FastTech - Kept my money for a month and then "Oops, we don't have that"

Buy / Sell Budget Dealer Experiences
6

As I understand it (after having ordered from them for years), there’s no Fasttech Warehouse, but they collect the stuff from other 3rd-party suppliers, then bundle it up and mail it out. That’s why you can get everything from batteries to vapestoff to plant seeds to sex-stuff(!) to can-openers to quadcopters.

That’s also why something might show as “in stock” (relying on the 3rd-party’s word), and then the item’s a no-show.

Hey, I got an outstanding order that’s been split into 2: front glass and LEDs were sent and are still in transit, but the reflectors that go with the glass are still backordered for over a week already. Only thing that’d annoy me is if the reflectors get discontinued out from under me, but if I have to wait to get ’em and do, I can live with it.

A few months ago I wanted to get… I think it was an Oilight… and ordered it. “Backordered” for a while. Canceled it, got refunded. Tried again when it showed in-stock, again “backordered”. :person_facepalming: Raised a ticket, was told in essence that it’s not “in stock” until someone orders one, and then when they get it it’ll be sent to me. Kinda chicken-and-egg… Fooey, wasn’t that important to me so canceled it the second time and got that refunded no problem.

The reflectors I’ll wait for, a new light, nah.

Bottom line, if something’s backordered, they’ll contact the supplier and still try to get it. If they get it and then you get it, yay. If not, ie, if the supplier tells them no more, then FT will list it as discontinued and refund your bux.

And for the record, getting refunded by FT is more like getting refunded by Amazon than by GB, BG, or anyone else that hangs onto your bux ’til you practically sue them. A day or so tops, and the bux are back. Never ever ever had a problem with that.

Oh, side note (and why I still order from FT even today), if you ever get anything that’s DOA, unlike most other suppliers Over There, you’d mail back the item to somewhere in the CONUS (Florida, iirr), get a receipt from the PO when you send it, and they even refund that! It’s not like pretty much all other suppliers who say, “Okay, we’ll refund you… but first mail it back to us in China, fully tracked every step of the way (that’ll cost you 60bux for a 40buk item, haha!), and then if we get it we’ll refund you, else you’re SOL”. DOA laser-pointer? Didn’t cost me a penny. Mailed to Florida, fully refunded, even postage!

So I feel more at ease ordering from FT than any other supplier on the other side of the planet. Just sayin’…

Soooooo, yeah, if it drags out to a month, you could’ve canceled it earlier after only a few days (like my light), but if you really really wanted it to the point of waiting that long, then it’s just a situation of you waiting for FT, with FT waiting for their supplier. Sucks that they’re stuck in the middle, but they can’t control their supplier any more than you can control them.

7

The same tihing has happened to me several times, they have become an unreliable shop.

8

Oh, and they send you a picture(!) of your package with mailing label and so on. No issues with fake tracking numbers, claims that it was sent, etc. When you get your package, you can go back to your order and see its baby-pix right on the FT site.

Again, who else does that?

9

that’s true for the most part, but china is not behind in customer service level, in fact, china has better customer service levels in certain places that is unmatched by the west, like restaurants where theres more servers than customers, not even a high end restaurant, just a big chain hotpot restaurant, thats what they are known for, food is decent, but the service is top notch, you just gotta pay for it. so you clearly cant expect that out of a budget flashlight company or retailer. you cant have the best of both worlds.

10

Lightbringer :beer: for you. Seems we’ve been writing a message in the same time

I’ve never thought I might be an advocate of a Chinese store. But since we both seem to be experienced - yeah. we know quite well how it works.

People, don’t get angry. There’s just a price to pay for way cheaper products bought directly in China. But we all keep buying there, because at the end of the day, you still appreciate lower prices and their efforts to satisfy you.

But if you expect highest level of sales, you’d better contact your local dealer.

:beer:

11

Ooh, I like beer…

12

Well, I tried ordering 1 time from FT, they ended up not having the product and refunding me the money.

Second time I thought about ordering I asked first if they had what I wanted (because I suspected it was - AGAIN - old stuff that shouldn’t be in stock). After some days, I got an answer that didn’t have it in stock, that they would need to ask the manufacturer and check if there was stock or not.

So, I never thought about doing a 3rd attempt, nor will from now ON!

In any case, my suggestion - althought not ideal - would be to always ask if the item is in stock before ordering/paying!
I saves us some trouble then…specially when stores are like this…

13

Yeah, Fasttech is like that. This happened often to me but I still order from them time to time.

14

Banggood does this a lot. Sometimes they pretend they shipped the order, but won’t provide a tracking number, then, only after I contact them, they give me their new favorite lie “We really, really did ship it, but customs sent it back”

15

Had the same situation with hkequipment.
Flashlight was listed as avalaible, paid, than a few days processing and money back.
Of course I was circa 15$ short, because of currency conversion.
MIke

16

did they prove that customs sent it back? or how did u prove they didnt ship at all?

17

I’ve also gotten the “tracking shows it was delivered to United States customs ….”
Yeah, right.

18

Thats annoying for sure

19

Have you ever been to walmart, lowes, or home depot after looking a item up online that said 5 in stock at that location, only to find out they had none in stock when you get to the store. :person_facepalming:
Keeping up with stock seems to be low priority.
I have had similar experiences with several sellers from ebay to many sellers across the pond.
Places that seem to keep up with actual stock the best seems to be online sellers in my own country.
.
I have also expressed my disappoint to Fasttech about keeping up with their stock.
But its still happening, so nothing has changed.
I know its frustrating but at least you did get your money back, sometimes with other sellers that can be a real long drawn out task.

20

I don’t know about all that…. Banggood has always been good with customer service and I’ve spent thousands on them, my most recent order was shipped with an incorrect version/s of the items and CS shipped a replacement order without question upon me reporting it.

21

They made me ask 3 or 4 times to cancel a order that didn’t ship :weary:

22

i dont know man, i had a defective light, showed them a video of it, got a refund back right away. well as “right away” as they possible can considering the time zone and stuff, each reply took a day

23

They did this to me several times and there are plenty of other posts on here from people making the same complaint. Banggood claims it’s shipped, but never provides a tracking number, which I paid extras for, then they blame “customs”. I put customs in quotes because they never provide any details. Customs in what nation? Why did customs reject it? I don’t order batteries form Banggood, so they cant blame the batteries.

24

i ordered batteries from BG recently…if the tracking info is correct, its already here, released by customs, being processed by local post service

25

I’ve definitely had similar experiences with FastTech - long waits as the product is Restocking, and one time they also told me that the product was discontinued.
In my case however, they allowed me to substitute it for a similar item (which was even a bit more expensive). I was probably lucky that it was a pretty generic product.

Nevertheless, I feel like my customer service experiences with FastTech have been better than other Chinese e-commerce sites.
For example, while AliExpress constrains sellers to ship within a guaranteed window, some unscrupulous ones have supplied fake tracking numbers, delaying a refund until months later during a dispute.
And there have been countless stories here of Banggood marking a product as “shipped”…only to cancel/refund the order by some opaque reasoning.

At least with FastTech, they’re comparatively transparent about the state of your order (at least the part that’s under their control). Each item in the order has its own status, and because they always take a photo of the package before shipment, you can have more confidence that they’re not lying about the order being shipped to buy more time. Their business model (of contacting suppliers on demand) certainly has its failings, but the company itself hasn’t struck me as dishonest.