Negative experience with NealsGadgets

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.

I feel obligated to post my experience. I guess I am in the 1% although I am not ‘angry’. Ive ordered two lights (D4 & D1s)from Neal…… both were defective. I tried for a couple of months to contact NG with no luck. Ended up filing a paypal dispute and ‘eventually’ got a refund. I think walkingintothelight said it best……“Chinese sellers prioritize new orders, not fixing up ones that have issues” ……… much could be improved with better QC and by prioritizing issues before new orders, but I doubt that will happen unless they find a way to do it that will ‘add to’ their bottom line. Just my .02 :beer:

While I don’t agree with you in thinking that this post is disgusting, I do believe your post has been placed into the wrong thread.

Maybe you, or the Moderator could relocate it to the proper thread , where you can post Positive Neals Gadgets comments, here:Positive NG Comments

He could sure use your support.

I’m also wary of ordering from Nealsgadgets. He’s a one-man shop vs big companies like Banggood and Fasttech, sure, so no customer service. But he also isn’t passing the savings onto you. It’s not like lights from him are cheaper. Thus, what you’re getting is a complete lack of support for purchasing lights of the same price. All of my MF01s, MF01minis, 8 different FF lights were all purchased from Banggood because it’s cheaper. Hell, it’s not like he has a large warehouse he has to manage with active inventory. He probably just drop-ships all of the lights from various OEM manufacturers.
It’s like going to your podunk stick-in-the-wall single-pump gas station in the middle of nowhere that’s cash-only, and end up paying the same price for gas as the Conoco down the street.

He definitely doesn’t do customer-support or even QC cheks. Basically had an issue with 2/2 orders with him now. Will never purchase from again.

And for those who hasn’t been burnt by Neals, oh don’t worry, I guarantee it’ll happen.

His website doesn’t work very well on my phone, so I never have even looked at the site cuz I couldn’t get past the messaging window that pops up

I’ve had three or four orders from Neal. Only one problem that really, shouldn’t have been a problem. Selling out of stock merchandise. Or as I was told, merchandise that couldn’t get out of Hong Kong because of the unrest. I have no control over that kind of thing and neither does Neal. BUT! Those products maybe should have been pulled off the site as “in stock”. No orders should have been taken for them and no money collected for them.

I got shipped a different light and all is good in Lumenville again. I would have been happier with the light I originally ordered. It was not to be I guess.

It probably won’t keep from ordering again. I would most likely send an email asking if it was actually going to be shipped before I did order.

Still not as bad as lights I have gotten from “made in the usa” big name manufacturers with 10 times the price tag. That’s a different thread though.

If you don’t receive an order, just file a Paypal dispute. You’ll win the dispute. No hassle involved.

The times that something becomes a hassle, is when you receive a defective product or something that differs from what you ordered. Then, you’ll still win a Paypal dispute, but you might have to ship the product back to China. This may, or may not, be worth it to you.

I’m not sure how many people fall into the latter category, but what did NG do (or didn’t do) to help? I’m guessing, not much in some cases. Did you file a Paypal dispute? What happened with that?

I’ve heard that NG does sometimes provide a good resolution to problems. I guess it’s hit & miss, depending how busy he is.

I haven’t had any issues with Neal to date. Whenever I purchase a product from any Chinese seller, whether it be from NG or AE or BG (etc) I always accept the risk that I may not be able to get any customer support if I have a problem with the order or the item. If I am purchasing something that is vital to my needs, I’ll pay five time the price to a local retailer that I am confident I will receive support from.

If I buy a $30 light from China and it catastrophically fails and I have to buy a whole new light, I’m out $30. Still beats paying $200 for a Surefire (unless of course you really need or want a SF :stuck_out_tongue: ).

It’s not right that people keep posting in this thread that they haven’t had a problem with him ,this thread is for negative experiences ,
Maybe people should post their negative feedback in the positive feedback thread lol.
PLEASE DONT POST IN THIS THREAD ABOUT YOU HAVNT HAD A PROBLEM.
We get it ,a lot haven’t had problems but quite a few has & this is the place to say so.
Do you think we’re making it up?

Also, don’t give me the bs about him being busy and shit like that lol. That’s no excuse to ignore emails for months on end. He’s just a drop-shipper.

Jack from Fireflies and Hank from Emisar are also one-man shops. Except they actually make and design flashlights. They speak great English. They respond within the day of any issues I’ve had w/ a flashlight or the logistics of it.

I’ve never had a problem w/ Emisar so can’t speak about that but Hank is always responsive to my emails about his products.

Jack gives me a ton of flashlight advice, offers customization options, and even helped me with a FF light I bought from Neal that had a problem. All of this on top of operating not only a flashlight store, but also the actual process of making flashlights.

My suspicion is that all items are dropshipped and there is no maintained inventory. If you combine this with poor upstream communication, it would mean he sells a lot of “in stock” items that are months away from being shippable. Obviously this will lead to unhappy customers.

Yeah, if he’s a one-man operation, I don’t see how he would keep any stock. I’m presuming it’s a pure Internet business, and drop-ship everything. That’s probably how most small Chinese operations work. Even the big guys, like Bangood and Gearbest, seem to drop-ship quite a bit. Though, they must have their own stock of a lot of items, too. And, at least they mostly keep their website inventory up to date (not always, though).

OTOH, everything I order from Zebralight always seems to show back-ordered. Yet, it always ships out within a week or so. They seem to have the opposite approach to their website… just tell everybody that nothing is in stock. :open_mouth:

I guess NG doesn’t ship loose cells to the US anymore. Would have been nice to cancel the order or let me know instead of just keeping the money for a month and a half with zero communication until I requested a refund. :person_facepalming:

Feels a bit shady too. I wonder how many orders are charged, ignored by NG, and then forgotten by the customer.

I certainly don’t think anyone is making anything up, and my intention was to helpfully provide an alternate way of looking at things in order to diminish your stress level. However, I was unaware this thread was created solely for the purpose of confirmation bias. I sincerely apologize. Please carry on with your brooding.