Extremely unpleasant experience with GearBest

Even though there were many warnings and bad experiences with Gearbest all over the Internet, three months ago I bought some products from them. There were several problems, but describing these on forums and sending couple of messages helped solving these problems.
They even gave me some points as compensation and, at that time, I thought they are good sellers and we should accept that everybody make mistakes. I corrected my negative reviews, and for me everything was fine. I placed a fourth order and the order arrived perfectly couple of weeks later.

Today is “the Grand Finale”, having all the reasons to say that you shouldn’t buy from GearBest because they are liars and cannot be trusted. Their lies and their unethical methods, don’t only affect the buyers but also, the other sellers (so no one wins, excepting GearBest).

This conclusion comes after they cancelled my last 3 orders I placed on their website. The payment was made using my verified PayPal account. The old orders on GearBest were also paid using the same PayPal account.
After inquiring about this problem on their website, I found that: “Due to the previous business is not unpleasant,so we don’t want to coperate with you.” (original GearBest’s answer).
I did my best to solve this problem and in 10 days I opened 5 tickets on their website, had 9 chat sessions (during 5 different days) and sending 2 emails to them. I wanted to find the clear reason of why my orders were cancelled (i.e., how they define “unpleasant businesses”).
Here you have one of my last discussion with them which proves I’m right:

Welcome to Gearbest.com. Please wait for a site operator to respond.
You are now chatting with ‘GearBest’
Customer: Hello
Customer: I already paid for 3 dascahms and the payment was accepted. Yesterday I find that “Our Risk control department are unable to confirm security of the payment” and you have cancelled my new orders.
>>GearBest: Have you choosed a shippingmethod?
Customer: Yes, of course
>>GearBest: Could you tell me the shipping cost?
Customer: it was free
Customer: I chose free shipping :slight_smile:
>>GearBest: so sorry for my mistake
Customer: don’t worry, everyone makes mistakes
Customer: Now, the question is: how can I solve this problem ?
>>GearBest: Do you have write review about gearbest on forum
>>GearBest: ?
Customer: Yes I do; not for the last days. I don’t want to accuse someone for nothing.
Customer: That’s why I do my best to fix this problem
Customer: Also, you cheated on resellerratings.com. Most of the reviews are bogus. But, then again, some forums are more important
>>GearBest: I’m so sorry for hearing that
>>GearBest: it may caused by the review
>>GearBest: our company will cannot accept your order now
Customer: why ?
Customer: my PayPal account is verified and OK
>>GearBest: yes,your payment is ok
Customer: so ? I thought we solved the problems between us some time ago
>>GearBest: so sorry
Customer: I understand: you’re sorry. I’d like to know why my orders aren’t accepted ?
>>GearBest: it may caused by you have write review on forum and the content of review is not very good.
Customer: The reviews were corrected long time ago. I also had my part of blame
>>GearBest: so sorry for hearing that
>>GearBest: if you have some problem we will try our best to solve it for you
Customer: Yes, there is a problem: my orders were cancelled. Now, the question is: how can I solve this problem ?
>>GearBest: so sorry
>>GearBest: we cannot accept your order for the time being
Customer: Why not ? As long as I did everything right, why you can’t accept my orders ?
>>GearBest: because you have a not good experience on gearbest,the financial department just want to make sure the interest of company,I hope you can understand that
Customer: I don’t understand. What do I have to do in order to have “a good experience” ? As long as the payment is not at risk, then I see no problem in accepting my orders.
>>GearBest: we nee protecting the reputation of our company.
Customer: Yes, I understand that, and as I wrote: I corrected my reviews. I even recommended your website (I can prove that).
Customer: Don’t get me wrong: if I recommended your website it wasn’t because I was afraid you’ll cancel my orders, but because I thought you’re an honest seller.
Customer: Now I’d like to know: are you ? or are you not ?
>>GearBest: if you write a good review on forum,we will send 500points to you however,
>>GearBest: I’m so sorry for inconvenience we caused
Chat session has ended.Thanks for your chatting.
You are not currently in a chat session.

The conclusions on my experience with GearBest:

  1. Hopping the customer will drop the case, they will ask you wrong questions and repeat them all over again. Also, they will not answer for minutes or close the chat sessions.
  2. They fake the reviews with the help of some customers who prostitutes for couple of dollars. For example, in 2 months their ratting on Resellerratings jumped from 3.XX/10 to 8.XX/10. Many customers who positively reviewed GearBest have only that review. That’s strange, because there are more chances the customers explicitly search on internet where to write their negative experiences rather than praising the sellers.
  3. Under Gearbest politics, “protecting the reputation of our company” is to hide the problems (rather than solving them) and to lie the customer. Any customer who’s not happy with their bad services becomes undesirable.
  4. If you have a problem with them, keep your mouth shut. Otherwise if you have some fidelity points, you’ll become undesirable and lose them completely. For example I had 377 Points=$7.54 Credits and this is their answer:
    Customer: I’m asking about my 377 Points = $7.54 Credits
    >>GearBest: could you tell me which order you have used points?
    Customer: I haven’t used the points
    Customer: you gave them to me
    Customer: I’d like to know how I could use these points (or get the money from you) ?
    >>GearBest: SORRY
    >>GearBest: you cannot use it now
    Customer: so, they are lost, correct ?
    >>GearBest: yes
    Customer: Ok, that’s a fair deal :slight_smile:

So in summary:
You got some bad service
You wrote a bad review about them
They put you on a list of people NOT to do business with
You changed the review to positive
You tried to order more from them
They cancelled your orders
You “opened 5 tickets… 9 chat sessions… and 2 emails…”
They refuse to sell to you.

