Avoid UTSOURCE

[dorkshoei]

I've bought from utsource.com several times over the past 10+ years.   I used to think of them as one of the few semi-decent Chinese sellers within a sea of deceit.

My penultimate order I ended up cancelling because they played bait-n-switch with the pricing,  wanting more after I'd ordered.   

I was also jaded about their new platform where they now list multiple suppliers.  In this new model I believe supplier "utsource" is them (the supplier i'd historically ordered from) but it's now full of other sellers who have obfuscated matters with names like "original utsource" and "utsource genuine store" and there is no way to filter them out.

I'm building the KISS 68030 retro board and I ended up with 5 parts I couldn't easily source,  so I decided to order them from utsource.com.   

It wasn't a great experience:

1) According to the KISS 68030 website, at higher clock rates Phillips branded chips work for a specific device but NatSemi don't.  Utsource specifically listed Phillips as the supplier (stated in description plus a photo) but they sent Nat Semi.

2) All the parts were available from multiple suppliers on the site.  For all I selected "utsource" who were always the most expensive.   When I got the invoice it showed they had sourced two parts from the cheaper suppliers (that I could have selected but didn't) but still charged me the higher price.

3) One of the parts (74LS688) is clearly remarked.   All 5 chips have identical TI lot codes but the packaging and ejection molding style of every chip is different.
 
Trying to discuss this with them was maddening.  The person in their sales who kept responding to me, "Judy", was either incompetent, or deliberately obtuse.   

Previous post about bad experience:  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/utsource-bad-expirience/msg3505740/#msg3505740

[dorkshoei]

I filed a dispute with PayPal for 35% of the order total.  I selected "return items" for the incorrect product and remarks, "refund" for the overcharges.  I attached clear screenshots and photographs of above.

Utsource just refunded the full claim without disputing anything.  This despite sales@utsource.com refusing to discuss for weeks.

Still there goes maybe one of the last sources for not-utter-crap out of China.

[David_AVD]

They did a similar thing with me a couple of months ago. Ordered chips they said were in stock, only to have them email me afterwards and say there's a problem and I need to pay (a fair bit) more. I cancelled the order and they refunded fairly quickly. Until then I'd not had an issue with them.