Banggood - I won't be dealing with them again

G’day all,
Just thought I’d report my experience with Banggood. I might be being too critical of the cheap Chinese company, but read on and let me know your thoughts.

On the 13.10.13 I posted this thread to find out where was the cheapest place to buy a 2900lm TK75 from. Neal from BG sent me a PM with the best price thus far on the 2900lm TK75, so I decided to buy through him.

On the 14.10.13 I placed my order and let Neal know via PM with my order number. Now that he has the sale and my money, NOW he lets me know it’s currently OUT OF STOCK for 3 days. I was pretty bummed, but I got over it. I’ve worked retail in the past and if you pulled this crap in my country, you’d be out of a sale again immediately. But I digress…

On the 17.10.13 I decide to chase Neal up about this. He says that they arrived today and will be QC’d and shipped tomorrow. Fair enough I guess. It’s good to know that the torch will be correct and working when I receive it. He again confirms with me when I ask it was shipped on the 18.10.13.

After I work out how to check where my parcel is at, I find out it didn’t even leave Shanghai until the 25.10.13. Is it normal for mail to take a week to leave the country? I haven’t ordered much from China in the past so I don’t really know.

On the 05.11.13 my QC’d TK75 arrives…the wrong one. What I opened up out of the tatty, old box was the old 2600 lm TK75, not what I paid for. But somehow this got through “QC” VERY disappointed at this stage. I then PM Neal and informed him that it was the wrong model of TK75. He finally replies after some prompting, at this stage he is getting very sloppy in replying to PM’s (even after checking when last online.) He said a new one is in the mail (DHL) and I’ll have it in 2-3 days with a postage paid bag for the wrong model to return. I tell him this is acceptable and a very bad first impression with BG. No replies…

On the 14.11.13 (9 days after he said 2-3 days for shipping via DHL) he tells me THAT’S IT’S BEING SENT TODAY AND IT’S ALSO BEEN ON BACKORDER. Now am I crazy, or should he have told me that on the 05.11.13 when he said it’d be 2-3 more days??

TL;DR version, ordered and paid for on the 14.10.13, over a month later still don’t have it in my possession.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you’ve all heard of other out-of-china stories like this, but after dealing with Calvin from IS a couple of times, I guess I expected similar service through BG.

Please tell me if you think I am being too critical or expecting too much and I’ll happily delete this thread and never refer anyone to BG again, ever.

Oh and 1 last thing, a few people saw this post I made when I suspected I had the wrong model (2600 lm on box gave it away!) and they PM’d me thanking me for alerting them of this, BG also sent them out the incorrect models. Then you find yourself asking the question:

  1. Are they doing this on purpose to try and maximise profits as most people won’t know the difference, or
  2. Is their QC, or lack thereof pathetically bad?

Please take the time to read this and let me know what you think, thanks!

I think they are trying to make as much $ as they can and do not care a lot about how they are doing it. All my experiences buying direct from Chinese business have been very good. I have not had any problems at all. There are good and bad people everywhere. I am not saying you were expecting all Chinese people to be wonderful but to those who do, you are misguided.

07/03/2014
I placed an order with Banggood and had a really good experience with them. People are not perfect anywhere. But the people that worked on my purchase acted in a professional manner and did a good job. Being polite and respectful of others can go a long way.

Buying from any business I’d be wary of this, especially online purchases. Always check, double check, and triple check online purchases.

If you had good experiences with a certain seller, why go with someone else? Because it was cheaper as you just said. Well, the cheapest price is not always the best customer service. If you find a good seller, pay a few extra bucks and buy from them.

I think it is hard to get the great service which offers smaller shops like IS or INTL Outdoor or the flashlightshop.de of a bigger shop.

It begins with some problems in the language, the people you spoke with is "only" a service person, not the owner of the shop and most service person will not know the difference between the older and the newer Fenix TK75 (not everyone is interested in flashlights and Banggood sell a lot of products - not only flashlights).

The person who sends it out take a Fenix TK75 and thought everything is fine, maybe the person who fill up the warehouse took these on the wrong place. Neal will not pack and send the products out - he will only sit on the computer and inform other people to do this.

It's easy to notice for us the difference between the old and the new (2600 vs. 2900 lumen on the package, XM-L2 looks different). I don't think, that the mistake is a result of BG wants to cheat you.

The communication lack of BG is a bad point.
I would wait 43 days (most are gone) and open a Paypal dispute.
Did you send back the wrong TK75 until now?

What could I have personally done to make the outcome any different?

Calvin from IS doesn’t sell Fenix lights or I would have bought off him 100%, and would have been happy to pay a bit more.

It wasn’t any old salesperson from BG, it was Neal, the BLF BG representative.
Completely agree with you about it wasn’t Neal that would have packed it, but different products have different SKU codes for a reason, right?
I’m still waiting for my new TK75 and a return mail bag so I can return it.

Sorry

It's our fault, the warehouse send the wrong flashlight to you, this is the first,

When you told me we send you the 2600lm TK75,I checked the stock, found there is one in stock,so I told you that we'll resend to you and you can get it in 2-4 work days,but I ignore that before you someone bought one TK75,so the warehouse send to that customer directly. And I haven't checked it again,let you wait so many days,that's the second.

