Siglent They filed a "wrongful trademark claim"

[Wuerstchenhund]

I just posted a one star review of the Siglent SDG5122 on Amazon, sold by Siglent.  It should be posted soon.

I agree with the others, don't do that. It's silly.

If you want to do something, deal with it properly and report Siglent to the FTC:
https://www.ftc.gov/faq/competition/report-antitrust-violation

A FTC probe has a much bigger impact than a few one star reviews, because it will impact where it hurts (potentially huge fines, prison, and import stop for Siglent products).

Maybe it would also help to some make tech sites aware of this thread, maybe some want to report it.

[nctnico]

They will only change if their sales suffer.

If Siglent continues they are already hurting their sales. People buying new test equipment calculate they'll be selling it for more then 0. It's all about total cost of ownership. There is a big difference between writing off a piece of equipment completely after 3 years or getting more than half the money back! With a resale value of 0 equipment from an A-brand starts to look like a much better buy quickly. Add the usually buggy Siglent firmware to that and there really is no advantage in buying Siglent equipment.

I'm baffled by this amount of shortsightedness! A healthy second hand market means a healthy brand-new market because equipment keeps moving.

[John Coloccia]

No one's going to jail, guys. They're simply going to loose sales. Honestly, I would think that they might loose some dealers as well, since the reputable ones are not going to want to be associated with this nonsense.

But it's just as well it's exposed here for everyone to see. I'd never heard of Siglent until EEVBlog, so it's no big deal since I wouldn't have bought their products anyway.

[gore]

That's admission in plain text to manipulating the market, which is illegal. "Raise your price or we will file a false claim about your equipment being counterfeit". As to whether the item is used or not - it's irrelevant. One has the right to sell his equipment for whatever price he desires. Who knows how many users got their accounts damaged this way, considering the lack of used Siglent gear on these markets.  Shame...

[TerminalJack505]

I bought an SDG1025 and now I feel like a fool. 

That's the last bit of Siglent gear that I will buy.  Siglent is now persona non grata to me.

[Siglent America]

All,

I just communicated with the CEO of Siglent an the head of our European operations. They are both based at our factory in Shenzhen, China. I now have a more accurate description of how and why this happened:

Siglent has been seeing "brown market" equipment sold on eBay, Alibaba, Amazon and other sites. In other words, these sales have been through "unauthorized" dealers. This is not illegal, as far as I know.
The problem that this has been causing, and we have seen here in the USA, is that these companies do no support our customers after the sale. They do not have our latest firmware, news on issues, fixes, access to Engineering, etc. I know we occasionally get asked for a new feature or some spec that has not been published and we are able to get these from Engineering in Shenzhen.
I have seen this same problem happen when I have worked for other test equipment companies. it doesn't only happen to us.

In North America we offer a 30-day right to return an instrument if the customer is not happy for any reason at all. If they want to return the unit, the customer contacts the dealer from which it was purchased and the dealer issues them an RMA number and a refund upon return of the item. Remember, the dealer has the customer's money, not Siglent.

The customer can then return the unit and we issue the distributor credit for their dealer price. The dealer then returns the unit to Siglent America at that point for credit.

These brown-market companies would not be able to offer this return policy.

It was confirmed to me that our employee completely missed the USED notation on the Ebay ad, which we all suspected.
Our actions were not to "fix prices" (even if we could) or anything else but to protect our customers from purchasing a brown-market instrument that did not carry the 30-day return or support from our reps and distributors in North America provide. In our attempt to do the "right thing" we have unfortunately angered many people.

What we will do:
I have recommended that we post on all Siglent websites a notice that warns everyone of potential brown-market dealers and WHY we are warning them - namely, little or no support.
I have also recommended that we immediately stop this practice of actively looking for brown-market distributors. Maybe we should post a list of identified ones on our web site? How does everyone feel is we could (or should?) do this?

