Counterfeit Allen Bradley

[R-110]

With the lead times being especially long the company I work for has resorted to buying anything and everything they can off of eBay/Amazon, etc... basically anywhere the Rockwell EULA says not to. Okay sure I'll deal, but now that prices on eBay have gone to far up we are now ordering from a Website that literally says "Always Stock" has no product images, no descriptions, an email contact going to something called Foxmail, a contact phone number that is "(+82)...." that's it. There are so many red flags that I am going through and trying my best to determine if these are counterfeit products, have any of you experienced this or know how to identify genuine Allen Bradley products? I am not sure if I am allowed to post the website but if I am I would love for you all to see it just to see how laughably bad it is. I still cannot believe we used this website at all. I'm worried about the liability I take on if I program these products with the suspicion they are counterfeit. Anyway, lets chat about it, let me know your thoughts.
Thank you

 

[jstolaruk]

Purchasing people that have no knowledge of the product other than the part number given to them are susceptible to such a website. I've run into this in times of stock-o-plenty. They are attracted by a promised lower price.

 

[Phrog30]

With lead times high, you have to get creative. Ordering from suspect sites isn't creative, it's risky. An example of creative is changing to a different brand, type, etc. It's more work, but the alternative is where you are now.

 

[Smeltz]

Agree with Phrog. We are in a strange time where companies want to automate but lead times are high or product is unavailable.
Personally I would look at an alternative solution over the possible counterfeit item, if time allows. A lot would depend if this is for a customer order or if it's for the facility you are working at. I've used Radwell in a pinch before and had success but I wouldn't do that for a customer order.

 

[geniusintraining]

a contact phone number that is "(+82)...." that's it.

South Korea Country Code 82

 

[Rson]

My company has done this twice already. It has bit us in the *** both times.

We bought some analog cards from some Italian company. Their website said the stuff was stock. Someone bought it, we got the tracking notice and it was only 1 of the 3 cards. They said the rest are on back order - so we saved zero time.

The other was a Siemens CPU module that ended up working out - but they sent us the newest revision instead of the old part number their website had. The CPU would only work with the next version of TIA portal - not the version the customer specified. The customer accepted the new version of TIA portal - but they could have easily said no.

 

[jakeparsons03]

I have found 3rd party retailers who have saved me a couple of times. I found PLCCable.com from this website. I believe the guy who owns that company is pretty prominent on here. Our company ended up ordering like 10k worth of AB cards from him and have not had any issues.

The last I checked he is pretty sold out but its worth a shot.

 

[jakeparsons03]

Something else I recommend is looking at different AB regions distributors. I got creative on a project where we needed a few AB cards and they were sold out at our local AB supplier. So I called up our Pennsylvania office supplier and our Michigan office supplier, ordered the last remaining stock from those suppliers to the corresponding office and had guys in those offices ship them to me. If you have multiple facilities in different regions you could do that or you could work with an engineering firm that has offices in multiple parts of the country.

 

[geniusintraining]

I found PLCCable.com from this website..

Thank you very much

Please note anyone looking at 'other' retailers such as myself, we are NOT authorized and RA will not give you any support or honor any warranty if bought from a 3rd party, we buy the products we sell from anywhere we can, if you are looking to buy from an authorized RA retailer see here https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-us/sales.html

We buy and sell what we use on a daily basis and we dont carry much, we sell new, used and refurbished equipment from many manufactures, any warranty is honored by us and not them.

All manufactures are having supply issues not just Allen Bradley

As far as counterfeit, im sure it happens but odds are you are buying 'gray' market products and this is what RA says about it https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-us/company/news/blogs/counterfeit-products.html

I have seen a LOT of re-boxing of old parts and calling them new, if you see a 'new factory sealed' Allen Bradley series B on ebay... well since they have stopped making series B about 10 years ago I would say its a good guess that its old and re-boxed

We are phasing out our 'resale' side but will continue to sell cables and aftermarket items and trainers of course.