Zalman, Moneual, And Surviving A $3 Billion Fraud

[scolaner]

Zalman narrowly escaped bankruptcy after its parent company, Moneual, was caught in a $3 billion fraud scandal. This is the story of how Zalman has emerged from the rubble, and how its moving forward.

Zalman, Moneual, And Surviving A $3 Billion Fraud : Read more

 

[jimmysmitty]

Hopefully not only health but back into the high end cooling market. I remember when the CNPS 9500 and 9700 came out. They were some of the best you could get. Even the CNPS9900/9900MAX were still good but plenty have passed them.

 

[d_kuhn]

Glad to read that Zalman survived... I always liked their products, innovative, good pricing, good quality. It would have been regrettable if something totally beyond their control had taken them out too.

 

[JamesSneed]

"However -- in fact, because of that -- we hate to see any company struggle because of forces beyond its control."
Interesting statement. Wasn't Moneual owned by Zalman? Of course it was Zalman's fault for not having the right controls in place to catch this type of activity. I bet they pay attention to off shoot companies a tad more going forward. With that said I agree with the sentiment and I too have always liked Zalman products that I have bought over the years.

 

[hotroderx]

"However -- in fact, because of that -- we hate to see any company struggle because of forces beyond its control."
Interesting statement. Wasn't Moneual owned by Zalman? Of course it was Zalman's fault for not having the right controls in place to catch this type of activity. I bet they pay attention to off shoot companies a tad more going forward. With that said I agree with the sentiment and I too have always liked Zalman products that I have bought over the years.

Moneual was there parent company AKA Zalman was owned by Moneual.

"Fast forward several years, and rumors were suddenly circulating that Zalman, a subsidiary of Moneual, was going bankrupt. No, wait, we learned, it’s not Zalman going under, it’s Moneual itself, and it’s due to a major $3 billion (USD) fraud"

I am glad that we will see Zalman back in the future I always enjoyed there products a lot! lets be honest there coolers looked amazing! They where not only functional but looked great.

 

[jasonelmore]

The new Zalman Sounds like a horrible place to work at..

And the asian work ethic is absurd for those of you who have not experienced it. You are expected to comit 80% of your life to the company, no matter how many hours it takes.. They do not take no for a answer.. and if you dont like it, they tell you to hit the road and hire another guy.. But the turnover rate in this kind of workplace is very high, and for what purpose? to save 1% of money.

I bet all 50 employee's are on salary instead of hourly wages. This allows them to work them 60-70 hours a week, and not pay a nickle in overtime pay. Additionally, this is a very high stress environment.

My Dad worked for the Japanese for 15 years, and by the time they were through with him, he almost had a nervous breakdown. He is now in the middle of a lawsuit for overtime wages. They had him doing all of the jobs (including what the hourly guys were doing), and by the salary law, you cannot do that. If they are on a salary, it must be a office type job, or supervisor role where back breaking labor is not used.

It was so bad at his factory, the Japanese would make the workers sign for toilet paper before they could take some to the bathroom, because they thought the employee's were using to much. He would work 16 hour days, and be told to come in early the next day leaving only 5 hours of possible rest. again, if you didn't like it, you had to find another job. something that's not so easy all of the time.

 

[prince_of_snuggles]

The new Zalman Sounds like a horrible place to work at..

And the asian work ethic is absurd for those of you who have not experienced it. You are expected to comit 80% of your life to the company, no matter how many hours it takes.. They do not take no for a answer.. and if you dont like it, they tell you to hit the road and hire another guy.. But the turnover rate in this kind of workplace is very high, and for what purpose? to save 1% of money.

I bet all 50 employee's are on salary instead of hourly wages. This allows them to work them 60-70 hours a week, and not pay a nickle in overtime pay. Additionally, this is a very high stress environment.

My Dad worked for the Japanese for 15 years, and by the time they were through with him, he almost had a nervous breakdown. He is now in the middle of a lawsuit for overtime wages. They had him doing all of the jobs (including what the hourly guys were doing), and by the salary law, you cannot do that. If they are on a salary, it must be a office type job, or supervisor role where back breaking labor is not used.

