> Any company can get scammed on crap parts, either because they took a gamble trying to save a few cents or because those parts were all they could get their h

> Any company can get scammed on crap parts, either because they took a gamble trying to save a few cents or because those parts were all they could get their hands on It's true, though in the latter case, it can't be helped. I worked at an integrator from 2002-2005. Small outfit, building PCs and servers for businesses and local agencies. As a new member of their engineering department, one of the first issues we got asked to investigate was to look at heightened failures of network cards. Back then, we bought the ubiquitous 3Com 3C-905. All of our PCs were subjected to a battery of functional tests before shipping, and we were finding that an abnormal number of the cards were failing. We started looking at the failed ones more closely, and found them running extremely hot. These were passively cooled cards, and didn't need a heatsink under normal conditions. But on any of these, you couldn't hold a finger against without burning yourself. Functional ones as well. We got the batch of serial numbers, and send them to 3Com to ask what might be going on. And the answer we got was that they didn't exist. A bit of back and forth between 3Com, the distributor (a well-known and established company) and ourselves led us all to believe that they were a counterfit batch that entered the supply chain. We tracked down all of the cards from that order, and opened up every boxed PC that was to ship with one (I'll never forget the company president with his business shirt sleeves rolled up and a box cutter in his hand. He set the tone) and we pulled out every one. We sourced from reputable places, and I don't recall another instance of that occurring while I was there. But it was an interesting event in my career, and one I'll never forget.