At that point, if a buyers still wishes to purchase from one of these unauthorized dealers then it is totally their right and freedom to do so. They will not be protected by our North American distributor's 30 day money back guarantee. We will also not have a record of that unit so we will not be able to contact them regarding any updates, upgrades, etc.

Again, I know that some people will refuse to accept this or any other explanation and apology. For others, we know that our methods were wrong and we apologize. We had good intentions for you, the customer, and for our authorized dealer network. Our mistake has cost us customers and sales. We will do our best to regain your trust and move forward.

I will be contacting this customer personally this afternoon or evening.

Sincerely,
Steve Barfield
Siglent Technologies America

PS - I was just now informed by text that we have already contacted eBay and apologized. We have unfrozen the customer's account.

[nctnico]

Perhaps it is a good idea to have a list with authorised distributors on Siglent's website. I bought a piece of Siglent gear last year and the support from this dealer was below zero so I strongly doubt I bought it from an authorised dealer.

Having said that: going after the 'brown market' yourself isn't a good idea. Some non-official dealers will offer great service and other official dealers may give poor service. Its much like buying a car where the service from an official dealer may be total crap. In the end people will vote with their wallets and problems between a buyer and seller are an issue between the both of them. No need to interfere with that.

[ErikTheNorwegian]

Hi people,
 i think there is a lot of conspiracy theories here and  we, and probably Siglent can be without.. give them a break, it’s just  stupid how this case has been blown out of proportions. It’s ONE case, and it’s been dealt with.. 

Lesson learnt.

Life goes on, back to Batteriser and popcorn.

(You know popcorn sales has risen with 80% since Batteries started its campaign?)

That’s my opinion.. 

Erik.

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

All,

I just communicated with the CEO of Siglent an the head of our European operations. They are both based at our factory in Shenzhen, China. I now have a more accurate description of how and why this happened:

Siglent has been seeing "brown market" equipment sold on eBay, Alibaba, Amazon and other sites. In other words, these sales have been through "unauthorized" dealers. This is not illegal, as far as I know.
The problem that this has been causing, and we have seen here in the USA, is that these companies do no support our customers after the sale. They do not have our latest firmware, news on issues, fixes, access to Engineering, etc. I know we occasionally get asked for a new feature or some spec that has not been published and we are able to get these from Engineering in Shenzhen.
I have seen this same problem happen when I have worked for other test equipment companies. it doesn't only happen to us.

In North America we offer a 30-day right to return an instrument if the customer is not happy for any reason at all. If they want to return the unit, the customer contacts the dealer from which it was purchased and the dealer issues them an RMA number and a refund upon return of the item. Remember, the dealer has the customer's money, not Siglent.

The customer can then return the unit and we issue the distributor credit for their dealer price. The dealer then returns the unit to Siglent America at that point for credit.

These brown-market companies would not be able to offer this return policy.

It was confirmed to me that our employee completely missed the USED notation on the Ebay ad, which we all suspected.
Our actions were not to "fix prices" (even if we could) or anything else but to protect our customers from purchasing a brown-market instrument that did not carry the 30-day return or support from our reps and distributors in North America provide. In our attempt to do the "right thing" we have unfortunately angered many people.

What we will do:
I have recommended that we post on all Siglent websites a notice that warns everyone of potential brown-market dealers and WHY we are warning them - namely, little or no support.
I have also recommended that we immediately stop this practice of actively looking for brown-market distributors. Maybe we should post a list of identified ones on our web site? How does everyone feel is we could (or should?) do this?

At that point, if a buyers still wishes to purchase from one of these unauthorized dealers then it is totally their right and freedom to do so. They will not be protected by our North American distributor's 30 day money back guarantee. We will also not have a record of that unit so we will not be able to contact them regarding any updates, upgrades, etc.

Again, I know that some people will refuse to accept this or any other explanation and apology. For others, we know that our methods were wrong and we apologize. We had good intentions for you, the customer, and for our authorized dealer network. Our mistake has cost us customers and sales. We will do our best to regain your trust and move forward.