But the flashlight which we resend you was shipped yesterday,because the weekend,I can't get the tracking number from DHL, I'll give you the tracking number next monday.

I promise to you if you can't get the new TK75 in a week,we refund you the all money,and you can keep the 2600lm TK75.This is our attitude for dealing this thing.

I apologize for you some mistakes,anyway we want customers satisfy with us products and services,anything we do not well,pls tell me.

Appreciate the apology, shame I had to go public to get it.
And no way, this “isn’t the first”, like I said, a few people on this forum alone have PM’d me thanking me, you also sold them the incorrect model TK75.

I’m still looking forward to getting the correct package. And you’ll know all about it if in a weeks time this thread goes disappearing - because it means I’ll be holding you to your word and keeping BOTH TK75’s. That’d be the only way this negative feedback will be deleted.

I just meant in general when the item arrives to check and make sure it’s what you paid for. I can’t even imagine how many times this same scenario plays out, but the buyer never even notices.

I’ll take the extra 2600lm tk75.

I'm not ignore you, I just have not much time in the forum,I'm busy,but when I saw your message,I have dealed with it,the flashlight was shipped yesterday.

I don't want to let this thread disappear,we did the mistake,we'll afford it. When I get the tracking number,I'll check it everyday and post the result here.

We are not a small company,we'll treat each problem serious until the problem solved.

Well maybe you weren’t ignoring me…but after I PM you and you don’t reply and I’ve seen your “last online” a few times and still no reply…what do you call this?

Either way, not here to bicker, just look forward to getting the tracking number, and the actual torch.

I am so imperfect. Everyday I have a new example of how imperfect I am. People everywhere are overworked. I am sorry that I misjudged Banggood.

My last Bangemgood order just never arrived they kept asking me to wait, but it was getting close to my 45 PP limit, I just reported it to PP and got a refund, lucky because my order never did arrive, been about 105 days now.

Wow!!! Nice work on the PP refund! I was considering this path at one point also

Well I thought I’d add my BG experiences just for the sake of adding to the data pool here. I’ve made about 5 orders or so, and have received about three already. The first was because I really wanted these small binoculars for backpacking. I also ordered these gloves, these speakers, and my spouse wanted these leggings. They all arrived in good time, and all the products actually exceeded my expectations (and my spouse’s). If you watch this year’s ‘Strike Back’ you will recognize the gloves (I wonder what they paid).

So now I have ordered some batteries and we’ll see how that goes. To me so far the biggest downside is their checkout and how it handles shipping. I am in Canada, but I always pay for these goods with my US Paypal account. With FT, DX, AliExpress, IOS, Aurabuy, and Wallbuys it is simple enough to place the order and pay with the US Paypal account, which forces you to us a US Address. You then can change the shipping address on your order at all the other places I mentioned. With Banggood I have to open a ticket and ask their CS rep to manually change my shipping address. So far it has worked, but I’m pretty paranoid that it’s eventually going to go south, much like your flashlight obviously did.

Everyone would love that there were no mistakes at the first place, but when it happens it can be much worse -
You won’t hear from the seller until you open a PP dispute, than they’ll tell you to send your package back and pay registered shipment, and only after that they’ll send you the correct item, maybe.

At least you have a communication with BG (maybe not the best one, but they do reply to you) and they send you the replacement before getting the original back (we’ll see when you get the package). For me it’s kind of average bad, not extraordinary bad :wink:

Thanks for sharing, at least when you got your order it was correct (so far!) How long did it take for you to get your stuff?

Yep, knew I wouldn’t be setting any records with my story, I’m just posting this as a warning as to what could happen to potential BG customers.

As for shipping times for products coming from china. Up to a week processing times I have seen. I know Hong Kong post handles a couple million parcels a day! just lately they have started to x-Ray every package manually. They are cracking down on batteries specifically but also anything that is a steel tube gets a little extra scrutiny as well. here is why in know. I order both flashlights and electronic cigarettes from china, ecigs are banned and carry a stiff fine if caught with them in some parts of china.

So HK post and other Chinese shipping companies are getting very strict on anything that could be or contain a lithium battery.

As for him taking weeks to send you the product and the other tom foolery, a lot of Chinese businesses do that it seems. They would much rather get your money in hand as soon as possible than tell you upfront it could be a few days to a few weeks and then ask you to please be patient with the and offer some kind of weak apology. I found with some vendors that honesty isn’t one of their greatest attributes.

Here’s a very quick version of my first (last?) order from Banggood:

Made sure my order met the requirements for free tracking. Check my mail and find the items shipped as three separate orders with no tracking. Ask about tracking. Told items were all located in different warehouses (all shown as CN warehouse).

The good: Items shipped quickly, can’t argue with that.
The bad: Feeling like I was being to nickle-and-dimed out of the registered mail I was due. Haven’t had that happen at any other online shop.

How long did it take for you to receive the items?