Buyer Beware: "Gift" Items on Banggood.com

Oh, gee whizzums, just like my “free Vapcell 26650s” that were part of the Cometa package deal…

I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you!

Haha, I just figured that since Banggood.com seems to advertise a mix of legitimate and less-legitimate promotions, it’d be helpful to point out which ones carry a greater risk of irrecoverable loss.

Can we cancel order during shipping?

No, once it’s shipped (partially or otherwise) the order as a whole can’t be cancelled, which makes sense.
(So naturally, I was annoyed they only told me the free item was discontinued after they shipped the paid half of the order…)

I wonder how Paypal‘s buyer protection would deal with this situation. I have ordered the ThorFire TG06S in combination with the free CPF Italia Cometa. Now, the Cometa is sold out and there’s no way to find out when stock is replenished again. I‘m not really interested into the ThorFire as you might guess, though.

Especially when the TG06S alone costs $9.99 now (CN warehouse) and for the gift package (possibly without gift) it was $16 in the EU warehouse.
However returning the TG06S would be a new option for a EU warehouse.

@Serlite, what BG warehouse were you ordering from?

The same situation I have. Furthermore, I’ve bought convoy L2 for 2/3 of regular price. Also BG claims it became out of stock while L2 at regular price is still available.

BANGOOD what game are you playing?

I think we should group on and place complaint on PayPal or at Chinese embassy.

The items from my order were supposed to ship from the CN warehouse.
In my case, the primary item in the order was the XTAR VC4, which at the time was pricier than it is now. (Just by a few dollars, but it still stings.)

I have had similar problems with Banggood on my last few orders. States it’s in stock at a great or coupon price, order, wait 2 weeks, get emails saying out of stock, get email saying discontinued, money gets refunded. Not really out anything but still a bit of a hassle. Makes me not want to do much business with them if I can get it someplace else.

My opinion? I think they lure you on to the site with great deals or free gifts, hoping you will buy more. When you just order the deal and nothing else, they aren’t out anything by refunding your money. Maybe that happens 10000 times and 10% of those buy other things as well as the deal. Then they make out pretty good and the other orders pay for the deal item.

Shady? Yep. Surprising? No. I think Amazon is starting to pattern their business after Banggood. Stopped doing business with those blood sucking idiots too.

I could cancel my order but I keep cool.

Nothing wrong with waiting to see how things turn out for you, but watch out for warning signs - if they try to split your order and ship the main paid items separately, I’d recommend you stop them. Otherwise, you won’t be able to cancel the whole order if things go bad, and you’ll end up in a situation like mine.

wow this sounds bad. I have seen quite a few “gift” items on BG.

Thank you Serlite for bringing this to our attention.

Although good advice, in practice there is no time to react.

I just finished a live chat with banggood support, long story short:

-They cannot put an order on ‘hold’ or ‘do not ship’ or ‘do not split’ status.

- The system will automatically split and ship after a few days, no way around it.

  • No refund for gift items.

The conversation ended with the cancellation of my order. (sadly, as no other viable option was provided)

Well, sounds like it is time for our affiliate selling members here of BLF to earn their keep and get to the bottom of this.
They obviously communicate directly with BangGood on a daily basis and should have some pull.
Right now one of the Sale threads mentions free gifts from BangGood so this is definitely relevant.

I appreciate their deals, they appreciate my money, so it just seems fair that they help with this problem.
BangGood pulls a lot of money from this website and its members so it in their best interest to explain and rectify this problem.

What say you Fin17, M4D M4X, freeme and others?
Please help.

not customer friendly shopping site! banggood doing a lot of things similar this. for example your order is back order but still continues selling. another problem their warranty policy. i bought 16340 batteries from banggond 1200mAh! ofcourse i did not except 1200 but 500mAh will be enough for the price. but they are only under 180mAh i let them know this problem. they told me this ;
And for your order 49800598,so sorry to tell you that this item 991159 is out of warranty,because your order is shipped on 2018-06-02. Here is our policy: Help Center

This sounds just bad. i thought first when i saw it why bother with gifts? keep good prices with coupons etc and let us decide what we want or not… like blf q8 promo with a laser pointer… reallybad idea since many countries can stop the package if the see its a laser so to me thats just not good to mix like that…they will only get more upset customers when they dont have enough gifts in stock if they write about it… just remove it…

I’m pretty sure i’d get my money back for the original order from Paypal. after all, it’s just an incomplete / not as ordered item when they do that.

* This is only about the EU warehouse gift campain, BLF A6 or TG06S plus Cometa:*

If I were in charge to run such a gift capaign for different country warehouses I would not hold sales until the goods reportedly arrived at the warehouse.
I would start selling a few days after I shipped them from the Chinese main warehouse.
Especially if I wanted to avoid Chinese New Year’s delay, which may be one main reason to start the country campaign.

If shipping the container from China to the country warehouse takes longer than usual (China to other country. These days.) I would simply mark all items as ‘Back Order’ and everybody has a wait to few more days. Sounds familiar?

This is not completely solid business (as the buyer would expect the goods to be on stock for the fast delivery promised) - but hey, this is Banggood.
.

I am not going to defend anybody. Just let’s stay with the facts:

  1. A chinese shop has not shipped immediately. OMG.
  2. There is one single report (Serlite) about his order from a different campaign from the China warehouse gone wrong. First time order btw.
  3. Johm has voluntarily cancelled his order before shipping.
  4. Nothing else happened. No serial crime until now. Don’t Panic.

Everyone except Serlite may wait a few days before shouting “Scam” at Chinese Embassies.

I was rather fortunate I guess, I actually got 1 with a Battery.

Coupla years ago I placed an order with banggood and tried to cancel it 15 minutes later and was told it could not be cancelled because it had already been shipped.
That’s fast even for banger ; I still order from them every once in a while though; just for defacets and :smiley: