from brian

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Andrew, sorry to hear about the poor business deal. 

Is your supplier oversea’s ?

I don’t want the refund, I will wait for the right 1 mm carbontex material. 

Thank you for keeping everyone informed it is very professional of you. 

Let me know if the above is possible, if not I will reorder some of the new material when it is available.

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Hi Andrew, all good, I am happy for  no refund but wait for your regular supplier to have the 1mm 100% carbontex please. Thanks

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Hi, I’m happy to wait until you get the proper material if you guys are cool, or otherwise just refund me and I’ll buy some later,

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Thank you. But do you have any predictions about when the 1mm sheets will be avaiable? I would reather wait for them to be in stock instead of the refund.

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no worries. please let me know when the 1.0 is available again because I will be needing a consistent supply of it, as well as the .5.

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Thank you for that , I look forward to a refund and feel free to contact me when you have the good stuff back in stock , I have also been ripped off in the past being contacted by a supplier of carbontex from china only to be stuck with $165 US of laminated crap. Cheers Darren

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Hi Andrew,

Thanks for that – had concerns about the material.

Please advise when you have the usual sheets in stock as I’ll place an order. If you haven’t refunded yet keep the payment and forward the new carbontex when in stock.

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Thanks Andrew,yeah I knew that material was not right,I am happy to wait for the new supply from you to arrive,please let me know when you get it in,no need to refund me,just send the good stuff please, regards 

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Thanks so much mate. 

I can certainly vouch for the hardness of that material. 

Cutting 8mm washers for the sustain was no fun!😩

Thanks again for the follow up. 

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I wrote to Yvonne Ling asking for an explanation. No answer:

Yvonne Ling XC Carbon scammer

XC Carbon are scammers of the worst kind. They send samples of the good stuff then, when you pay for an order, send you the bad stuff. They operate under other names too, like:

Dongguan Xiechuang Composite Co., Ltd.

If you’ve had any bad experiences with XC Carbon, send me an email? This page will be continually updated. I will be writing to Ali Baba and the trade shows XC Carbon attends asking the management why they are allowing scammers like XC Carbon to use them for promotional purposes. Will post letters and any replies here. Thanks for reading, Andrew