Ethics Committee Votes To Ban Company From Tradeloop

Tradeloop's volunteer Ethics committee made the hard decision this week to ban a Tradeloop member company - Trinity Trading, Inc. The complaint was filed by non-member company, Ridge Technologies, Inc. In Ethics Case #5115, the company alleged that it shipped product to Trinity Trading, expected payment within 30 days, but received no payment in five months. The defendant didn't dispute the circumstances and cited financial problems as a reason for not paying the $1400 invoice.

Both the buyer and seller had agreed to a purchase contract that gave the defendant a full 30 days to inspect/test the product before paying for it. That time delay was necessary for the protection of both parties since the shipment was "a lot of 156 non-working LCD panels."

According to the information provided to the Committee, Trinity Trading received the shipment at the end of August 2010. Ridge Technologies invoiced for the shipment a month later. The complainant described the situation to the Ethics Committee:

An invoice was sent on 9/28/2010 with payment terms of "Payable Upon Receipt". We have been attempting to collect the amount owed ever since. We have made numerous calls and sent e-mails but only received one response on 12/6/2010 which stated: "I'm not hiding I just don't have the money at the moment. I'll send it when I recover it".

We never agreed to payment terms of "pay when you have it". We sent the equipment as promised and gave them adequate time to receive/verify the equipment to ensure it was as we promised. It was and we expect to be paid according to our agreement.

During the discussion with the Ethics Committee, the defendant cited business financial difficulties and mentioned the possibility of partial payment. After discussion, the Committee voted to ban the defendant and post the case to the Tradeloop community so that members review the discussion.

This is not an action that anyone takes lightly, but we're committed to keeping Tradeloop a safe place to do business. We give our all-volunteer Ethics Committee the authority to mediate disputes and ban dealers from the community - even Tradeloop members! - when the facts of the case support that action.

Visit our Ethics Blog to review the details of posted cases and offer your own comments in the Members area of the blog.