I will be contacting this customer personally this afternoon or evening.

Sincerely,
Steve Barfield
Siglent Technologies America

PS - I was just now informed by text that we have already contacted eBay and apologized. We have unfrozen the customer's account.

Misinformed again

It wasn't a item that was purchase by mistake and only had for 30 days and try to sell it as new. It was a item I have for almost a couple of years I clearly listed as used but in mint condition with no original box and did have the lasted firmware installed, but doesn't apply here as was clearly being sold as used and not as new. So clearly not a brown-market instrument. Yes from Siglent admission in plain text in PM to manipulating the market and to change the price.

[SeanB]

Steve, that is what should have been done in the first place, not the attempts to misuse the DMCA to stop sales. That action __WILL__ come back to hurt the company reputation big time now, as no person will want to take the chance of buying equipment from Siglent if there is the potential for it to be unsaleable on the used market. That there are criminal and civil suit liabilities as well for the company coming are also very likely, and if the US government is becoming involved they do tend to look very poorly on misuse of the legal process, and there are plenty of sharks there who will take this on on a contingency fee basis.

This will also apply to those other manufacturers like Lecroy , who sell rebadged Siglent equipment They will not be happy that a supplier has potentially damaged their reputation by this action, and will result in some very pointed questions being asked when they become aware of this happening. That is a serious part of the volume sales there which are in jeopardy.

All in all not a well thought out action, it would have been a lot better from the outset for Siglent to have admitted that there was a grey goods situation, and that they, and the official distributors in the USA, were aware of it, and were warning people of the risk of dealing in the grey market. Pointing out there is no ability to have any warranty cover, firmware upgrades or customer support for the grey goods from the authorised dealer network would have been a much better idea, especially as RMA is in any case linked to a serial number and these are easy to trace for the authorised dealer network, who will have a trail for this.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I just communicated with the CEO of Siglent an the head of our European operations. They are both based at our factory in Shenzhen, China.

What a surprise... 

I now have a more accurate description of how and why this happened:

Siglent has been seeing "brown market" equipment sold on eBay, Alibaba, Amazon and other sites. In other words, these sales have been through "unauthorized" dealers. This is not illegal, as far as I know.
The problem that this has been causing, and we have seen here in the USA, is that these companies do no support our customers after the sale. They do not have our latest firmware, news on issues, fixes, access to Engineering, etc. I know we occasionally get asked for a new feature or some spec that has not been published and we are able to get these from Engineering in Shenzhen.
I have seen this same problem happen when I have worked for other test equipment companies. it doesn't only happen to us.

In North America we offer a 30-day right to return an instrument if the customer is not happy for any reason at all. If they want to return the unit, the customer contacts the dealer from which it was purchased and the dealer issues them an RMA number and a refund upon return of the item. Remember, the dealer has the customer's money, not Siglent.

The customer can then return the unit and we issue the distributor credit for their dealer price. The dealer then returns the unit to Siglent America at that point for credit.

These brown-market companies would not be able to offer this return policy.

Maybe. So what? It still doesn't give Siglent the right to meddle in "unathorized" sellers' sales, because it is ILLEGAL. It does give Siglent even less right to make false counterfeit claims, again because it is ILLEGAL.

So you're basically admitting taking illegal action to manipulate "unathorized" sellers' sales was the aim?

It was confirmed to me that our employee completely missed the USED notation on the Ebay ad, which we all suspected.

So you're saying it would have been OK if it wasn't an used item? Again, what do you think gives Siglent the right to meddle in an "unathorized" seller's sales anyways? Can you explain that?

Our actions were not to "fix prices" (even if we could) or anything else but to protect our customers from purchasing a brown-market instrument that did not carry the 30-day return or support from our reps and distributors in North America provide. In our attempt to do the "right thing" we have unfortunately angered many people.

