NE1 knows AirAccent.com? (DX website clone)

airaccent.com

to be abbreviated on BLF as "AA" ;)

Sure looks like the same pics from the DX website. Info and shipping details look the same too (4 to 7 days) etc, etc.

Are those your new masters, kreisler ?

I've never heard of them before - possible parallel sales portal for another retailer ?

AA is great just awesome!! Forget DX and DD, this is the real thing!!! Manafont and Kaidomain my *$$!!

AA is new and really feels fantastic!!! Get your deal, get hooked! Sales promotion going on, just ask for kreisler coupon!!!!

What the hell is NE1?

Cheap slang for anyone probably.

i found them time ago when looking for aspherics:

http://www.airaccent.com/glass-optics-for-flashlights-28mm-p-59138.html

Never ordered tho.

they sell p1a too!

Its computer lingo for - anyone

i can say 1 thing from looking that i like the detailed descriptions of whats offered

DX sent me a 3xAAA EDI-T P4 when I ordered the 18650; I'm currently 'discussing' the mistake with customer service. I put in the request on the 8th, and they finally got back to me almost a week later. Whoever said you need 'patience' with these Chinese shops sure wasn't kidding... :-/

Anyway, I liked the P4 enough, 3xAAA or no. Reports of others getting a 3xAAA P4 abound, and they mostly seem to get refunds, not the proper 18650 light. Given the history of these P4s, with them vanishing off DX last year after EDI-T complained, then showing up again in the fall and all, I suspect that DX (or their supplier, most like) ran through their new batch and don't have any more 18650 P4s.


To actually bring this post onto topic, I did some searching and airaccent.com was also selling the P4s:

http://www.airaccent.com/edit-p4-cree-q3wc-3mode-180lumen-convex-lens-white-led-flashlight-black-1-x-18650-p-62261.html

I was leery since I'd never heard of them, and they weren't mentioned here at all. However, they're US$11.68, and they have some 1xAA (110mm x 26mm and 140mm x 26mm) Tank007 holsters for $2 and change each, so I picked up a couple P4s and a few holsters -- total order of about $30. I figured it'd be a cheap enough experiment, and there's always Paypal to fall back on if my money disappears into a black hole.

I ordered and paid on the 8th, on the 9th the order went into processing, and was shipped on the 13th. They didn't actually send mail when the latter two events happened, so I wasn't notified, and I only just checked in with the order today.

Shipping is apparently tracked, but wasn't sent via HK Post. Rather, it's via 4PX Express. Anyone heard of them before? Their tracking site is at http://en.4px.cc/Track.html but searching with the tracking number doesn't currently pull up anything.

Of course, the DX's HK Post tracking numbers don't pull up anything at HK Post's site for a few days, so once again with the patience. ;-)

I guess we'll see...

thanks for testing the site for us ;)

Welcome GreenShrike! Thanks for letting us know about your experience. Be sure to keep us updated!

-Garry

An update:

Well, the transaction sort of blew up. I know, I know -- who didn't see that coming, right? ;-)

4PX -- the shipper -- eventually had a listing for the package, a week after AA said it shipped. The entry is "Shipping information received", which to me means the AA sent 4PX word to expect a package. The date on 4PX's entry is the same date as AA's shipment date, so 4PX seemed to be very slow to update their tracking site. Not great. Even worse, with the package now on my desk, their site still has that single entry, so 4PX doesn't seem to bother with in-transit updates.

Shockingly, Canada Post actually scanned the package -- once anyway. I wasn't really expecting them to since 4PX is a private company, and the tracking number is 11 digits, not the usual letters+digits+letters tracking number from HKP etc.

So, the item 'shipped' on the 13th and arrived in Canada to be scanned 'at the postal facility' on the 29th. Customs is usually before this, but if customs even glanced at the package, they didn't scan it. It arrived on my desk on the 1st.

So, ordered on the 9th, shipped on the 13th, arrived on the 1st. Around 3 weeks on the nose -- fairly typical.

The contents of the package, however...

I ordered a total of 6 holsters of various makes, and 2 EDI-T flashlights. In the package I received 3 holsters -- that's it.

Geh.

I went back to AAs site to review the order -- no indications that I was sent only a partial shipment. And since 2 of the missing holsters were twins to ones I did receive, they would appear to have stock on those at least.

Mentally moving my Paypal Complaint Readiness State to DefCon 3, and noting the 45 day limit on my calendar, I immediately engaged their customer service yesterday afternoon via their site's webform, and settled in to wait for a week for a response.

Surprisingly, I woke up this morning to find an email from Paypal saying they'd already refunded the cost of the flashlights to my Paypal account, with a note from AA attached explaining that they were out of stock. AA also sent me email themselves, but as far as I can tell it simply contained the text of my complaint with no actual response from them.

My order screen on their site was updated to reflect the refund.

So it's all a bit of a wash. Very prompt customer service balanced against completely messing up an order and/or not letting me know about an out-of-stock condition. Fast-ish order processing times against using a non-standard shipper with crap tracking updates.

Since their service was 'meh' overall, I don't think I'd bother with them again. Most other common Chinese online shops have 'meh' service, too, but at least they're established and have known reputations, so I don't fear them vanishing overnight like I did/do AirAccent.

At the moment, I remain out 3 holsters or ~$5. I'll continue the dialogue and see what happens.

On the plus side, DX is apparently sending me a replacement EDI-T P4, and letting me keep the 3xAAA P4 they originally sent me (see my first post for details... ;-). This means I'll have a fairly neat ramping driver in a non-18650 capable body. I also have an SK68 on the way, with a simple single mode driver but a AA body, which I was planning on running with 14500s anyway...

Hmm.... I wonder exactly how rusty my soldering skills have gotten...

> airaccent

I stumbled over them a week ago in a web search. I had my doubts: they list three sipik clones with different specs; I emailed them for confirmation one is a 2-mode light.

Got confirmation, placed the order; tracking says "Shipping info received" 2/24.

I'll follow up at: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/6282#comment-131632

------------

I've also been getting lots of email spam from what appear to be various different Chinese "gadget" sites in the past week. I hope that's a coincidence -- but from the mention above that quite a few of these are fake fronts for the same operation, I have my suspicions. Should've used a forwarding address, I guess.

======

EDIT: package rec'd today. I'd ordered on 2/23 after exchanging email to verify this was really a 2-mode light:

http://www.airaccent.com/fx-sk68-3w-cree-q3-led-flashlight-1xaa14500-black-p-55036.html

It's not, it's a single-mode; checked with both regular AA and 14500 cells.

I'm shocked, shocked, to find out I was gambling with this purchase.

I'll let you know if they come through with what they said they're selling.

I didn't have my package delivered since 3 months i've been waiting and i asked for a refund. After 2 days of my refund demand i'm watching this site have been "down for maintenance"

is this correct? Is the same message for everyone or it is just for me?

I want to have an answer in this and if anyone else has ever taken a refund from these guys.

Yep, its down for me to.

Welcome the BLF, Just A buyer.