In an email sent to Recycler Magazine and EcoRez, RTS explained in detail that it took five months for an order of 21 boxes of colour toner cartridges to be completed. However, only eight boxes were received.
Pictures taken by RTS show that the colour toners arrived in a very bad quality, with toner leaked onto the box and other cartridges.
The email says that EcoRez told RTS on 20 October 2009 that the required cartridges were packed into 21 boxes with 55 pieces per box.
RTS then made a 50 percent pre-payment eight days later and the following day, EcoRez said that it was still awaiting payment before releasing the goods.
Between 6 and 19 November, the Australian company made several attempts to contact the suppliers, only to be told that EcoRez could not be contacted and delayed in Indonesia, and they would reply by the end of the week.
This continued throughout November, when RTS emailed EcoRez saying that the suppliers were using delay tactics to avoid returning the deposit and could not fulfill the order.
According to the remanufacturer, RTS was then told, by EcoRez manager Mick, that the quality of the goods was poor and he was going to source from Dubai. However, it then took over a month to arrange a collection date.
The email states that 100 days later, and after numerous emails to EcoRez for the correct shipping documents for customs, RTS received the order.
RTS said: “The agreement between EcoRez and RTS Imaging has been cancelled. A 50 percent pre payment of $3737.50 was paid by RTS Imaging on 28 October 2009. This pre payment is the full and final amount, and no further payment will be made given the cartridges received were such low value compared to the ones we originally ordered.”
Mick said: “The reason for delay was that the goods were not good after inspecting and therefore we did not send it to them. Then we found another supplier and we shipped goods worth the amount they wired to us. The goods were not the same models. It covered up the money they sent to us. Then they closed the account.”
He added: “[RTS] was intimated time to time over the phone about the delay in shipping and via email as well. The quality they received were all virgin empties, it was their appointed forwarder not ours. In spite of telling their forwarder to handle with care and to get it onto palettes their forwarder did not do it. Now whose fault is that?”
However, Jackie Russin, General Manager at RTS replied: “Our order was for specific toner models and quantities. At no point were we ever told we were going to be shipped other model cartridges. The goods we received did not equal the value we had pre-paid, however the chances of recovering this money were so low that we decided to cut our losses.”
She continued: “[EcoRez] only ever communicated with us when we harassed them by phone or email and when I threatened to have our Hong Kong-based partners visit them and commence legal action.
“[The cartridges] may have been virgin empties but they were not the models we ordered, did not equal the value we had paid and were packed terribly. Our forwarder moves cargo all over the world for us and we have never had a problem. I don’t believe the forwarder had any impact on this matter.”
Another company, Onyx Ventures, also said that it has had an unpleasant experience with EcoRez. In November 2009, Onyx made an order with EcoRez, but soon realised they were not going to receive the goods.
Onyx’s Gary Gellman said: “After three or four months of g