An on the other hand there are a few crabby persons who jump to any occasion to slander him.
So statistically speaking there are a dozen people or so to the far right of the graph.
And there are a dozen people or so to the far left of the graph.
What about the majority of his clients, or does he only have the two dozen I mentioned before.
I bet the majority of his clients are at peace with him because they got what they payed for.
And they have no cause to mention that because that’s the way things should work.
There are discussions with other webshops I can tell you about. But why should I.
You want it yesterday? You know the expression: You want it 1/ good, 2/ cheap and 3/ fast?
Forget about that. Pick any combination of two.
But if you are patient and keep it polite, things will work out eventually. My record is 123 days
A few crabby persons, really? Have you seen the threads? I’ve never seen so many people on BLF complaining from the exact same store with very, very similar issues. Not to mention other platforms like Reddit.
And yeah I’m sure there are many happy customers. It’s just that the percentage of unhappy ones is unusually high with this store.
Thank you for the good/cheap/fast cliche. However, 1) there are many stores that offer all three and 2) we are not even talking about this.
We are talking about LACK OF COMMUNICATION and ANSWERS, something that the ferocious Neal defenders don’t seem to understand, despite it being a fairly simple concept.
And what is even more baffling to me is that Giancarlo ordered goods for 300 dollars ffs, this makes him far more valuable customer than the average who spends $50 or so, and still Neal doesn’t care. Amazing.
Hm $300 is a bit steep. You think the average buyer spends about $50 a time?
I’m a thermodynamic/mechanical engineer who started his career designing powerplants. As time went by I gradually turned into a pencilpusher buying and selling energy. Where the margin per kWh is many zero’s after the decimal point and the total turnover is many, many, zero’s before the decimal point. And I slowly became someone who creates spreadsheets of almost everything. My current flashlight worksheet covers several hundred lines (1 line/1 buy).
Last time I payed more than $50 on this hobby was pretty much 2 years ago, on the BLF GT. Last time before that was 2 more years ago, on the BLF SE X6-SS / X5-Cu in a numbered box. Partially because (as a rule) I break up my buys in as many buys/parcels as possible.
I am an economic thinking creature, but our governments pick up the tab for the extra shipping. At least for now. Until those contracts end I divide my riscs over as many parcels as possible.
I agree that a 300 dollar order requires extra attention from the seller.
That said,
communication being simple is very much thinking from your very own perspective, I found over the last 8 years that for chinese vendors communication the way we “westerners” expect instead is very hard. It being a cultural thing or whatever, many sellers, not just Neal, have problems with that, problems that are enlarged because many of us can not imagine communication other than being simple. So we start our usual conspiracy thinking ( :weary: ) that we are being scr*wed or something.
In those same 8 years I developed a very laid-back approach to the chinese sellers, and found that every problem that I had was eventually solved to my satisfaction, despite the difficult communication.
If you want to take part in all the nice and cheap stuff that comes from Neal and other chinese sellers that lack our desired communication skills, have a little patience, stay polite, try again after a while, and eventually you will probably get your stuff. If you need your seller’s communication the way you like it, buy local and pay the price.
That’s true in theory. In reality everyone that deals with customers knows that a person that spends more is more valuable to try to keep around, than a person that spends less. You do the same effort, but with greater results possible. Just maths.
I think the average flashlight buyer on Neal’s webpage probably spends something closer to $50 than to $300, yes.
I’m hardly a Westerner, as I was born and live in Eastern Europe. I’ve been shopping online since the late 90s and I’ve never seen anyone so hard to reach as Neal. I also haven’t seen so many complaints from a single store/person.
“Buy local and pay the price” is not really an option when you want a highly specific product + when you live in a small country.
Plus, let’s get something straight here:
The seller offers a product plus service (shipping), states the conditions and requests payment. I agree on the conditions and send the payment. My part of the deal is complete. You think it’s OK for the seller to not honor his own part (that he set himself), just because he’s in China and “I shouldn’t expect much”? I don’t think so. And I will never pay my money to a person like this another time. If you want to do this, it’s completely fine by me. Just don’t tell another user it’s normal to spend $300 and not having his product shipped in a month, plus of course the lack of any answers from the seller.
i agree also 300 doller-euros is quite a lot to spend, and i would want a great service for this
id want some better shipping then normal air china, id want it in a week!
neal has got a lot of bad advertisment for this , and i hope he would come on the forum and explain thats happened or why his system is like it is
ive not in my time of buying stuff online from people/compnays had anything really bad happen to the extent for 300 euro+
ive sold things before on ebay and it go missing and had to pay myself for the items
also on ebayive bought things and they have gone missing and had a great service
ive also seen videos of china post and personally i think china post isnt the best postal service.and also ive seen the amount of post that goes into china post, there is actually 10000s of items per day and they get that all sorted . whilst steping on parcels and letters…… not thegreatest service, but thinking about the mount , its figures!
no one likes to loose money
if you bought it from aliexpress or banggod ,then claim on it!
ive just had to make a claim on aliexpress and the seller explained to me the situation…
In December i sent an email, facebook message and a message on here for a faulty order and heard nothing back.
