Official Thread for COMETA Refunding - Problem solving

Cyberscudo told CPFItalia staff on the 14 of June that he was working with Neal for sending all the members a kit, containing a new pill, new driver and new emitter, with all the insulation needed, oring for the thrads, remembering Neal the original specs of the pill. According to Neal, this solution cost of the pill for BG is 13$ said to Cyberscudo.
Let me remind you that new lens are still out of the proposed solution. They were not mentioned.

Me and other members wrote that We were moving in the opposite direction: the kit is fine BUT for who doesn’t want it, we want a full refund. They can send 1,2,10 new cometa if a user agrees to these condition. But all the members should have the refound offered.
I remembered cyberscudo that the kit still won’t address many problems, like the lens, and the DOA tailcaps; also the KIT should be already soldered, not sent with the components apart since the members paid for a complete working light, and not for a DIY long term project.

Finally, I asked Cyberscudo if he found so strange, so unbelievable, that the members could get the full refund as an option, for getting a light what don’t work.

Cyberscudo never replied to that message. He has not connected to our forum since my last message.

Me and WonWurser have been contacted here on BLF by some members asking about Cyberscudo pics and other question about the final sample. Other members have expressed publically the same questions.
We are not Cyberscudo, the only one who got the pics, and we can’t reply directly to your questions.
So we asked your question to Cyberscudo on CPFItalia.
He did not reply to us, and has not connected since my message (the one above).

Given the lack of answer from Cyberscudo, we asked to the only other involved part who could answer us: BangGood.
After many more mails, Neal said that they “sold” the sample to Cyberscudo, and “manker change a little the production, like the 20 mm wires”. That’s all we got from Neal regarding these questions.

Summarizing, we have been told by Neal that the Cometa are:

- Fine

  • Fixable with an insulator
    … now it’s suddendly manker fault?

I’d like to remind you these 2 posts:

It’s interesting to see how some parts (BG and Cyberescudo) have proposed solutions that are useful to Banggood (= cheaper), but less useful for the members (problems remains).

In my years of flashlight disease I got some bugged light. They displaid mainly a BIG (often dumb) problem, that came from bad design/project, or machining. For example: a light with too high parasitic drain, or a light with too thin threads (like the nitecore D10 I snapped in half)…
The problem was on all the samples, until it was fixed in the production.

Someone said that the cometa problems came from bad desing… But here I see that all these lights are affected by a BROAD RANGE of problems: some broke lens, some o-ring damaged, some light work, other are DOA, other have broken tailcap, other have a short here, other have a short there.
Also, NOW the fact that this light are affected by serious issues is known to anybody who is wiling to google “cometa flashlight”, and for sure BangGood knows that for sure…. and they are still for sale on BangGood.

We are tired of going after BG without results, and seeing members getting asked AGAIN countless pics and videos. BG service asked many members to close their paypal dispute, in other to get helped because they can’t do anything until the dispute is open.
This is a trick used by sellers: once your dispute is closed paypal can’t work on the case (for or agains you), and you are left at the “mercy” of the seller.
Bella-Headlight was promised a working cometa for his broken one, so he closes the dispute and receives a new cometa that doesn’t work either.

We know mistakes can happen. But the customers should never pay for a mistake.
They pay for the product, and they deserve the rightful assistance.
In any case, the customer problems should be addressed.
Many things can go wrong making a product:

- if it is the company who manufactured the lights, BG should take care of the matter with them.

- if it is the guys who designed the light, BG should take care of the matter with them.

  • If it is the guys responsible for the QC, BG should take care of the matter with them.

There is a problem? let’s address it:
1Stop the sale of the lights UNTIL we identify the problems
2Write to ALL the buyers, asking to wait until using the light unti the problems have been sorted out
3Work to a fix, and if a fix is found, deliver it to the customers who bought the light (do the customer really have to ASK for it, when BG already knows name, address and data of all the buyers?)
4If fix is not found, find an acceptable solution.

We suggested BangGood to consider giving the members, as an option other than full refund, a BangGood credit, with a value higher that the cost of the cometa light.
Personally, I spend a lot of money on BG and other stores every year, and if I got the money back from a cometa, I may end spending them again on BG or somewhere else.
We have not received an answer on this idea.