While I’m sure it’s frustrating, I suppose you will just have to find someone else to give your business to?
Don’t let it get to you - there are many other vendors to buy stuff from. :slight_smile:
Putting myself in their shoes, I can somewhat understand their point of view.

This should be here .
Also, you won’t find many sympathetic users here, a lot of them are, to put it mildly, friends with Gearbest. What has happened to you happened to me, my order was cancelled without notice, check here .
Just stick to the stores that work, pm me and I’ll tell you what works for me, I don’t want to make people think I’m advertising for one or another. GB was good for a while but sorta went downhill.

@Jaidmaster if you haven’t understood my first post:
I got some bad service.
I wrote a bad review about them.
I corrected my bad review about them and recommended their shop.
They finally sent my orders.
They took for a second time (2 months later after my first 3 orders) the money from my account.
They gave me back the money, but I had to pay some banking fees because of this error.
I placed a fourth order, which was fine.
Then, the next three orders were cancelled.
I tried everything to fix the problem.
I lost my fidelity points.

@DanielM As I wrote in my message: some people prostitutes themselves for couple of dollars. Quite pathetic, but that’s life :wink:

I'm with the last response, don't let it bug you too much. I see dealing with chinese sellers as a bit of a gamble, part of the deal of them being so cheap. Sometimes I'm lucky and get good stuff and then I'm happy, sometimes I get crap stuff and I'm pretty annoyed. But I do not stay annoyed for too long, and it never helps to ban sellers: they will not care and you loose more and more options.

That said, I did not know that chinese sellers maintained blacklists :-(

Nah ,the lists are not black :bigsmile:

I’d guess that’s much of the problem right there.

People would spend time sorting out 5 tickets, 9 chat sessions, and 2 emails?
Who should do what in response to which, and do what else in response to the other ones?

If you want attention, be careful not to cost them more in paid staff time than they could hope to make having you as a customer.

You need one simple statement, in one place, and patience.

Lots of patience.

yes, because there were answer like: “I will check it for you” or “our manager not in the office now” or “you could send the mail to us” (of course without any answer).
I knew I was fooled, but I gave 10 days to solve this problem.

10 days isn’t nearly long enough. Figure a month.

And that’s only assuming you use simple words and keep all your messages in one, single ticket.

They have the same problem with their suppliers that we have with them.

Open one ticket, and one person there has to eventually understand it weil enougn to explain it to wherever they get the item.

Then someone at that end needs to figure out the problem and pass the word back.

Nobody really knows what they’re selling, til they hear from us.

Not to mention they can’t breathe over there most days.

Guesstimate what their actual profit is from interacting with you.
Try to increase that to encourage them.

Nobody’s explained capitalism to them, they’re making it up as they go.
They’re up to, oh, Dickens and choking coal smogs, remember.
They have a ways to go yet.

You people realise youre shopping at flea markets right? Why is it you expect department store service?

thanks for warning, i never even heard of Gearbest before, but now i have, and i wont be ordering anything from them.

Erm, I don’t want to sound too accommodating or appear to be advertising GB, but this year, I have had only positive experiences so far. I don’t want to be posting what I purchased but I did quite a few purchases and I have been satisfied.
I am of course very sorry to hear about your negative experience and hope nobody has to endure such problems. But then again, you got your money back, so no harm done?

+1, ain’t that the truth. It is Not retail, it is Not even wholesale. More like buying something from a guy on the street who has “Rolex” watches under his coat.

I have had good very good experiences with Gearbest and ALL of the Chinese dealers, that you can think of. I have also had very bad experiences with ALL of the Chinese dealers talked about in our forums.

If you want a good shopping experience, go to your local retailer, that you can trust. Otherwise it's a crap shoot and that is the reality of the Chinese experience. I can also guarantee that negative reviews will get you ushered out the door, so to speak. That's the way it is. Doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, it's their way of dealing, so you have to learn to work around that, or don't take the chance. They do not like being told they are wrong or that their product is wrong, so dealing with that has to be done with diplomacy. It is what it is.

You should post a copy of this in the Rating: Gearbest.com thread. Such behavior is unacceptable. Attempting to manipulate reviews. And I’d bet they have been successful in manipulating some reviews. Fraud, deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain.

But it is not just the chinese sellers, USA companies are suing people for bad reviews online.

that is different, they are suing for slander, they allege the review was not factual. these guys want you to correct your review, regadless wheather it is true or not.

Come on, you know the companies suing don’t care if its true or not. They sue under slander because what else could they sue for? “Hurting our bottom line by sharing your experience online” = slander.

if they do have that menatlity, “Hurting our bottom line by sharing your experience online” = slander. they will lose, not just that case, but a counter suite as well. it would be very unwise and unlikely for a company that has a legal dept, to file such suite with no evidence. even if they do not have legal dept, they still need a lawyer to represent them, so they must consult with him before filing.

in the case you linked, looks like comapny has plenty of evidence, of customers not being honest, at least.

That case is just one of the most recent.
When threatened with a lawsuit how many people will want to spend money on a lawyer over an online review when they could just delete the review? When you have more money than the other guy lawsuits are very commonly used as a weapon.

but they do not simply want the review to be deleted, (it actually already is deleted) they want 65k, so it is definatly not “remove the review or will sue you”. this is “we want 65k, bacause you lied about us, and we can prove it, see you in court”.

but i do have to argee, if it is remove or pay case, people will definatly rather remove then fight in court. actually i can think of 1 sue happy company that we all know, it is one of the **fire companies, and it is not chinise.