Dear friends,
I have something to share which I think I can not withhold you.
Last September I bought a Klarus G20 flashlight from an Aliexpress seller.
From the beginning the flashlight couldn’t be used in Turbo mode for longer than 15 seconds.
Since it got very hot I thought this was normal behavior and flashlight stepped down output
volume automatically.
After 6 months of storage I wanted to use it again, but Turbo mode was not working anymore.
When putting on Turbo mode, flashlight flashes very short at Turbo mode and shuts itself off.
I contacted the seller on Aliexpress which claims it is a battery problem, I assured him my batteries
are of very high quality (i use Vappower IMR26650 5200mAh) and fully charged, and that all
5 pieces of them act the same. I claimed for warranty.
I got a message like this: “Dear friend, don’t worry, it is battery problem”
After reading this my face turned kind of Purplish and i asked him if he even had read my message.
Since I send him pictures of measuring my Vappower IMR26650 and showing him it was fully
charged to 4.22V, this couldn’t be the problem I encountered.
Since then no reaction from seller.
So I contacted Klarus service directly.
At first everything seemed ok since Klarus has a 5 year warranty on all their flashlights.
Jenifer from Klarus asked me to provide a picture of G20 with its serial number on it, she asked
for a short movie to show G20 not working, and she asked for the invoice.
I provided her with all, and got an answer within one day that my G20 indeed was defective and
she would search for a retailer near my home to send me a new flashlight, or a new head.
After a 5 days of radio silence I contacted Jenifer again, and i got the answer below:
“Hi Alex,
We are sorry to inform you that we didn’t find the sereis number of your flashlight on our company series no. systerm,
and after double checking, we find Shanghai Peral Trade Co., Ltd. is not our authorized distributor, we are not sure if
your flashlight is from our factory, as this flashlight price is much cheaper than our MAP price which violated our price policy,
so we cannot cover this warranty.
Please contact with the seller who you bought flashlight from for the replacement part.”
Reading this message I was not amused, Aliexpress seller not responding and Klarus rejecting warranty!!!
Today I wrote a message to Klarus servicedesk, see below:
“Hi Jenifer,
I can understand that this is Klarus policy.
On the other hand, a customer like me doesn’t know what Klarus MAP price policy is when buying a Klarus product.
Second, a customer like me isn’t aware if it’s an authorized Klarus distributor when buying a Klarus product. They all
have the Klarus Tag in advertisement in their store. AND there’s NO list of authorized dealers of Klarus on your website!!!
If this is Klarus policy, to reject warranty cases like mine, I think it ALSO should be Klarus policy to take action against
not authorized dealers and get them expelled from a selling platform like Aliexpress.
It ALSO should be Klarus policy to WARN customers for the existence of FAKE Klarus products, AND of NOT buying
so called Klarus products at unauthorized dealers!!! WARN customers that they have NO warranty when buying
from dealers OTHER than the ones on the LIST of authorized dealers on your website!!!
THIS SHOULD BE STATED AT YOUR WEBSITE!
Since customers like me are highly affected by Klarus policy, and cannot be sure if buying an original Klarus product,
it is VERY likely that I NEVER will buy ANY Klarus product again in the future.
In this case, I have a defective flashlight, bought it in CONFIDENCE from an as far as I know authorized Klarus dealer,
to have a good Klarus product with a 5 years warranty. That this warranty is not available because your findings is a
VERY sad thing and seems unacceptable for me.
Since Klarus does nothing to prevent buyers buying FAKE goods from unauthorized sellers, and only profit from
their advertisements, I have to conclude that this policy of Klarus requires me to warn other people for not buying
Klarus products, ever.
If Klarus is not going to accept by warranty case, I WILL TAKE ACTION so others won’t suffer from the same loss.
Alex Bartels
The Netherlands”
If I get an answer from Klarus I will update this post.
In the meantime I also contacted Aliexpress servicedesk to support me, they did send the seller an email to solve this problem.
I am very curious how this will end, maybe I will get my loss covered, maybe not.
IN SHORT:
Be aware of buying Klarus products. You can never be sure buying original Klarus products.
Further there’s no MAP price available from Klarus, so if buying you never will be sure you are buying for the right price,
so warranty could be worthless!!!
Further, to me it seems that serial number registration in Klarus serial number system seems eratic, or at least unreliable
since Klarus servicedsk states “we are not sure if your flashlight is from our factory”. This tells me they possibly could
reject ALL warranty cases!
Hope this helps deciding which flashlight to buy, and which ones NOT……
Cheers guys, and keep up the good work!
Alex Bartels
Edit: I got this from Jennifer while I was typing the message to Klarus posted above, it is an answer on an email I send with pictures of the original box with serial codes etc. on it.
“Hi Alex,
As we don’t find the series number of your flashlight on our series no. system, even you have the package, we cannot make sure if your flashlight is from our factory.
Also this flashlight in less about 30euro cheaper than our MAP price, according to our company policy, the flashlight bought with un-normal price cannot enjoy the warranty. Please buy Klarus flashlight from our authorized distributor (for examples the stores with the tag by Klarus)
Thanks for your understanding!
”
This message still keeps my face turning Purplish……
And, more frightning, again she is talking about “we cannot make sure if your flashlight is from our factory”.
And, even more frightning, “Also this flashlight in less about 30euro cheaper than our MAP price, according to our company policy, the flashlight bought with un-normal price cannot enjoy the warranty” , so, buying a Klarus from an authorized dealer, during sales, paying less, making a good deal, could avoid warranty.
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U P D A T E:
As of today I got a message from Jenifer Liu from Klarus that they will send me a head replacement, so accepting warranty for my case!
Very happy with this final solution!
Quote from Jenifer Liu - Klarus:
“Hi Alex,
We well understand your situation, and we are sorry for any inconvenience, here we also thank you very much for your kindly suggestion, we will share it to our company and try to do best to improve it in future.
For your flashlight, after several checking, we still cannot find the series number on our system, so we cannot make sure if it is from our factory. Anyway, we will specially apply to our company to send you a head part as you are Klarus fans and we really understand your situation.
We will you keep you updated once the parcel has shipped out to your following address:”
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U D A T E as of 17-08-218
Today I received a headpart replacement from Klarus.
Flashlight is working normal now.
It still is a little sad they send me a part with scratches on it, seems to be a refurbished part.
But, in the end I got my replacement and flashlight is working again.
I also got a 50% refund from Aliexpress, so in the end I am satisfied with the result of my actions.