The bottom line is that users don’t have to pay for someone mistake.

No sign of a search of an acceptable fix has been made from BG to us or BLF.
Cyberscudo came up with fixes that are favorable to BG (=cheaper), and not for the members.
At this point We believe Cyberscudo and BangGood, in the person of Neal, have not told us (BLF and CPFItaly) all the part of this story, and this led us believe that there has been some undisclosed details between them, that they prefere to keep private.

WE trusted a member who was an active part of our forum from years, and a seller whom we had a great relationship and service.
Once we realized the problems We made all we could to solve the problems that the members had, not for our fault.

We know that the Customer care guys of BG are behaving as instructed by their superiors.
We red that many members have stopped doing business with BG, and we know thay this will effect the job of many people who work for BG and have 0 responsability in this story.
BG blind behaviour is hurting them, also.

We have been on this story for a lot of our free time, in order to get things right for you guys.
We believe there is nothing else we can do.
According to what the hear from CPFIalia members and BLF members, refund are very rare for the light, returning the light in most country costs more than the light itself (why returning a defective item that can’t be fixed? I don’t have an answer), the replacement lights are also faulty… And the kit received by a member has other problems (and still won’t fix the lens, and the tailcap problems).

At this point, we may suggest to the members who are not happy of Bangood Service’s to leave a bad review on sites like Trustpilot.
All sellers are good when the transaction is smooth, but when problems emerge, the differences in what I believe is BUSINESS CONDUCTION emerge.

I understand that on many forums BG is helping members getting their custom flashlight done, I believe that this opportunity make some members very partial towards BangGood, as they want to redeem the reputation of the seller which has been deeply damaged by this story.
I’ll be very afraid myself to conduct myself a project of similar magnitude with a seller with such aftersale behaviour.
Of coutse this is just my point of view, and I don’t want to persuade anyone to adopt it.
I trust the members judgement.

We hope that this horrible experience works as a big warning for all the future initiative like our one.

Buddha you are right in soooo many things.
We want to learn from our mistakes and therefore it is necessary to see all sides of the problem before we make an accusement. There is no court and no judge.
Maybe Cyberscudo should send the final example to you or any other member of your staff.

Thanks Budda for making clear that the IMHO most important question probably will not be answered.

For what it is worth I am going to fix mine and like it.
Not only because the work involved but also because I know this has reached me a lot of useful knowledge for the Q8 project

Thanks for clarifying and the efforts.
Personally I will treat mine as something I will deal with and that seems the way BG is treating it too.

This has always been the part that really bothers me. BG knows exactly who purchased the light, what our email address are, what out PP accounts are, etc. Yet they need to see a shipping label? What for, pray tell?

Then they need a video of the problem? They are a member here. They have seen countless posts, pictures, and videos of member’s lights. This isn’t one person with one bad light, this is basically every purchaser and all the lights.

It would be laughable if the joke wasn’t on us.

time to boycott BG

I am boycotting Manker! Funny people have problems with them making bad lights but still take samples to review? How serious are you of finding the solution? Manker is the problem here not Banggood! Manker released the light to the public with all these faults and quality issues! Not Banggood how does a regular working at Banggood know whats right or wrong with a light? They are not experts!

Tell us how you really feel about Manker.

Mate i am stating facts :innocent:

A magical fairy didn’t make the light and banggood didn’t make the light either. A magical fairy might as well of made the light probably be easier to contact for a fix….

Yes, indeed, it is a well know fact that magical fairies take there customer service very seriously. :smiley:

+1,000,000

My sorry experience with the Cometa problem & Banggood……

  • Numerous pictures
  • Send us a video
  • Let’s do endless email chat. (ALL extremely cordial by both parties I might add.)
  • Solution agreed upon
  • Oops… solution out of stock but back in stock in 3 days. Will send it right out with Tracking Number
  • Oops… you still here 10 days later. Out of stock again… send it right out in 5 days with Tracking Number
  • Oops…. 7 days later, you mind waiting solution out of stock. We give you 100 points for your trouble though
  • Blah, blah, blah, blah……….
  • Cometa review on the Banggood site not published.
  • Couple of comments on other Cometa reviews on Banggood site not published.
  • Received email from (guomengzhen@banggood.cn) whoever that is, within hours of posting my Cometa review and comments on a couple of other Cometa reviews on BG site a couple of days ago. Email thanked me for pointing out something obvious to anyone with a brain and then said if I had a problem to contact BG Customer Service. :person_facepalming: … Yeah, I’ll jump right on that after almost 6 weeks of it already. :wink:

