A QPR was issued to me today by a major customer for a burr on the part which they say caused a fit issue. When I called them back to ask for a sample I was told they filed the burr on all 1200pc and had none to send back to me and informed me that I will be debited for this.This same burr issue came up when the last (new) customer SQE came on board and after proving we were to print all debits were reversed and havent had any issues until the next new sqe comes on last week. I am confident I can get this pulled but it brings up a question. Are we all forced to take the customers word for it or do they have to show proof of the defect? Myself I always show proof of defect to my suppliers before any action is taken one way or the other.

Without a chance for you to repair, saying that it was ok for them to repair, or to investigate the issue is wrong. You should not take the debit at all, how do you know what they did to remove the burr. I would state that thier repair was done on their own and their own expense. If they don't give you the chance to do the repair how do you know they were not looking for a pay decrease, hence the debit for repair.

A QPR was issued to me today by a major customer for a burr on the part which they say caused a fit issue. When I called them back to ask for a sample I was told they filed the burr on all 1200pc and had none to send back to me and informed me that I will be debited for this.This same burr issue came up when the last (new) customer SQE came on board and after proving we were to print all debits were reversed and havent had any issues until the next new sqe comes on last week. I am confident I can get this pulled but it brings up a question. Are we all forced to take the customers word for it or do they have to show proof of the defect? Myself I always show proof of defect to my suppliers before any action is taken one way or the other.

What does the contract say? You shouldn't accept a debit situation that isn't specifically addressed.

In my speeches, lectures, and seminars to folks on both purchasing and selling sides on the topic of "Contract Review," I often quote the Advice Columnist, Ann Landers,
"No one can take advantage of you without your permission."

While some suppliers are guilty of trying to "put one over," most egregious examples come from the buyer side.

The problem is many suppliers are spineless and fear they will lose an account if they stand up to the bully. My comment is,
"Then you have given permission!"

A QPR was issued to me today by a major customer for a burr on the part which they say caused a fit issue. When I called them back to ask for a sample I was told they filed the burr on all 1200pc and had none to send back to me and informed me that I will be debited for this.This same burr issue came up when the last (new) customer SQE came on board and after proving we were to print all debits were reversed and havent had any issues until the next new sqe comes on last week. I am confident I can get this pulled but it brings up a question. Are we all forced to take the customers word for it or do they have to show proof of the defect? Myself I always show proof of defect to my suppliers before any action is taken one way or the other.

When I recently experienced this same situation with one of our large OEM customers, I told the SQE I was dealing with that without any example to examine I could not address resolving a problem and their request was denied. After a constructive dialog between the two of us, it was determined that any future problem areas would, at a minimum, be photographed and a copy would be emailed to me for evaluation. In an ideal situation, I would prefer that a sample be returned, but a photo will go a long way towards resolving an issue.

If we have a problem with our product I do want to address it, but it is impossible to determine the cause (machining, fabrication, shipping etc.) without the ability to examine the problem.

Every answer here is exactly the way I feel about this and I do have a spine:)

Every answer here is exactly the way I feel about this and I do have a spine:)

What is your company's position on this one? Are you getting support on it?

This situation has also happened several times at my company. Usually we inform the customer that since they have modified the parts, we cannot be held accountable. However, for one of our larger accounts we "took the hit" the first time but notified that we would not be held accountable if future instances like this occcurred. Sure enough, it happened again but this time we went back to remind the customer of what we had previously said and they changed the error responsibility from us to them and removed the quality "ding" from our record.

Ain't business great!

New SQE artificially inflates ppm's,makes me jump through a bunch of hoops then reduces ppm's there by making himself look good to his boss.This is the same guy who made it clear he controls our ppms and that the last supplier who went over his head found himself on level 2 containment. My position is fully supported by my company and the SQE's boss is very happy with us so I do not see him lasting as SQE. Just really irks me on a professional level.

In my experience, customers will follow your lead. If you insist on parts, they will eventually get them to you, if it means that you are not going to "pay up".

I think that I have probably told my story in the Cove before, so if you've heard it, please forgive me. When I started in QA, a couple of decades ago, we had a customer that we were constantly getting claims on. My Supervisor started just a few months before I did so we were both pretty green, me to QA, and her to our company. We kept asking our sales manager why we were paying these claims without so much as a cursory inspection of the defects. He said it was because they were one of our top five customers, and we wanted to keep their business. Then we got a new GM. He agreed with us that investigations needed to happen. The next claim came in and we wrote a nice letter stating that no disposition would be made regarding the claims until we had samples of the material. Samples came in, but there was no evidence of the fracture point. Customer says that they don't have it. We run chemistry and find that the material did not come from our mill, it was BOF steel, we were electric arc furnace.

Well, it turns out that the customer had nine suppliers, when steel reached their dock it was all dumped into the same bins and ID removed. When a problem arose, the customer sent a claim to all nine of the suppliers and just accepted whatever each supplier paid them. :mg:

Needless to say, they stopped making claims with us in a real hurry and the sales manager came on board with the new QA regime.