Rating: GearBest.com [AVOID]

Wow, sorry Sirius9.

:~ If your going to do a giveaway it would be good to hold the prizes aside.

It was mostly simple things like minor tweaks to my review, title, text link, picture link. Quick changes no problem. They wanted me to advertise their event in my review which I declined and they said that was fine…

Then they wanted me to make that Nitecore event deal alert, which I did.

Strung me along for a week or two and got the ‘just kidding, no light’ email.

Normally I’d be fine with all that was requested as long as they were truthful up front.

It’s not hidden. I’m not a fan of it, but it is a unique service that might be valuable for someone else who might miss the option. I’ve seen other online vendors add a whole new item, so it isn’t even uncommon any more.

Not related to the post above I’ve had members send unsolicited messages when they’ve seen something I posted that triggered a comment from them. It’s part of being a member of an online community. I can’t understand being offended by an offer of a free light to review - or an exchange that is based on a response to a message.

Its that some companies aren’t looking for honest reviews as much as looking for advertising shill. Unsolicited messages from a good company is ok.
Haven’t dealt directly with Gearbest.

Dear Racer,
Thank you for taking your time to write your review!I want to start a personal apology to you,please understand that we are more than willing to assist any customer. That is why we are here to help. Please feel free to contact us or chat with us online. Our customer service will be 24/7.
GearBest.com is trying our best to make every customer happy.
karen

Dear Sirius9,
We are truly sorry for the problems with this order,
The order was shipped out for you.
,this is the tracking number,
Usually the tracking information online with two days delay ,please track that later .
Any question,please contact me freely .
Looking forward to hearing from you .
Yours sincerely,
karen

For Gearbest, as of now, time to ship also seem to be very long. My order on 11 April is still processing - it’s 10 days now.

Unable to ship one item out in that timeframe is not a very good score. Normally other vendors will at least send some message to inform of any problems.

I’ll add this item to the list as well. Just to confirm: the item was listed as “in stock” when you ordered it?

Yup. Shipping availability quoted below. I'm not trying to bash GB here, but surely they can improve this.

Thanks! OP updated.

OK, I am ready to receive SK98 bundle pack :slight_smile:

Took a total of 10 days from order to delivery. Ordered on the 11th and shipped on the 15th.
Jacob A60 and with a i2 and a cable for my phone came out to $22 shipped including the $2 tracking that I paid for.

From Shenzhen to Hong Kong? 10 days J)

They contacted me via Youtube to do a review of a bike light. Unfortunately I had to turn them down. I have never ordered anything from them though. Just adding to the conversation here….

Sunny southern CA :bigsmile:

I was also asked to review a flashlight with an offer to review more if my review went well. After I accepted, I was sent links and asked to post other items they had on sale. We had several good detailed conversations (which surprised me). I explained the concept of shilling and that only people without ethics and a shaky reputation would even consider it. (Yes, we all know who you are.) I also mentioned how tacky referral links are, and how far too many shameless members post links in hopes of earning a few cents on a product that they know nothing about… or worse, one thats junk or overpriced. Hopefully this will be addressed soon because I believe it reflects poorly on BLF and the grubs that are willing to do anything to earn a few dollars. REAL TAAAACKY and makes BLF look like a Chinese fish market packed full of lowlife shills. :Sp

Pending my review, I also tested their system by purchasing an item to gauge vendor performance… with a hidden surprise “simulation” they will not be aware of until I spring it on them. Can you tell I hate shills and vendors that rip off others? Haha! No worries… they will read this here and still not be able to connect this account to my purchase account. :wink: Call it a “blind case study”.

Being new, Gearbest is going through growing pains while learning the ropes of a new vendor and the proper ethics of conducting business. If members continue to receive unsolicited messages from them to post untested products, lets hear about it here. Id like to think they have learned their marketing lessons. If not, I wasted a lot of my time in explaining to them. My communications have been outstanding with them and I received satisfying articulate replies within 24 hrs. Lets hope they will continue to grow and fill the void where so many others had a good start and fell flat on their faces as they grew. Fingers crossed! :smiley:

They approached me as well I guess after seeing the Sunwayman D40A deal I posted that banggood had. Sadly, after chatting with them, they were giving me prices and coupons on lots of different flashlights, and while adding that stuff to the cart and seeing the final price after the coupon, it was in no way the lowest price. Fasttech has lower prices on those same items, without a coupon! I'm sorry, but if they are not going to give the lowest prices available, it's not worth posting about.

All the shills aren’t a great way to be publicized so I’d say they’re off to a rough start as far as ethics are concerned.

If Gearbest does turn out great, I also hope that they are able to stay that way for a while.

My first $0.10 survival tool arrived in 4 weeks and the second in 2.5 weeks.

Not too bad, but the quality of the card tools were pretty shabby that I wouldn’t spend more than what I did on each.

Earlier in the thread, racoon city shared a PM asking him to post an offer on slickdeals.net in exchange for compensation. Earlier today, I saw someone else do exactly that type of post. Now here’s the twist: at least in the USA it’s illegal not to fully disclose that you are being compensated for something. I’m not sure where this site is hosted and whether the owner has filed for safe harbor status or if that even applies in this case, but situations like this could potentially cause legal trouble for the site owner if he is aware that users are doing that and does not act. And how reliable can someone’s recommendation be when they are being secretly compensated for making that recommendation?

tl;dr version: fail @ trust building.