It was so bad at his factory, the Japanese would make the workers sign for toilet paper before they could take some to the bathroom, because they thought the employee's were using to much. He would work 16 hour days, and be told to come in early the next day leaving only 5 hours of possible rest. again, if you didn't like it, you had to find another job. something that's not so easy all of the time.

The trend is changing. South Korea was constantly near the last place among OECD countries in work efficiency and work/life balance (with Japan being the worst), and major corporations reacted by showing initiatives to improve the work culture. Even Samsung is restricting work hours to 40 hours a week and offering flexible hours.Though, if today was the late 90's your story would be very relevant.

 

[firefoxx04]

Seems like people that have been building longer than I have are the ones that like zalmen.

I can say I have never considered a zalmen product nor have I had one recommended to me.

 

[Math Geek]

you have to go back about 10 years and before to really remember the zalman coolers. back then they were some of the best and always looked great. i built many systems with them back in the day and still have a couple of them sitting around in a box. sadly they aren't compatible with the new sockets but one day i'll find a way to show them off

 

[blazorthon]

Zalman still has some great coolers that are compatible with current sockets. Besides that, Zalman CPU coolers were very popular even just a couple years ago with several articles on Tom's featuring builds using them (including some builds in SBMs). Most of them should still be compatible even though they aren't listed as such because the mounting holes haven't changed for Intel nor AMD since LGA 1156 and even longer for AMD.

 

[dstarr3]

Just last month, I picked up a Zalman CNPS9500. It's not the best performing thing on the market anymore, but it still performs very, very well, costs very little, and honestly, is probably the best looking cooler for its size, efficiency, and price.

I didn't realize the company was going through all this nonsense. Hopefully they come out the other side successfully.

 

[gromann]

Honestly, if they bring back the Resorator 1 blue tower I'll be happy.

 

[jasonelmore]

The trend is changing. South Korea was constantly near the last place among OECD countries in work efficiency and work/life balance (with Japan being the worst), and major corporations reacted by showing initiatives to improve the work culture. Even Samsung is restricting work hours to 40 hours a week and offering flexible hours.Though, if today was the late 90's your story would be very relevant.

My dad's story was as recent as 5 years ago. He worked for a Japanese company who had a Factory in the USA who made auto parts for Toyota.

He was the Assistant Plant Manager, and got treated like crap. To this day, the company is still up to it's old practices. The only labor workers they can get is from Temp agencies and only Mexican's will dare take those job because of their reputation.

 

[synphul]

I used to use zalman coolers on my systems back when I was using p4 northwood's. The cnps 7500 both cu and al-cu were great coolers. Very unique in a time when tower coolers weren't really all that prevalent and used very thin fins when others weren't. At the time they outperformed just about everything at a real reasonable price. Very innovative and regarded much like noctua coolers are now.

I'm not sure if they can make a full recovery and get back on top like they once were but would be interesting to see if they can bring new innovations back.

 

[Puff3r]

I have a couple systems in my house built in Zalman towers. Low cost with great airflow and good construction. I will continue to purchase their chassis and coolers. Good brand with a tough history.

 

[sincreator]

I have a Zalman Z9+ ATX case and am STILL using a Zalman 9700 nt cooler(nickel, not copper one) and I run my i5 4690k at 4.7ghz@1.285v. It never goes over 65c even while benchmarking on any core and has been rock stable there, so I'm loving Zalman. lol.

I needed an adapter for the z97 socket, so I wrote Zalman's customer service to see if they had one to sell. They did, but I needed a paypal account to pay the $9.99 which I didn't have. I wrote back the situation, and they replied back that the clips were in the mail anyway. They thanked me for being a loyal customer and told me to not worry about it. Now that's customer service at it's finest. I'll definitely buy and continue to recommend their products as long as they keep up the good work and continue to release great products.

