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So you want to buy equipment in China by yourself? You better read this first. Part 2

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  • So you want to buy equipment in China by yourself? You better read this first. Part 2

    This was a huge strike of luck, I never saw that coming. The police asked me to contact a HK law firm to take over the case, and that is what I did. I even went to HK to meet the lawyers and discuss the case in person, they told me it was going to be a simple case as it was a fraud, and the fraudsters never showed up to court so this made this kind of cases very “straight forward”, but this was not the case, after we initiated the process to get the money back, Mr. James Gao, the director of EBEI, contacted my lawyers and threatened them if we didn’t release the money, they told us that they were ready to go to court to fight this case. My lawyers said that they had no defense and I had not to worry. At the end they desisted and signed a letter of consent so that I could get my money back. All this took another three months. At the end, with the default judgement, the whole Hong Kong thing took seven months until we got the money back, finally, but the whole China thing took almost a year.

    To the date I still believe I was very lucky because if the money was no longer in the bank account, the hope of getting it back was going to be very little even if we sued James Gao and won the case. My friends and family tell me that I never gave up, that’s also true.

    At the end, when I do the balance, even if I got my money back, I sill lost a lot of things, all the beer I didn’t sell for not having my brewery, all the money lost in airplane tickets, lawyer’s fees, Chinese translations, etc. But most important, my time, one-hole year of delay in my brewery project.
    So, if after all this you still want to try your luck and buy Chinese, expect that something will go wrong, maybe not as bad as my experience, but it will go wrong. I have never heard a story of somebody who bought in China that had absolutely no troubles at all. If you do not want to loose your time and money, go with DME, Premier, ABT, Criveller…

    I am attaching a picture of Jianghua Shen and Hunter Liu (1st and 3rd from left to right respectively) with some customers.

    Companies that are related to GSSM are:
    - Ningbo GDE (http://www.gdebrew.com/en/col.jsp?id=102)
    - HGM Brewing (http://www.hgmbrewing.com/en/contact/1.html)
    - HSM BrewTech (http://hmsbrewtech.com/wordpress/)
    - MEB MeyerBrau Brew Pub (http://www.meyerbrau.net/)
    - Bravo Brewing
    - McDonald Steel Co. (http://mcdonaldsteel.com/)
    Attached Files
    Last edited by rescudero; 05-03-2018, 09:00 AM.

  • #2
    Glad you got your money back.

    Few quick thoughts-

    Buy complex pieces from US or europe. Moving parts, lots of electronics, etc. Those pieces you spend a bit more on and get better customer service and reliability. Brewhouse, glycol unit, controls, etc.

    Buy simple pieces from china. Tanks, HX, maybe pumps.

    Thats the best of both worlds.

    Gotta do what you gotta do. We have had good luck with our purchases. Most of the equipment in baja is chinese tanks and US brewhouse. Its a good compromise.

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    • #3
      That is good advice about the electrical equipment. It will make sure there are no issues going from their electrical system to yours, and to get spare parts.

      That said, I think its important to do a few thing when dealing with foreign companies. The first is never wire money to a foreign bank, if you keep the transaction in your country, your laws will apply to it. We did this with a company called PBST, which has manufacturing near Shanghai, and their primary offices only an hour away from us. The equipment has worked well for us the last 4 years.

      The second is, even if something may be a common practice, if it seems weird always question it. It may turn out to be nothing, or it may save you a headache.

      These forums are here for exactly this, to see peoples experiences and give guidance when dealing with them. Sorry to hear you had so much of a pain in getting things corrected, but at least it worked mostly in your favor.

      Comment


      • #4
        Thats a good point and a good reference. PBST is actually a US company, everything is booked in CA. Their factory is in china, so prices are low, but being in CA makes them follow US law.

        The equipment isnt as cheap as the Chinese firms, but thats because he books everything here in california. Overall, A good compromise. I believe they also make brewhouse and complete systems. You might want to inquire with them, Frank is the man to contact.

        It wont be as cheap as direct from China, but will still be cheaper than Premier, DME, and those guys, and you get US legal protection and likely better customer service and help with spare parts,etc. than from china.

        Good call jebzter.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by brain medicine View Post
          Thats a good point and a good reference. PBST is actually a US company, everything is booked in CA. Their factory is in china, so prices are low, but being in CA makes them follow US law.

          The equipment isnt as cheap as the Chinese firms, but thats because he books everything here in california. Overall, A good compromise. I believe they also make brewhouse and complete systems. You might want to inquire with them, Frank is the man to contact.

          It wont be as cheap as direct from China, but will still be cheaper than Premier, DME, and those guys, and you get US legal protection and likely better customer service and help with spare parts,etc. than from china.

          Good call jebzter.
          Actually Premier and DME both use foreign contractors as well. Both use China, and DME also uses India now, so they are all really close in price. They are actually looking very nice in India and require no retrofitting in the US. I quoted a bunch of stuff really recently and apples to apples it was super, super close between them all. Criveller was a smidge higher but maybe they are all North American? Either way, have had good experiences with the PBST, Premier, DME, NSI an JVNW tanks.

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          • #6
            Interesting. Our quote is less than 2 years old and pbst was substantially cheaper than the others. We didn’t use them for brewhouse, just tanks. Either they went up in price alot since then, or the others came down alot. Or maybe both i guess.

            Comment


            • #7
              I’d bet that Premier and DME have come down some and PBST probably went up a smidge since two years ago. My numbers would have been from about three months ago.

              Tank prices seem to be leveling across the manufacturers pretty evenly. My guess is they are making their money off the Brewhouse and customization more so than in the past.

              Comment


              • #8
                Thanks for sharing this good info But because of some of the comments I just wanted to chime in and remind people they cant judge a whole country and all their businesses by one case of fraud.

                Although Our equipment was a drop in a bucket by comparison We found sungood on alibaba and ordered our 3bbl electric kettles and mashtun from Gavin and the experience went very well. we Also saved quite a bit vs buying the same kettles with american company names one them. We couldnt even find them used for the price we got them for with customs and delivery, and although we havent used them yet we did look them over well and are very happy with our purchase.
                Last edited by augiedoggy; 05-19-2018, 07:19 PM.

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