Not so much a current update so much as ongoing detective work I've been doing. If it weren't so much more expensive, we really need to stop having China make our stuff -- at least on a small scale (a few hundred to a few thousand items).
I am not naming names because I don't know who associated with these entities might search for people talking about them so as to do rebuttal-smearing to try to save face (i.e., be able to keep snagging suckers -- er, I mean, clients). It takes a bit of digging, but within a few minutes you can start finding names of specific factories over there that stay in business mainly through people not getting the word out fast enough, or having the spreading of said word not expand out beyond those in the industry, etc. I stopped after confirming three that do small runs of product in the quantity ranges I mentioned above, but badly/shadily. Everything from repeatedly screwing up orders so they need to be remade -- and charging the clients for their own mistakes -- to deliberately using cheaper materials than quoted/ordered so as to pocket the difference, only to have the substandard materials fail QA -- see previous "screw up order, make client pay to re-do". They hold the dies/moulds hostage, so the clients can't take them to a different factory. They will complete an order and then demand more money to release it, or send the shipping container and then basically demand a ransom for the ability to open it -- and, often, cease contact after receiving it.
I stopped at three because the third one I ran across was used by someone I know peripherally. His company has since ceased doing business with them, and has been doing a lot of internal damage-control to try to acquire the items from elsewhere and absorb the costs without shutting down. And I stopped with his account because it was a factory his company went with based on the fact that both eFX and ANOVOS used them before everyone caught on that it was one of the damn Chinese pirate factories (what I call them). Not holding onto ANOVOS' orders until they get paid, but holding onto them in an attempt to extort more out of ANOVOS. Factory's got their dies and their product. But paying is no guarantee you'll get your stuff.
The stupid thing is that there's nothing that can be done under International Law. China doesn't recognize foreign copyrights, so the government doesn't do anything to quash these practices. And it's only started to become a thing over the last five to ten years as Chinese production of export goods cranked into high gear in some of the more outlying provinces. American companies looking for the best deals found them... and didn't question as diligently as they might should have why the costs were so low. I can't get too mad with eFX or ANOVOS for falling for it. The first few Nigerian Prince scams probably seemed plausible to many people who didn't stop and think for a second. My grandmother got taken in by a phone scammer claiming my aunt (he namedropped her) told him to call and get her account information for my aunt. Since my aunt has power of attorney and helped handle their finances, she went with it. My granddad and aunt found out quickly enough and shut it all down, and my poor grandmother couldn't figure out why they were so mad. "But he said [aunt] told him to call us." I don't know where the line is between innocent and gullible, but those companies were somewhere near it. Should they have known better? Maybe. Was there any way at the time to know better? I don't know. Have they learned from this experience? I have no idea -- they stopped talking about internal company matters, for the most part.
So could stuff ordered from one or another of their Chinese factories keep getting screwed up? I could see it easily. If the order was placed a while ago, the factory just got to it (because small order = low priority for them), and ANOVOS was waiting for the samples to arrive before they could do anything else (either verify the full order, order a re-do, or cancel, shift the order to a US factory, and try to find some way to cover the $$$ that would incur...), I can see why the updates would be "we anticipate", "projected", and so forth. I think they're learning that going the Chinese route is penny wise and pound foolish. The quotes are less than from American manufacturers... but the amount of bad product, re-do's, factory bait-and-switch, ransom/extortion, and other unanticipated costs would make that eventually costlier (in more than a financial sense, if you factor in the hit their reputation has taken) than if they'd just stuck with American-made.
None of this is giving them a pass on not having gotten me my stuff yet, or the fact that I ordered a TFA FOTK and will be receiving a TLJ. It is simply the result of my wanting to try to figure out what the hell happened. It is not a complete picture, but I have enough information to know at least some of what they've been dealing with.
