Semiconductor & MEMS Fabrication

What I'd like to know is what happens to manufacturers rejects when they don't meet their own criteria? I sometimes wonder whether the 'grey-market' buyers get the rejects and then sell them off.

Yes we encountered on several occasions where the markings, date codes etc are all 'legit' but find only 40-50% yield. Contacting the manufacturers directly does not show any leads as they are either good fakes or what I suspect in my opening paragraph. Obviously we cut ties with the seller after no compensation for loss of product. But as product manufacturers, what can we do to stop this 'trade'?

Simple, Lead Poisoning. If You Understand The Nature Of gunpowder You'll Know Exactly What I Mean? Just Kidding! I Guess Put The Word Out To Everyone Concerning Their Tactics To Run Them Out Of Business?

I was out so I told a co-worker to bring a laptop into a store to have them upgrade the RAM, seemed simple enough.

They not only put generic RAM in the second slot, but removed the HP RAM from the other slot and replaced it with generic RAM. They probably sold the HP RAM (I never got it back) then charged me for the RAM they replaced.

I didn't notice this until 6 month to a year later when the generic RAM was causing all kinds of bad data to be written to the HD. An HP tech had to come out to figure this one out.