It's a joke when you talk about "doing the right thing" when Siglent has clearly engaged in crimonal activity, which obviously you try to talk down.

What we will do:
I have recommended that we post on all Siglent websites a notice that warns everyone of potential brown-market dealers and WHY we are warning them - namely, little or no support.
I have also recommended that we immediately stop this practice of actively looking for brown-market distributors. Maybe we should post a list of identified ones on our web site? How does everyone feel is we could (or should?) do this?

At that point, if a buyers still wishes to purchase from one of these unauthorized dealers then it is totally their right and freedom to do so. They will not be protected by our North American distributor's 30 day money back guarantee. We will also not have a record of that unit so we will not be able to contact them regarding any updates, upgrades, etc.

Again, I know that some people will refuse to accept this or any other explanation and apology. For others, we know that our methods were wrong and we apologize.

Of course you do, because you still hope that this issue can be explained away so before the authorities get wind of it.

We had good intentions for you, the customer, and for our authorized dealer network. Our mistake has cost us customers and sales. We will do our best to regain your trust and move forward.

Siglent's intentions were clearly different than what you state they were, which obviously were to rig the prices. You can't explain that away.

As to "regain trust and move forward", that sounds good, as soon as Siglent has suffered from legal consequences due to their criminal activity, we can doo that.

How about that?

[smbaker]

I have also recommended that we immediately stop this practice of actively looking for brown-market distributors. Maybe we should post a list of identified ones on our web site? How does everyone feel is we could (or should?) do this?

As an end-user, I like to know when I'm buying from a non-authorized distributor and may not be receiving full warranty and service. I might still choose to buy said equipment at my own risk, but it's nice to have the information available. I don't think this has come up for me yet with test equipment, but as I understand, it's a real issue in the DSLR camera market. At least with test equipment, if something breaks and I don't have warranty service, I stand some chance of being able to fix it myself.

I think putting a notice on your website letting customers know about the reduced value from unauthorized re-sellers is a good idea. Tell customers to look for a statement in the listing or advertisement indicating they are buying from an authorized re-seller. Publish a list of authorized re-sellers to make it easy for us to check. All of these are positive steps which can help the community be more informed. Ultimately though, let it be our choice who we want to buy from. You don't need to save us from ourselves.

[retrolefty]

Wow, finally a EE based soap opera worth following. Wonder how long the series will run?   

[dr.diesel]

Siglent's intentions were clearly different than what you state they were, which obviously were to rig the prices. You can't explain that away.

As to "regain trust and move forward", that sounds good, as soon as Siglent has suffered from legal consequences due to their criminal activity. How about that?

Steve keeps digging a deeper and deeper hole, complete fail and an embarrassment to both him and Siglent.   

[Rupunzell]

Asian culture, society and morality is often much different than what is typical in the West. This is where Western companies that enter into China and Asia can get into serious trouble when they impress and believe their culture, society and business practices are the same with a Eastern Twist.

East-Asian companies that enter into Western markets experience a similar set of problems and difficulties.

Losing face in Asian culture can be worst than death.

This book can help gain an understanding of the cultural differences between East -vs- West.
http://www.amazon.com/Its-All-Chinese-Me-Etiquette/dp/0804840792


Bernice

Suit yourself.  Perhaps I'm cynical.  Given my experiences and watching other people outsource production in China, I have learned that the cultural and ethical framework is not that same as in the western world.  An employee at Siglent China would not independently start submitting DCMA/trademark requests.  I can also see that when asked about it from Steve, a worker would apologize and take the blame rather than implicate their managers, letting them save face.   

[Wuerstchenhund]

i think there is a lot of conspiracy theories here and  we, and probably Siglent can be without.. give them a break, it’s just  stupid how this case has been blown out of proportions. It’s ONE case, and it’s been dealt with.. 

Lesson learnt.

What lesson? To get away with engaging in criminal activity?

