Granted, in the past few years, China has become an important exporting country for marble, granite and other natural stone products. It is little doubtful that China is capable of supplying high quality and low cost building and carving stones due to its low labor costs, rich natural stone resources and internationally recognized traditional workmanship.

There are many excellent marble granite fabricators and stone carvers in China. However, a large portion of stone products have been imported to the States by various exporters in China, although they claim "factory direct". Among these exporters, some are large firms, some are one-man business and some even do not exist at all.

With fast growing of international trade, more and more stone dealers, contractors and even homeowners have been ordering or trying to order stone products directly from sources located in China. Most people believe by doing so they would get much better deals comparing to buying from a vendor in the States. That might be right to certain extent. However, this could expose a buyer to great financial risks as the buyer has very few leverages on a transaction conducted between two countries. I have heard of many undesirable experiences and disastrous stories associated with ordering stone products directly from China.

I am not trying to be scary. The situation is indeed true and the incidents are absolutely not isolated. Let's first review the ordering process that most international trades would follow. 
 
As the first step, you will search for a number of stone suppliers in China through Internet. You don't know anything about them other than whatever they advertised themselves. Then you obtain a number of comparison quotes for the stone products you are in the market for and decide to deal with one of them. Then you sign a sales agreement with the supplier and wire transfer a deposit (typically 30-50%). After the deposit fund leaves your bank, the only things you can do are waiting for production to be completed in China and, praying for the order to be shipped on time and in conformity with what you specified. Finally, you have pay for the full balance before the shipment is delivered to your site.

The problem is right here - you will virtually lose control of the ordering process after sending the deposit oversea. The supplier that took your deposit may choose to proceed in the following three ways:

1, They will produce and deliver your marble granite order as per the terms in the sales agreement. This would be an ideal result with a happy ending. You get what you need with great savings.

2, They will produce and deliver your order in an inferiors way. This scenario happens quite often. For example, different marble granite and other natural stone materials have significantly different costs. Using the materials with lower costs will generate additional profits for them. When you receive the shipment and find out what you get is not what you wanted, what can you do? Basically nothing. They have your money. They may choose to do anything or nothing. Even if the discrepancy is discovered before the order is shipped, you will still find yourself in a difficult situation. You may ask them to redo the order, but the chance is rather slim. You may cancel the order and demand a refund of the deposit, haha, canceling order is okay; getting money back? good luck. Here is a real story. I know a buyer who paid over $2000 to buy a precious "jade vase". When the shipment arrived, she discovered the vase was made in regular "onyx", which has a value of less than $200. What a loss!

3, They will grab your deposit, close bank account and disappear completely. They may change the business name and do the same trick again and again. But you will never be able to track them down. This group of "suppliers" are running scam business and have caused significant financial losses to American consumers.