Oh yeah, I've told my manager it's only a matter of time until we get burned. So far we have had decent luck with Heisener and Win-Source but prices keep climbing.
Well.. we were just looking at Heisener for a Cypress chip, but can't decide whether to pull the trigger. Have you placed an order and received the product from them?
Yes, we successfully purchased a small quantity of Kinetis microcontrollers which were supposedly tested prior to shipping, those are going into assemblies right now so we'll see if they actually work.
Heisener is just a middleman so every transaction is different unfortunately.
- Establishes a physical address, might be an abandoned building.
- Sets up a web site with full catalog of parts offered, many hard to find. Might be an actual defunct business they are fronting to look authentic.
- Take orders, demand payment in advance.
- Operate without shipping anything (they don't have any inventory) until the police start poking around.
- Shut down and reincarnate in a new address, new domain, new name, new logo, same catalog and e-commerce