Banggood's 'free gift' deals: Are they real or just a marketing strategy?

About two weeks ago I ordered an Astrolux S43S with a free gift flashlight (Sharp Eagle XHP50) from Banggood. I came across the deal and bought it when it showed one flashlight in stock. Shortly after that the status changed to ‘Back Order’. In a live chat they told me it would ship in a few days.

Recently I got an email from Banggood informing me that the ordered items are ‘out of stock’ and offering me some options. Strangely enough these options were only available for the gift flashlight and not for the S43S. I could wait for the gift, replace it (i.e. pay a whole new light plus exchange fee) or refund it (0.00:money_mouth_face:. So I chose waiting, even though the Sharp Eagle is sold out. Now they just shipped my Astrolux S43S and cancelled the gift.

This case raised some serious questions:

Does Banggood play with the customers offering them gifts and cancelling them when paid?
Does this lead people to buy while BG can just take the gifts away afterwards and ship only the paid products?
Has anyone experienced a similar case or who got their gifted flashlights regularly?

Same thing happened with Thor + Cometa gift from EU shop earlier this year except that BG did not send anything and i asked for a refund after about 2 monthes (and got it with no fuss)

Yes

Yes

Yes. It’s been talked about ad nauseam here on the forums. Here’s one example, Buyer Beware: "Gift" Items on Banggood.com

There are no bait and switch laws in China. It’s just one of those things. If you want something cheap and you buy it from Banggood or Gearbest, expect a battle if things don’t go the way you expect.

Darn, it’s unfortunate that they’re still doing this. I think the only way to protect yourself against this is to cancel your whole order as soon as there are signs the “gift” product in question is out of stock. They have a tendency to allow orders for products beyond what their current stock is, which works fine if they can get more stock…but if a product is discontinued (may need to research externally for that), don’t bother waiting. You’re risking ending up in an irrecoverable state where because the paid part of the order is shipped, you can’t cancel the order and be refunded anything.

Gift goes against the “Only one item per Order” safety net to begin with.

If BG only sends the gift and it gets delivered they will now say they delivered that order and Paypal will likely side with them, screwing you.

Learned the hard way about multiple item orders and it had nothing to do with gifts, it had to do with the batteries being out of stock (even though they showed in stock) and my flashlight order sitting there only to go out of stock while everyone else who ordered light only got theirs. Never again.

Won’t even order batteries from overseas anymore, just suck it up pay a little more and know the product is legit and comes fast and safely packed.
Later,

Keith

I don’t think this is fair to us customers, if true. have seen those gifts but could never believe it.

As long as all different items are listed on your order, I don’t see how paypal will screw you if one of them isn’t delivered.
I always order batteries separately.

With this gifts it is a weird thing. You can not refund them because you wouldn’t get back anything. :confounded: So as long as the main item is delivered Paypal won’t help you.

I wrote some emails to BG and got ‘sincere apologies’ :weary: and the obligatory 300 Banggood points :person_facepalming: , later even 500.

I still don’t get the logic of it, first you offer a 50$ light and then you don’t have at least a crappy 10$ light to replace it and satisfy your customers. It must be all cheating on customers and sales strategies.

It’s a scam tactic to get the sells and the gift either out of stock or never deliver.

Sorry for speaking the truth but I got stung too.

All these “0.01 Blowouts!” and “Pick Your FREE Gift!!” and the like kinda nauseate me whenever I even see them, so I automatically chitcan all the BG emails that I get. Sorry, but it’s just a slap in the face.

Just picture Charlie Brown thinking maybe this time Evil Lucy won’t yank the football out from under him and he won’t end up flat on his ass again. How many times you gotta get burned before you get it banged into yer idiot head that it’s Just Another Nasty Trick?

No thanks.

<insert story about the frog and the scorpion>

Maybe this does not apply to all countries, but the shipping fee for the light I payed for went up the moment I added the “free” light to my basket. It stayed on that new level after I was informed that sadly the “free” light was sold out and they cancelled that part of the order.

Maybe i’am lucky, ordered the MF02 and received the Maeerxu M8 free gift as listed.
No problems with both flashlights and fast delivery.

That’s more than likely unintentional and a flaw of their inventory system.

i got 2 of them (same deal 2 different occasions) without issues as did mostly everyone else, except those that got refunded because they were out of stock despite the website still showing some in stock.

Good to hear that there are people around who actually got the promised gifts! :person_with_crown: Anyone from the last ‘round’ of gifts?

After a few emails from BG it turns out that I will have to be happy with 500 Banggood points. :rage: I will most likely avoid any fake gift deals from them in the future! It is to risky just to buy and hope you are lucky enough to snatch the deal. :cry:

Pay with paypal and tell them you’ll take it up with them if you don’t get what you ordered, they’ll give in real quick and if not, paypal will set things right (which hurts BG)

So you would say this works with ‘gift’ items? Theoretically I didn’t pay anything for the second light, I’m not sure if Paypal can do something here. :expressionless:

I don’t see why not, you bought 2 products for x price, you wouldn’t have bought either product for a higher price.

Bait and switch plain and simple.

This exact thing happened to me; I am still waiting. Currently says backorder. :rage:

I received the Astrolux S43S I ordered a month ago and sent a claim to Paypal about the missing gift. Banggood didn’t answer any more since I told them I would contact Paypal. :smiling_imp:

Now let’s see how it works out. Paypal’s terms of use clearly state that getting less items than ordered is a case where their protection applies.

Does the paypal “invoice” or payment authorization list all the items when you guys buy on banggood or is it one item only?
Not taking sides, was just trying to understand the case where you buy multiple items but only 1 lump sum payment is visible to PP?

When I buy at Gearbest (could be different), pp only gets 1 item on my PP and the entire invoice is the order number.