It seems my Chinese supplier has stolen $50,000...do I have any recourse?
I've been having some goods manufactured in China for several years now. We have always worked through the same contact, let's call her "Zoe". Zoe was recommended to us by a Chinese friend (let's call him Lee) of my business partner. Whether it has been the same company performing the actual manufacturing this whole time I do not know.
We typically place orders consisting of 3 forty foot shipping containers at a time. The typical terms of the agreement are that we pay for containers #1 & #2 up front, #1 is manufactured and sent to us, we pay for #3, and then #2 and #3 are sent to us. The justification for this is that they had to purchase raw materials for the entire order in advance. This seems reasonable to me. Whether or not that is actually done I do not know. It typically takes us about 18 months to work through 3 containers of inventory. The cost to us for each container is approximately $50,000.
Each time we place the large order, there is a date set on when we will send the final payment. Due to some complications in our business, we missed our agreed upon date for final payment by about 8 weeks. A series of emails were exchanged between us and Zoe, us explaining the issues on our end, and her explaining a variety of reasons why we must send our final payment immediately (inflation in China, factory moving on to something else, etc etc). Eventually, she gave us an ultimatum, a final date by which she must receive the final payment. If we were to miss that date, our penalty would be forfeiture of our 2nd $50,000 payment.
By this time, we were getting a bit nervous. The various stories given requiring our immediate payment were inconsistent. In some emails she indicated the 2nd order was finished and ready for shipping, in others it was half complete (in emails after ones in which she indicated it was fully complete). We have always been very easy going, and if our delay caused an even greater delay due to timing on their end, or additional costs due to inflation, we would have had no problem with that.
Basically, we were scared to put $100,000 at risk when she was acting so unusual, so we missed our final deadline, and now it looks like she is sticking to her guns, is going to keep our 2nd installment and that shipment, and has stopped responding to emails. fwiw....the goods we have manufactured are extremely proprietary, and any she has in inventory are useless to her as she would be unable to find a buyer.
Throughout this whole time we haven't heard a peep from "Lee", the person who initially put using touch with "Zoe". (He used to live here, but is now back living in China). At the outset of this arrangement, he was actually quite a trusted contact of ours, but that seems to have changed.
So, in a nutshell: 1. We've paid for 2/3 of an order, and received only 1/3. 2. We missed a payment deadline by about 2 months, and as a result, she is keeping payment #2 as penalty. (There was nothing in our "contract" stating what would happen if either party reneged in part or in full on their end of the deal.) 3. We haven't heard from her for almost two weeks now.
So its starting to look pretty bad. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience dealing with Chinese suppliers and could recommend a course of action for the situation I find myself in? Do I have any legal recourse? We do have several years of documented business transactions with Zoe, including payments from our side and shipped product from her side.
Any help or advice is appreciated.
PS: FWIW, she operates out of Futian District, Shenzhen City, Guandon Province. I have her email address, business address, bank account information (for wiring funds) and that is about it.