Instead of copper, steel came. Thermal Grizzly fell victim to fraudsters

The manufacturer, known for its thermal pastes and thermal pads, has been trying its hand at the computer cooling market for some time now. Due to raw material problems, he looked for a cheaper alternative and eventually found two companies that were willing to sell him copper and aluminum surprisingly cheaply. Cooperation with them was established via Alibaba. Moreover, the company paid 30% of the list price in advance, and the rest was to be paid only after checking the goods. However, it turned out that this was not enough and the fraudsters managed to extort EUR 40,000 anyway.

It must be admitted that the fraudsters really tried. While inspecting supplies, workers noticed both copper and aluminum plates. However, it turned out that in the case of copper it was only a thin layer that covered the steel plates, which only came to light after accepting the delivery during milling.

In the case of aluminum, workers actually found aluminum plates. These, however, were only on the surface of the delivery. Inside, however, there were steel plates separated by empty spaces. All this to eliminate the differences in weight between steel and aluminum.

Thermal Grizzly admits that it is unable to recover the lost funds. The company lost EUR 40,000. And the only thing he can do is sell the unwanted steel for scrap for about 3,000 euros. As Roman Hartung, president of Thermal Grizzly, admitted:

I still can’t believe… that it happened twice on this scale. It’s embarrassing and a financial problem.

It is not known how this situation will affect cooling prices. It will certainly be a warning to other companies not to look for cheap raw materials from unreliable sources.