Negative experience with NealsGadgets

Ordered several times from Neal. Super fast shipping and he took care of issues I had with previous orders at the same time.
Yes, he becomes insanely busy sometimes and/or your order may wait a few days to a week to be shipped with others. Also, don’t forget to check for Chinese holidays.
With that being said, I have always received orders within 2 weeks.
I will always check Neal’s before back-order Banggood.

I have been waiting on my last order about 2 month.
I emailed Neal about 5 weeks ago and have not heard back , communication is poor this time (as hes replied to other emails on previous orders)
Thats a shame, as I expect good customer service, here in the US or abroad, especially if your orders are $50-100.
But it sounds like hes a good guy, so I’ll give him another chance.
Disappointed this time.

Must be coincidental, I received email notification this morning my, order is possibly dispatch with a tracking nr, would be interesting what the dispatch date is.
This is ± 3weeks after order date, I have no problem with the delay if products is out of stock, chinese holidays, personal reasons etc but I still have a huge problem with lack of communication from him or his store . Not the first time. He could have have more items ordered from me if there was some reply or communication from his side.

If products are out of stock, Neil should just updated his web store immediately with possible expected arrival dates. If he(Neil) can not manage orders because of personal reasons, he or someone on his behalf must just post a notification on his web store, nothing strange or offensive to have a sign “back in two weeks on xx date ” or if needed get more personnel what ever the reason would be.

If he (Neil) experience problems receiving emails from customers which maybe are blocked somewhere, or having some other difficulties responding to email, would someone with personal contact with him please refer him to this link please.

I don’t want to believe he(Neil) categorized/discriminate customers in preference. I doubt if location of customers in this instance have any influence.

Customers mostly have empathy when there is some honest sharing and explaining, but it have it’s boundaries.

Please Neil, it is your chance to make it right ……………………

I recently ordered the NS53A from Neal. I started to panick when I saw other people saying theirs had arrived even though I had ordered mine before them. I started to panic. i would say shipping in total took about 6 weeks. For 5 of those weeks it just said in transit from china. Finally the status changed and said it arrived in Los Angeles and from there it took another few days. I’m in Southern California. Also keep in mind we are approaching the holidays and shipping is slowest this time of year as they are busiest.

Though I’m affraid the floodgates are already open, I would like to make a small comment.
Neal is just a one-man-shop. Working his a$$ off trying to keep the customer happy and his family alive. Of course it is heartwarming to see you guys give pointers how to reach Neal, but that makes things worse. Do you realise how much time it costs, besides fulfilling his daily tasks in his job, to read: Fakebook, regular email, his PM, and several threads in this forum that are used to vent some frustration. Just reading those wil cost him his day.
It’s true as buyer you have a contract with him as seller, and he is the first to address. But that includes also things he did not cause, like mechanical faillure or slow shipping. As for myself, Neal always came through. In the end.

hm…i try to think of his business…is it good? or not? hes got enough orders?is it parttime job or full? if is it profitable for him?if so,maybe o should working with someone…i dont know his kind of work,but if hes doing everything alone,then its not easy…emails,refunding,pm here on forum,post….cos hes known here as a trustfully person.but his non answering and extremly slow shipping is not good…maybe he need someone for partnership in crime:) i would like to order now from him one torch,but hes not responding…so,i cant…

Neal is by all accounts a great guy. I have bought a few items and they came and worked fine. I never once bothered him with any emails other than the one for his paypal address. After that I tried to forget I ordered it and it always showed up, sometimes quicker than was expected.

That being said,Well, here is the deal;
I have heard that same defense of everyone who decided to call themselves a “Business” and then not have the time resources to fulfill their obligations to their customers and ultimately fail because of it.

No one cares what your personal schedule, dead pets, sick kids, etc. when you call yourself a professional company.
You and your company will be judged by how you deliver and perform, period. No excuses.
This is the stone cold reality of doing something as a professional venture.

Too hot? Get out of the kitchen!

Something that may help would be simply raise prices $2 (or more as needed) on every item and use that increased profit to hire someone to field and sort the insane amount of messages that always come through from people who just want to talk, ask for something unobtainable, etc.
We always hear how cheap labor is in China, so charge more and get help.

Under promise and over deliver. Name of the game.

Muto is dead on. If you’re going to run a business, you have a responsibility to do all of the things that come along with that. You know, like basic customer service.

I don’t know why everyone gives Neal a pass, it’s ridiculous. I’m new to the “flashlight scene” and gave Neal one of my first orders because of the recommendations from the community. It seemed like he was just a dude running a small shop to serve a niche community. This was a mistake.

I placed an order for a flashlight and two batteries then waited for a shipping confirmation…and waited some more. After 7 days with nothing, I e-mailed Neal to ask if it had been shipped. Silence. Two days later I e-mailed again with less patience. He got back to me and supposedly he’s having difficulties shipping the batteries I ordered. I’m not sure how long he was going to wait to tell me that, or if I was just supposed to wait in confidence that he would eventually send my shit, but okay.

He apologized and asked if he could just send me one of my batteries, but upgrade the shipping to fast DHL express. Now my first reaction to his solution of me getting less of the stuff I paid for and paying more for shipping was negative, however at this point I was kinda over it and just wanted the flashlight I ordered, so I accepted the offer.

Another two days later I got a DHL tracking number “information received.” Another day goes by and this morning it’s accepted, now with an estimated arrival date of December 5th. Two full weeks into the future.

