I ordered the Sofirn SP36 from Banggood, waited about a week and thought I would check on the progress, as you do. I found out that the item was not in stock and they were not getting any for about another 2 weeks. Now that wouldn’t be so bad if the shipping didn’t take an age. I decided to cancel my order and search elsewhere.
I settled on Gearbest who had a flash sale on (no that’s not a pun - I don’t think), who had it priced at £33 which was a nice surprise. Now this time I paid an additional £8 for faster postage and after a few days I decided to check on the progress only to find out that it was out of stock with them also. Now my gripe with this is, it took me to chase it to find this info out, otherwise I doubt I would have been told. Also the customer service from Bang-Good was appalling and so slow it was unreal and both companies gave me two options………. Wait or Choose another product, er no, how about option 3 - a refund! Neither seemed prepared to do this until I pushed for it, more than once I might add.
So guys, I am now in a Pickle. Do I go onto Amazon and spend almost £30 more on the same torch (but with next day delivery) or do any of you have any sensible suggestions for a torch around the same price point that is very floody (not interested in a tight spot with a massive throw at present) and very bright. The nature of what I need it for is patrolling at night time in the middle of nowhere with lots of close up buildings/hiding points, hence the necessity for a floody torch.
Cancel the order asap, ask for refund. Eventualy, they’ll cancel it.
It’s a well known practice (for Banggod and alike) to get a credit without interest…
If you preffer flood I have the SP36 and Astrolux S43. From my collection S43 is the best flooder with Nichia LEDs. Big drawback is that it doesn’t have good thermal mass like SP36 and go hot very quickly. SP36 have a very good balance between spot and spill. Another good choice maybe is Sofrin C8F which is also multiemitter flashlight.
Yeah, I have them both giving me refunds. With Banggood I had to ask about 3 times for them to actually issue the refund but with Gearbest I had a pay 14 days after purchase thing with Paypal so all good on that front. It was just rather annoying because I spent ages researching the SP36 and had settled on that.
Both websites are known for slow shipping, shoddy customer service, and occasionally having inaccurate inventory. I’ve had worse experiences with Gearbest than Banggood, but this is relatively normal.
A Paypal dispute is often a good solution if they give you a hard time about a refund.
Shipping from Bangood it is no very slow. I ordered from them couple of flashlights and they come to my country (Bulgaria) for about 2 weeks. From Sofrin Aliexpress store I’ve had slower deliveries time from them for about 2-4 weeks.
Simple enough IF an item listing has some indication it is out of stock but the problem is there is no such info. It makes no sense to put an out of stock item on sale.
Being a noob to Banggood etc it would make a lot more sense to just put in stock or out of stock imo. Maybe I missed where it might have said the amount of processing days.
Have 3 orders with Banggood. Used codes from BLF and all three have been processing for over a week. Now they moved to “Repurchase”. What does that mean? No shipping data, no refund or explanation given. The new purchase $ is without codes.
