What I “don’t understand” is why so many folks on BLF concoct excuses for [insert name of Chinese merchant here] simply because they personally haven’t had any problem with that company. I didn’t have a problem with Banggood … until I did. But I never questioned the veracity of other people who had experienced such problems.
I’d rather have a root canal than deal with Banggood Customer Service again. One of the things they require when opening a dispute is a picture of their shipping label. Every package I’ve received from Banggood was simply a thin sheet of plastic with a label affixed. I’m pretty sure most customers throw that plastic wrapper away when they open it.
In addition to pictures of the flashlight, shipping label, SKU code, and batteries used, they wanted a video proving there’s a problem. I provided them with five videos, videos they apparently never bothered to watch.
Even though the MF01S they sent me was hopelessly defective and constantly malfunctioned even when the light hadn’t been used in hours, Banggood CS wanted me to configure the temperature. I usually couldn’t even get the side switch to turn the light off (for three hours the only way to turn the light off was either to partially unscrew the head or unscrew the tail cap until the 18650 cells were released). How could I possibly get such a defective switch to configure the temperature?
They wanted me to do a “factory reset” as explained in the user manual. Nowhere in the user manual that came with my MF01S is there any mention of a “factory reset” procedure. After reading posts by Toykeeper (inventor of the Anduril firmware), I performed numerous factory resets to no avail. A factory reset just returns a flashlight to its default settings. It doesn’t magically repair a defective switch or circuit board.
Banggood CS told me to take my MF01S to a local repair shop to get an estimate for fixing it … but the shop wasn’t allowed to open the flashlight as doing so “voids the warranty.” I don’t know about major cities in China, but I couldn’t find any local repair shop here in South Dakota that handles Chinese-made LED flashlights … let alone one that gives repair estimates without being allowed to seriously examine the flashlight.
When I asked Banggood for a return mailing address and a refund, they stopped responding to my messages and emails. Banggood completely failed to honor any part of its published “guarantee.” Even though Banggood has a facility in California that stocked MF01S flashlights, PayPal required me to ship my defective MF01S to an address they provided in China. If I’d been allowed to mail my MF01S to Banggood’s warehouse in the Los Angeles area, postage would have cost much less and the USPS tracking number would be scanned all the way.