The fella is a disgrace and I’m not the only one having the same problem, anyone promoting him is just as bad knowing that his customer service / after sales is shocking.
From what I understand from the outbreak of the “virus” in china that most businesses have been on an extended hiatus, my shipment from neal was sent and had been taken in by DHL I called DHL for current reasoning’s for the delay and THEY as in DHL international told me that due to the holiday’s and the outbreak of the “virus” that the china warehouse was essentially “abandoned” till at minimum the 15th of February and more than likely that date has been extended.
Reason I believe that is the case a few moba games I play and have a fairly engaging moderator and support informed us that due to the “virus” they haven’t been able to access their own offices and are making due from home. I assume IF a software company is barred from going to work I highly doubt any mail is moving forward at any speed.
Possibly that depends on the region. Yesterday I saw a message on a seller’s page that they couldn’t ship because they still were not allowed to travel to their office.
I’m hoping mine gets moving or updated properly from DHL as says “returned to sender” but more than likely its an automated message as it hasn’t moved since late January.
Rey, of Reylights, posted on social media yesterday that they are still stuck at their hometown, unable to get back to work/office. The handling of the Corona virus over there is a real problem for many. Besides, Neal has frequently delayed shipping orders to me for a variety of valid reasons, but yes, not always clear and forthcoming on the explanations
Just got married ,just had a baby , Chinese fire wall ,not speak English ,he’s been using these excuses for months & months & will probably keep doing so , but now he’s got another excuse COVID 19 ,wonder how long he’ll use that one for?
If he was going to sort his reliability out then I’m sure he would of done it by now , that seller should be avoided like the corona virus.
Edit , I forgot the usual Chinese New Year excuse .
NONE of these excuses are relevant,it’s just one excuse after another ,he takes the money he ships the goods ,all the above excuses doesn’t stop him doing that but all the above excuses seems to stop him communicating with customers when there is problems with items ,go figure!
Why some people keep making excuses for him is beyond me ,they’re obviously the people who hasn’t had problems & some are people with many horses in the race ,eg they’re connected some way like being involved in group buys involving him etc.
He has been ignoring his customers with problems way before he got married ,had a child & before any virus attack in China also before & after many Chinese New Years.
Excuses Excuses,step up neal before your business is ruined , your defenders can’t keep it up for much longer because they too are now starting to loose their credibility.
I have an $81 order in with Kaidomain, to ship DHL express, that they haven’t even verified. I also have over $70 worth with Neal, silence there too of course.
We can’t expect anything to ship under present conditions, the entire country is in a bad state and we are not going to get service, it would be ridiculous beyond imagination to believe any value amount is going to ship. The situation is epic, we will wait. There is no way it can be helped.
EVERY customer is worth the same, it cannot be known what that customers potential is. $15 today could be $5000 tomorrow. I have dealt with Neal for several years. I have even shipped TO Neal. He does what he can when he can and it’s always in his own time. He hustles, always trying to earn a buck wherever he can find it. He isn’t a “store”, he has relationships with multiple businesses and plays middle man to try to get us a deal and himself a dollar. Not at all easy, especially in todays crisis, but that’s what he does and now he has a family that depends on him hustling even more. Can you imagine how all this COVID-19 is impacting people over there that were barely making it already? Geesh…
I paid $ 312 (with coupon) for the new Lumintop BLF GT-90. Unfortunately, it was available only on the Neal’s store. Just today on Youtube, under a video by Matt Smith (who seems to be Neal’s spokesperson) Now AVAILABLE! BLFGT90, Acebeam W30 and FW21 - YouTube I read the following:
“UPDATE: First batch of the BLFGT90s is SOLD OUT. You can still place your order, but the next batch will not be completed manufacturing until approximately February 12th because of the Chinese holiday.”
Why isn’t Neal himself writing this update on his web store? Probably it is the manufacturer which is late but this doesn’t justify Neal’s total silence. It seems incredible to me such behavior after having pocketed the money. Considering the delays caused by the epidemic I will wait 1-2 weeks before opening a PP dispute.
I want to add a clarification: I don’t expect to receive the flashlight in a couple of weeks, I expect that within that time I will receive a communication from Neal perhaps saying when the light will be shipped or when it will be available again.