 

[thundervore]

Zalman was a great company but they fell behind to fast too soon. I remember they were spearheading the water cooling market with the external water-cooling setups and I still have a CNPS 9900 running 5 years+ in my Windows Home Server along with a VF1000 that has more than outlived its life and paid for itself.

I would like to see Zalman rebound and bring back their great cooling gadgets but its looking too little too late as each day passes.

 

[10tacle]

I have a Zalman Z9+ ATX case and am STILL using a Zalman 9700 nt cooler(nickel, not copper one) and I run my i5 4690k at 4.7ghz@1.285v. It never goes over 65c even while benchmarking on any core and has been rock stable there, so I'm loving Zalman. lol.

Hah I have that same case and the 9700LED for my old late '00s C2D E8400 overclock build. While no longer overclocked being just a backup duty PC, when it was my primary gaming rig I had that CPU rocking a 4.5GHz overclock and the Zalman cooler kept temps below 70C. The case is of very good quality rivaling my Antec Nine Hundred.

In any event I do not ever like seeing a well-known tech hardware company fold. We need as much competition out there as possible. Zalman unfortunately has not led any new innovation for updated coolers in a long time. They need to do just that to stay competitive.

 

[sincreator]

I also had the zalman vf3000a GPU cooler for my old HD5870. That was also a great GPU cooler. Second only to an arctic cooling model at the time I believe.

 

[skit75]

I won a Zalman keyboard at the Tom's Hardware G-Sync Vs. Free-Sync event raffle. =)

Before that..... my memories are like those above; Zalman was one of the first companies to go EPIC with their coolers.

 

[f-14]

The chief perpetrator of the fraud, CEO Park Hong-seok, was indicted (along with two other executives) on fraud charges, and in October he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for his crime and was ordered to repay some $100 million won (around $84,000 USD).
it’s Moneual itself, and it’s due to a major $3 billion (USD) fraud.

CRIME PAYS KIDS! 84 THOUSAND DOLLAR FINE FOR RIPPING OFF 3 BILLION OF OTHER PEOPLES MONEY THAT'S MASSIVE PROFIT YOU CAN'T IGNORE!

 

[FinneousPJ]

The chief perpetrator of the fraud, CEO Park Hong-seok, was indicted (along with two other executives) on fraud charges, and in October he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for his crime and was ordered to repay some $100 million won (around $84,000 USD).
it’s Moneual itself, and it’s due to a major $3 billion (USD) fraud.

CRIME PAYS KIDS! 84 THOUSAND DOLLAR FINE FOR RIPPING OFF 3 BILLION OF OTHER PEOPLES MONEY THAT'S MASSIVE PROFIT YOU CAN'T IGNORE!

1) It's not 3 billion in his pocket
2) Assuming he profited, what's he going to do with it in prison

 

[scolaner]

The chief perpetrator of the fraud, CEO Park Hong-seok, was indicted (along with two other executives) on fraud charges, and in October he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for his crime and was ordered to repay some $100 million won (around $84,000 USD).
it’s Moneual itself, and it’s due to a major $3 billion (USD) fraud.

CRIME PAYS KIDS! 84 THOUSAND DOLLAR FINE FOR RIPPING OFF 3 BILLION OF OTHER PEOPLES MONEY THAT'S MASSIVE PROFIT YOU CAN'T IGNORE!

1) It's not 3 billion in his pocket
2) Assuming he profited, what's he going to do with it in prison

LOL, that. He is going to prison for 23 years, so...

 

[Math Geek]

same thing happens in the great state of Alabama every few years as well. every elected official steals everything that isn't nailed down until they get voted out. then when the audits show $100 mil or so missing they pay a "fine" of about 5% or less of what is missing and then retire to somewhere else to enjoy the good life. jail is never even an option for folks in that state nor is it even brought up. then the next guy gets elected and........ one guy even ran for mayor of a city explicitly saying he was gonna do this, then got elected and SHOCKINGLY within a week had spent almost everything the city had in the bank on personal items for his family and supporters. somehow people were surprised by this!!!