Ordered a couple of FW3A lights & accessories on 6/17. Received shipment notification 7/21.
DHL tracking shows package originating from Greensboro, NC. delivered to Hawthorne, Ca. on 8/23.
My address is not in CA. or anywhere near that zip code.
Email sent to Seller. Seller responds with DHL tracking#…. That’s it! Nothing else!
Buyer Beware of NealsGadgets!!!
Hello CaseC, welcome to BLF. Atm you are our newest member!
It is a pity you apparently registered to BLF for the sole reason to warn us about NealsGadgets.
But I (we all) know Neal for some years now. He’s only human. And humans can make mistakes.
But in this case Neal did not make a mistake. It was DLH that messed things up.
Despite that I’m sure Neal will do everything in his power to get this situation resolved.
Things to be learned from this are:
- don’t put all your eggs into one basket. It is a long way from there to you. So a lot of things can go wrong.
Most things Neal sends are free shipping. There is no need for for you to order all of it at the same time.
The chance for a smaller parcel to go MIA are the same as for a bigger parcel, but the damage is smaller.
- when communicating with foreign sellers, keep it polite and keep it as compact and SIMPLE as possible.
Not because Neal or other sellers are stupid. But Chinese and English are different like a violin and a piano.
A master on one instrument is not by definition a master on the other instrument.
Well , that stinks . Never had any problem with Neal , myself . But DHL , some times their tracking is a bit off . Had similar experience, but package arrived eventually . Try contacting DHL and explain . They may be able to locate your shipment . When they say delivered , doesn’t exactly mean it’s in someone’s mailbox .
I was wondering when someone would create a thread with this title.
It seems only fair as there is a thread with the name "Positive Comments about Neal Zhang owner of Neals Gadgets".
Reminds me of the theme song of the TV show The Facts of Life.
"You take the good. You take the bad. You take them both, and there you have: The facts of life."
I dont know what to do myself. I ordered on 7/14 and he told me the post office should have it, there was never any functional tracking, I contacted him through email, PM and his site, and now the credit card has expired. So much hassle for a flashlight I won't even get now... Everyone said that it may take a while he was swamped, and he assured me that the light was sent and tracking would update but it never did. What a disaster!
So its DHLs fault it took Neal over a month to ship it?
Let me say I’m always skeptical of negative posts like this being the first ever of an account.
He has always answered my questions on shipping and all things flashlight.
Have had this happen on AE and GB,BG but always sorted except one on BG were it was delivered to the wrong address, Yodel the courier said they would refund providing BG authorized it BG wont not.
I had strange things going on with stuff I sent tracked
does not mean I did any mistake there
- was last registered to be put in the delivery vehicle and went missing
- one that passed 3 countries before finally arrived in the right country
But also I screwed up sending 2 envelopes with swapped address stickers so both got the wrong stuff
He might have given you the wrong tracking number, can be just a typing error
I have 8 orders this year from Neal, no issues.
I dont want to bash Neal in any way, however my experience is less than perfect. I have contacted him over email several times to check on product details or availability of non stock products. The response was either after too many days or none at all. I do get that he is busy, but there is some room for improvement customer service vise.
Neal got in the last weeks problems with VPN in China to use many things like Facebook and other things you take for granted to have always the ability to use
That would probably explain it, hope he gets it resolved soon.
I’ve ordered several things from Neal. All have arrived in a reasonable amount of time from half-way around our planet. My first FW3A was buggy out of the box and I spent close to a month trying everything to get it to work right. I finally gave up and PM’d Neal about a replacement head since my soldering skills on a replacement driver wouldn’t have worked. He agreed and about 2 weeks later another complete light NIB showed up! He may be swamped and a bit slow about communicating, but it seems to me that he tries to make things right.
My experience with Neals Gadgets has been generally positive.
However, I have noticed that if he has a delay in his supply, that causes the ship date of your order to slip, he will not notify you. This results in uncomfortably large delays, like the 1 month delay in shipping my bare aluminum FW3A.
If you do experience an unanticipated delay send him a PM on this forum. I’ve found Neal to be fairly responsive to PMs. He’ll respond within a couple days and explain what the problem is as well as giving you options.
I have received several emails back and forth.
The only issue has been tracking numbers that do not track until the package arrives in the US.
However, to date every single order has arrived.
No complaints.
Sorry my experience is also negative.
Mine as well.
I don’t know. I have only ordered a few things from NealsGadgets. I do know that I have had less problems with him than I always have with Amazon. That is another story I won’t bore you with. I guess my point is, I would buy from Neals again before I ever ordered from Amazon again.
i thought everyone loved amazon.
fast shipping, instant returns, customer service.
i expect problems from china, for the low price, amazon should be different…
i would be curious what happened, you can PM me if you want.
they offer a lot of stuff now that is actually chinese merchants with the low prices and slow shipping, was it that?
wle