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A number of years ago we entered into a relationship with the original Guangzhou Latex company. We were customers, lovers of latex and a team who thought we had experience dealing with Chinese suppliers. For a long time this worked. The community saw the changes, quality went up, images were no longer being gratuitously ripped off from others. Designs – well that was always a problem, and a constant fight to keep them from stealing from other designs. We worked hard on this one but a lot of the community didn’t help us in this fight. Even though we finally were successful in stopping the wholesale larceny there was still some out there that would ask the factory to copy something, send pictures of others work and request a quote. We fought against this when we could, but in the end we gave up .. it wasn’t going to change and as long as someone was asking for it, the factory was shamelessly willing to do the work. This should have been our clue .. it should have been the warning to tell us what would come
Instead we concentrated on making sure the quality was high, the latex was good and the customer support responsive. This worked very well for many years until 2016 when the factory slowed down our orders. We were given reassurances that more workers would be hired, that the factory would “catch up” We can do math, we knew this was wrong, yet we foolishly believed that the owners of the factory would solve this problem, especially after reassurance given to us again and again they were hiring more workers. In 2017 the factory moved and the orders were further and further delayed. In 2018 we visited the factory and put the ownership on noticed that we would stop paying them for products not delivered. One of the owners refused to even meet at the time. That produced results .. for a while .. the factory started to catch up. But it didn’t last .. at the end of 2019 there were orders over a year old that were not being completed. Simple things were being done but more complicated products would languish until an angry customer emailed then they might get attention or the email might go ignored.
We found out why
Despite our agreement and their words .. the factory had started several parallel businesses with others and themselves under other names – each time those orders were taking priority. Especially the bigger wholesale orders for brands you know and trust out there were being made by this factory. They had used the brand and name we helped them build – and even the money to buy good sheets and fulfill other orders while changing the sheet in our orders and delaying them for only when they had time. Moreover they were using our images, our designs and the designs of others they agreed to pay for, but since these designers products were not being sold through our system they were being denied their rightful commissions because of lack of accountability. We talked to others in the Chinese latex community and learned the real history behind the company how the owners visited other factories in places like Zhanjiang City in the Mazhang District 湛江市麻章区 where a lot of the aliexpress and ebay sellers exist and learned how to make latex, how they promised things to those people but later didn’t deliver. It’s the same history repeating again
The snake hasn’t changed it stripes at all, its just gotten more slithery and bit again.
Your orders are safe, we will still have them made, even at our loss. This is our responsibility and our mess to clean up. We ask you to bear with us for a short time as we get set up. We will still honor the commitments and we will provide what you have ordered at least at the same timing that you’ve expected; but hopefully faster as we only really have these orders to do. But we will do this and we will keep the trust we made with the community despite the factory’s shameless behavior.
As far as this site -- We will begin again, and we will follow the our rules of ethical conduct. We will have only original designs, and we will not – do not ask – copy the works of others or take “pictures” from others sites and bid on a design. That is not the way it should be done, that is not the business nor the company we want to be part of.
Recently they begin sending out an email (attached is a copy below) In it their lies are obvious yet again .. They tell you Your order is ready, please accept our apologies to delay your order This is patently false. They intentionally slowed down orders so to make us look bad. If they had your order, they would have sent it a long time ago and would have been paid as per our agreements with them and none of the pain and anguish over the past few years would have happened to any of us.
A copy of the letter is below. We have already filed suit to recover the damages they have caused and we will not comment further on the pending litigation. We leave it here for documentation only.
Dear Chris, Your order is ready, please accept our apologies to delay your order. We are sorry to tell you that we (The Catfish Chinese manufacturer) broke up with our USA partner who has cooperated with us for years and is responsible for receiving payment for online orders. Because the relationship has broken down, even if we ship the order to you now, we are unlikely to receive payment from our former US partner. If possible, we will suggest you cancel order and request refund from PayPal or Credit Card company at your side first, and if you still want the products, we (the Catfish Chinese manufacturer) will give you a new PayPal account or bank account to make the payment again, after you make the payment, we will send your order out immediately and send the tracking number to you so you can have a watch on the delivery status. If you don't want to make the payment again, we understand this and to protect your legal right, we will suggest you cancel the order at this stage. PS: We will launch a new website (still with same domain name www.latexcatfish.com) in the middle of December and you are welcome to place the order again at our newly launched website, there will be a free shipping discount for you as a compensation for this hassle, and the new order will be finished within 5 weeks. Regards, Catfish Team
Updated Dec 3, 2020 PDF file of court orders can be found here
