Negative experience with NealsGadgets

Very true. Neal is not perfect or even the best seller ever, but this kind of thread makes vocal minorities stand out way too much for everyone’s good. I trust hard cold mathematical statistics far more than subjective feedback loops. Don’t get me wrong, constructive criticism is appreciated, but it’s not the majority of the content in this thread.

But my point was that this was started by what is very very likely (not definitely, as I can’t be sure, only our main man sb can through IP tracking) a sockpuppet. And that’s plain dirty. Seen it a million times in other forums and it never ends well; in ones more strict than BLF, it often leads to IP bans outright.

Although the OP has only one post, there are plenty or credible complaints in this thread.

I would prefer a thread that is about ALL experiences with Neal's Gadgets, not just negative (or positive), but I don't control everything so that's not going to happen.

If you want really fast super reliable service with instant communications then pay 3 times more from a local re seller. end of the day you get what you pay for and we all paid the cheap price

Neal replied to my email pretty much straight away… He did however sell me a flashlight he doesn’t have stock of for 2 weeks… but you know i am paying less than half what i would from a seller here so im not to bothered if it takes a little longer.

Not dodgy at all when we have lots of negative input from other members including myself who after emailing, private messaging and facebook messenger I’m still to get a reply from Neal concerning a defective light.

Not a bad idea. I could probably close this thread and the other Positive Experiences thread (both still visible, just closed for new comments), and then create a new vendor rating page for NealsGadgets with a Pros/Cons summary in the first post, with links to both of the former complaint and accolade threads.

Sounds good, boss!

That’s a pretty good idea. I’m down for that.

The Good:
So far I’ve ordered 5 FW3A’s from Neal, several as presents, all ordered separately. All have arrived very quickly, so quickly (and, judging by the USPS label on the box) that perhaps they had been warehoused in the US. On the other hand, maybe not, as, when I received the emails saying orders had shipped, each had a clickable link to 17 track which showed the items leaving China, arriving in LA, etc. So, perhaps they really did come that quickly from China. (For example, arrived at sort facility in Guangzhou 12/25, delivered in Berkeley 12/31).
All, with some fiddling, worked fine. One was dead out of the box, but cleaning all the switch contacts — both ends of the black inner switch tube, the circular traces of both switch and LED circuit boards— with Deoxit gold G5, had it working fine. Apparently thread lube, or some manufacturing grease, can interrupt the contact between the switch tube and the circuit boards.
One of the orders was supposed to come with two batteries, but only came with one. Have emailed Neal about this, so far no response. But it’s still very early.

The Odd:
I ordered a Fireflies E07 7x, and, separately, an XTar charger. Very quick notification by email that items had been shipped, again with a clickable tracking link to 17 track. Over the course of a few days, according to 17 track, the items arrived in the sorting facility in Guangzhou, sat in Guangzhou for several days, and now are listed as having been returned to sender!!

Emailed Neal about this, to which quite reasonably he hasn’t yet had time to respond. (It was just a day or so ago).

So, a lot of moving parts in the process, but certainly the experience of first five orders, considering what they cost, the elegance of the FW3A’s design, and their speedy arrival, were better in total than most experiences I have with Amazon — which are almost always good. As for last two items, well, I’m prepared to wait, and see what happens.

I think this post is disgusting.
I have ordered from Neal several times with NO issues at all.
The most recent order was only a couple of weeks ago and it arrived at my door in SEVEN (7) days. Sometimes it takes things from New Jersey longer to get here.

Maybe when you get an order that’s faulty or parts of order missing and you try try & try for weeks to communicate & get no response, you might not think it’s so disgusting.

I’ve had success with NG, but I never had to deal with any problems. This is where the Chinese model breaks down. They’re going for low price, not high service. If you want good after-sales service, you’re going to have to pay a lot more and deal with a retailer in your hemisphere. I’m willing to put up with the occasional hassle. My backstop is a Paypal dispute, if I get really annoyed. I haven’t had to do that very often, though.

Stuff happens.
That does not mean he is a criminal.

The word ventsi used was non trustworthy.

Trustworthy is defined as

deserving of trust or confidence; dependable; reliable

So, perhaps he does fit into that category. However, I don’t think he’s any less trustworthy than all the other Chinese sellers that we frequent here. We’re buying from there for cheap stuff, not dependable and reliable after-sales service. Chinese sellers prioritize new orders, not fixing up ones that have issues. Don’t we all understand that?

I’m not sure where “criminal” came from. Has anyone asserted Neal is a criminal? I certainly don’t think his is. Well, maybe he jaywalks or something.

He accused him of being a scammer.

YOU SAID
The guy is pretty much scamming people at this point.
That means you are calling him a criminal. He is NOT.

Has anyone had Black Friday items ship yet? I’m used to long ship times but not processing the order at all in over a month seems like a problem.
None of the items appear out of stock on the site.

I don’t think he fits the profile of a scammer. Most people (probably the vast majority) get the stuff they order from him. Scammers don’t do that. Scammers either never ship to most or all customers, or they ship fake goods.

To me, it sounds like Neal has too much work to do for one person, or is over-extending his business. It will likely sort itself out, now that we’re into a more quiet part of the year. Or, he’ll get fed up and leave. I hope it’s the former.

Or, maybe the problems are being over-blown. Perhaps 99% of people are happy, and we’re only hearing from the angry 1% ?

Hmmm, where have I seen this before?

PLEASE read the entire thread. I am not calling him a scammer, someone else claimed they did not call him a criminal and I replied that they called him a scammer: That would make him a criminal, he is NOT.