Gearbest is not Best

I ordered 3 SK68 clones from Gearbest. Admittedly they were cheap, and not marked on the outside. When they arrived one worked, one just flickered, and one was DOA. When I contacted them they wanted me to take photos, and videos. How a photo would prove a malfunction or a DOA light is beyond me. After three emails I went to PayPall, and asked for a refund for two which came to $3.98. they refused, and I sent them the photos they asked for. I don’t know how to make a video. After a week I asked the status, but no reply.

I have now upgraded it to the nest level. I am now sure what the outcome will be, but it is strange to me that they would alienate a customer for $3.98. No more Gearbest for me at any price for any product.

Jerry

I ordered a 18650 laser from them. It barely had a visible beam with a fresh cell. Something was wrong. After a long fight they agreed to send me another. The second was messed up in the same exact way. I get the impression that they sell more defective items then other sellers.

I never got a problem when ordering from GB, maybe not yet :expressionless:

Paypal should take care of you

Just ordered from Gearbest yesterday, already shipped this morning. Haven’t had any DOA stuff from them yet.

it is what it is

Yeah, they soured my relationship with them over $1.33 after at least 100 successful orders, and even free stuff they sent me to review.

It’s almost like that friend who owes you 5 bucks and suddenly gets really weird about it. You value the friendship, and it’s not about the money, but the friend’s behavior is just too awful to ignore, and so you end the relationship. You see a really shady side of your friend and that’s it. Even if the friend pays you back (which GB did for me) it’s too late, because you can’t un-see the negative qualities you saw in them.

You had 1 bad order out of more than 100? IMO, that’s pretty good odds. When I order stuff from China, I figure it’s a crap-shoot. Most of the time it works out well, and I save quite a bit of money vs. buying local. The money I save more than pays for the few times it has gone wrong. If I had a 99% success rate, I’d be very happy.

All the Chinese e-sellers don’t have very good service. Some of that may be a language issue, but I think most of it is just because it’s such a low-margin high-volume business. If it goes wrong, I just eat the few dollars and leave them a bad review. Funny, but usually the bad review makes them suddenly want to give me a refund. But, by that time, it’s too late.

If it was $50 or more, I’d probably contact Paypal or my credit card and dispute the charges. But for $1.33, who cares? I agree that they should refund you, but if they don’t it’s not worth getting upset about.

I will not buy from gearbest. I will buy from fasttech, bought things from them a few times, no problems yet. Just ordered from banggood, let’s see how that goes.

There were a couple minor glitches along the way, but nothing I wasn’t able to work out. But yeah, I had pretty good luck with them overall. It’s a shame they had to do something shady, because I’m usually fairly patient and don’t mind dealing with the language / cultural barriers. But I knew I was having better than average luck with them. No worries, though, lots of sellers out there.