Before finding this forum & its wealth of info, I was dealing with a "local" surveillance and security company, claiming to have everyone from DoD to fortune 500 as clients, and all are allegedly as happy as larks. Plus, they sell "NADA compliant" equipment. After dealing with the company on behalf of our church, I became extremely suspicious. Ordered a camera from them, which they sell as their own brand. They implied part is they are selling US made equipment. Lie. Not only did they sell me an obviously rebranded Dahua, but it had been obviously used (wired soldered, scuff marks, other signs of prior use). The company's "30 day money back if not happy" policy, another lie. Refused to allow me to return it ($800 camera), but said I could talk to tech support. Yeah ok right. In talking to my "rep", I questioned the company and their NADA compliance. That doesn't matter to me, as my use is non govt nor corp... but it seems deceitful to me. From what I can tell, this "local" company (which is really nationwide network of work-at-home CSRs and account reps) buys their equipment from a US middleman importer. They buy from a huge electronics exporter in another country (east), who buys from China. Most of the products appear to be Dahua or Hikvision, but with the OEM labels replaced with the local company logo, UPC, and QR codes. When I questioned them about this practice, they essentially admitted as much, but said they hoped to move production out of China soon (to where???).
My question is, how is that NADA compliant? How can anything be truly NADA compliant unless one controls EVERY aspect of production to distribution to end user, including ALL access to any facilities, firmware production, etc etc? Simply buying and rebranding viz a viz multiple middlemen & importers doesn't seem legit to me... but maybe it's just me not understanding this concept.
Anyway, found this site, no longer buying from other vendors, and now will be using Andy (EmpireTech). (thanks for my camera Andy, it's testing out FAR better than anything I've tried yet, you'll be hearing more from me). There's more relevant and useful info here than I've found anywhere, in decades of electronics work.