If you believe that this was a single incident and an honest mistake then you haven't really been paying attention, and if you believe that it won't happen again then you're naive.

Abusing the law is pretty standard practise for Chinese companies. Engage in dirty tricks, and when caught apologize, rinse and repeat. The only difference is that they usually aren't stupid enough to try that in other countries.

[Towger]

But the 'Brown Market' dealer is still allowed to sell on eBay if they raise their price...

In any event 30 day warranties mean nothing in Europe.

[Alex Nikitin]

Steve keeps digging a deeper and deeper hole, complete fail and an embarrassment to both him and Siglent.   

+1 . Pretty pitiful picture, actually.

Cheers

Alex

[Wuerstchenhund]

Steve keeps digging a deeper and deeper hole, complete fail and an embarrassment to both him and Siglent.   

True, but then, what else can he do? He will very likely have to answer some serious questions very soon, and certainly can't trust on much support from his Chinese colleagues, so all that's left is the standard Corporate Apology:
http://www.perfectapology.com/business-apology.html

Of course, there are also risks to issueing an apology:
http://www.perfectapology.com/perfect-business-apologies.html

Which is why he'll not address the real issues directly.

Corporate rulebook 101.

[joesixpack]

What we will do:
I have recommended that we post on all Siglent websites a notice that warns everyone of potential brown-market dealers and WHY we are warning them - namely, little or no support.
I have also recommended that we immediately stop this practice of actively looking for brown-market distributors. Maybe we should post a list of identified ones on our web site? How does everyone feel is we could (or should?) do this?

This is the way you should be doing in anyway.  The last several pieces of equipment I bought, I could have purchased it cheaper elsewhere, but I went with TEquipment because they were an authorized dealer.  I couldn't get a straight answer if amazon was an authorized Fluke dealer.  The new 6.5 digit Fluke meter arrived had a blown fuse.  TEquipment wanted to send me an RMA for a return with no questions asked, but I wanted to replace the fuse.  It works wonderfully now.  I've purchased other gear from them, and am about to pull the trigger on a MDO3014.

Another suggestion: you should consider encouraging users to register their products to be able to download firmware updates and receive firmware update alerts.  Regardless of where they purchase your product, you now have their information and can mail them, and mount sales campaigns direct to the customers who have already purchased your equipment.  During the registration, you can get the serial number and who they bought it from.  If you see products sold in one geographic region pop up in another market, you can trace it back to which distributors are selling them.  You should be tracking serial number to distributors.  Analytics are the answer to your problem, not going after individuals.   

[markce]

So now we have the 5th or so statement from a representative who was not completely informed and who now is still not completely in-line with the Siglent PM's to TS.

[Macbeth]

I bought an SDG1025 and now I feel like a fool. 

Don't. It's a great function gen. I can't complain about mine. Of course if I wanted to sell it I would have an issue, but it's good enough for keeps.

That's the last bit of Siglent gear that I will buy.  Siglent is now persona non grata to me.

Unless they dramatically lower the prices so that the total cost of ownership takes into account the zero resale value then I'm with you on this.

[Fungus]

I hate speculating here but at the moment I don't have much choice.

My guess is that our employee contacted eBay and asked to have this ad taken down.

Fail. The finger is still pointing downwards instead of towards the person who placed that employee in an office and told them to watch eBay and cancel auctions with "Siglent" in the name.

[joesixpack]

This book can help gain an understanding of the cultural differences between East -vs- West.
http://www.amazon.com/Its-All-Chinese-Me-Etiquette/dp/0804840792

Even better, this is a book written by a consultant in china who inspected factories and acted as a go-between for westerners looking to manufacturer in China.  Best book ever on the subject.
Poorly Made in China: An Insider's Account of the China Production Game

[Balaur]

Remember, the dealer has the customer's money, not Siglent.

Yes, but shouldn't Siglent have the dealer money by now?
Did you gave the item to the dealer for free?