Disclaimer:
I have had a bunch of free time on my hands the last couple of months and it has been kinda entertaining to just see how far the “madness” would go with this. Well the ‘free time’ is past, I have been “entertained” enough, and in almost 6 weeks I have learned the “madness” is infinite… it has no end! :person_facepalming:
If allowed to continue… it will continue.

So for me it is time to shift gears and take another approach with BG…. still nice and cordial mind you. But resolute and strictly business.

I hear music playing in fact………. it sounds like the PayPal two step.

These are my opinions, yours may vary; so be it. :wink:

Here’s an update on my continuing email exchange with Banggood.

they offered to send me a new pill and insulating washer.

I said no, pointing out that my lens was damaged and the light wobbles.

They are now offering to send me a new light with all the issues fixed.

I guess that i will accept this offer…

I have already received a replacement light “with all the issues fixed” & the only difference is the addition of a plastic insulating washer to the pill underside.
It is still the same Manker host with loose zoom threads, it still has the same very poor lens (damaged again), it still has a loose driver as the driver pocket is to big, the led wires still short on the anodised led retaining disc, the led wires are still 24awg not 20awg, the star is still Manker & not Noctigon & still no lens cap which is clearly shown in their ad.
I think that you will be very disappointed if you think that the replacement will have “all the issues fixed”.

Bella - Noctigon will not allow their name to be used on a complete light. They will not even allow the use of "their" red on oem manufacture. If they say it is made by Noctigon and it is DTP then that is what it is. That was explained long ago with the A6. They will only source them from Noctigon or Maxtoch and since the last couple lights...A6, X5, X6 were Noctigon these probably are also because they bought thousands of them.

If the pill size is worrisome then a couple drops of solder ought to solve that issue.

It has already been shown on here that the cut outs in the star are completely different to a genuine Noctigon so this is not a Noctigon star painted a different colour with Manker written on it.
The light is not sold as a self assembly kit so why should buyers have to rectify manufacturing/machining/ design faults (whatever the over sized driver pocket is classed as) themselves ?
These 2 points aside it still does not get away from the fact that there are many problems with this light & the lights that have supposedly had “all the issues fixed” have in fact only had an insulating washer added to the pill underside.

I am not going to get into that. All I am doing is offering explanations and solutions.

All I was doing was pointing out to fdr2164 before he agreed to a replacement that I have already received a Cometa that BG had also told me had had “all the issues fixed”.
In fact it had only had an insulating washer dropped into the battery tube to insulate the bottom of the pill.
I was just making him aware before he agreed to a replacement that my experience was that all the issues had certainly not been “fixed”.
For this light to have “all the issues fixed” as BG claim, it would need a new different host & several things changed/re-designed.
Just trying to give fdr2164 a heads up so to speak & not trying to re-start any Cometa argument.

thanks for your feedback, I declined their offer.

No problem, sorry to be the bringer of bad news.
18 days ago BG wrote on this thread (post number 54)

“Banggood
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Last seen: 2 hours 33 min ago
Joined: 02/18/2013 - 06:13
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Location: Guangzhou,China
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Sorry,
just saw this thread.
we are talking with manker and Cyberscudo, we will find a best solution for you.”

Since then there has been 18 days of silence.
You will see from BG”s activity above that they were logged into this forum earlier today, 2 hours 33 minutes ago to be exact, just like they log into this forum just about every day so they are & were well aware of the problems with the light & all the threads & posts regarding it.

Respectfully, why would you not get into “all that”? “All that” is the heart of the matter with this light and group buy.

It is not the “explanations”, that some see as only excuses; nor is it “solutions”.

“Solutions” should never have been necessary for this light. This was not sold as a “kit” light, so “solutions” and “fixes”, in the number that are required for this light are unacceptable.

As your opinions are yours, mine are mine. Others can decide for themselves.