So to recap, Neal is not sending my full order, is charging me more for “fast” shipping, and the best case scenario is that I’ll get what’s left of my order just a hair under a month after placing it.

Needless to say, this will be my last order with Nealsgadgets, and I’ll be steering as many folks clear of him as possible.

Welcome to the forum! What you may not know (since you are new) is that a month wait for ANYTHING from China is par for the course. I have ordered from Hank at intl-outdoor, Simon through Aliexpress, other AE sellers, Neal, Jacky at FireFlies, Sofirn through Amazon, and Banggood. With the exception of lights warehoused in the US (speaking of one of my Amazon orders), every one of them took about a month (or much more) to get here. Most of that time I had either no tracking info or worthless tracking info. If you order something from China, it is going to take a while to get to you.

Neal’s issues with communication are a legitimate gripe, and I have had a few issues there myself. I don’t think people here are trying to give Neal a pass so much as provide an explanation. Humans want to know “why”, and people here are trying to to provide that answer.

If you want quick shipping and good customer service (before or after the purchase), stick to lights already in the US and avoid BG, AE, etc. One good option is Illumn. They have some of the stuff Neal sells, and they are fantastic.

If you want something that is uniquely available through Neal (whether that is a deal or a specific product), you have to go into it knowing that you may not get it any time soon and that you may not have much if any communication with him during the process. The good news is that Neal has shown that he will usually make good on anything promised, so if you do end up ordering through him you should eventually get what you ordered.

Although I’m on a complaining side, i risked third order. After 2 disappointments, the third order came ok. A month waiting, but the product was ok. It seems to me Neal has too much tasks and has problems to control all the things. Pity, as it influences negatively his business. Although having understanding for him, I can’t justify not hiring any help.

f0xx,

I order plenty of stuff direct from China. I ordered from Neal with free shipping and was fully prepared to pay the Chinese time tax to get it, however I do expect the order to be shipped in a reasonable amount of time. 1-3 business days. Taking 9 days to even let me know there was an issue with shipping (and even then only after I e-mailed twice) is unacceptable.

The only issue I have with it taking a month to get here is that because of a screw-up on his side, I paid more for express shipping which turned out to not be all that express.

I wasn’t sure from your post that you knew the wait was normal. I just wanted to help you set reasonable expectations for future orders from other sellers around here. With the FW3A group buy, I experienced this seller induced wait on 2 of the 3 I purchased from him, and I also find that frustrating. I got the CuTi version delivered after I could have purchased it from Illumn.com, and I ordered it the day it became available in his store.

I agree that Neal could do better with communication and timely shipping of orders. I wonder if he is sometimes waiting on stock to arrive before he can ship?

The one thing I have learned from ordering anything from overseas is to make my order with a what most would consider a credible dealer (Nealsgadgets) and forget about it. If in 2 months you don’t see it start asking questions. I’ve never asked Neal a question and I have made 15ish or so orders with him. Even made some request for tail switches which he threw in my order for free.

Months ago, one order, one light (FW3A), one week to US door satisfied customer.

Always expected I would order from Neal again but now not so sure.

I stick to Amazon or look for a BLFer thinning the herd to get lights that bought new would need to come from China.

I don’t think you should expect a bad experience with Neal, but your experience is as good as it could have been. I think Hondarider’s approach is probably the best when ordering from Neal as it bypasses the communication issues, and his expectations are in check.

Per this site recommendations, I ordered an FW3A from Neal’s Gadgets. Received my first order, and feeling satisfied with the results, I decided to order 4-Samsung 30Q’s from Neal’s Gadgets, for my BLF SP36 Anduril.

Received tracking info. email as before, on the previous order. Received order a month later, and found I had only received 2 of the 4 batteries I had ordered.

I immediately emailed Neal’s Gadgets at the contact information listed on his web site.
After 5 emails and 2 weeks later, NG finally responds via email to ask if I wanted a refund, or the 2 missing 30Q’s. Again I requested he send the 2 missing 30Q’s, I had been asking for on the previous 5 emails.

4 weeks later, and NO response or acknowledgment of 6 more email replies to NG, to send the remainder of my order, as I had requested in my 5 previous emails to him.
No tracking information, nothing to even indicate that he had received my 6 email replies back to him, to send the remainder of my order, and not refund me the difference.

So I was left with no option but to dispute the amount of the 2 missing 30Q’s, with my CC company.

If you decide to order from Neal’s Gadgets, there is a very good chance something similar will happen to you.

This isn’t baseball. Batting .500 isn’t something to brag about, if you can’t even communicate with your paying customers.

How does that saying go?

“Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me.”

Sorry Neal, I’m not willing to risk shaming myself, by patronizing your business again.

Hes nice guy i guess… Helps with many things here… But hes not very good seller. Maybe the chinese mentality. They dont understand that we want everything NOW.hm…thats pity. He should change this.

problem is he is doing this all alone, running the shop shipping orders answer email etc etc… and the shop has maybe too much items he is selling so there can be tons of work for him all the time, i dont think he realized how much the shop will grow when he created it, but perhaps doing this alone for profit isnt always such a good thing if u cant keep happy customers by sending them bought items in a proper time and having good communication ? i sure wouldnt want to have such job really…

exactly this is what i self think about him….hes sure no liar…hes responsible person i can see his work here…but i guess,hes alone and hes got not capacity and time to make it properly…

btw is it so hard to run your own eshop in china?why noone replace him or try to make the same business here…? no chinese flashlight fans here or what?