Worth starting a PayPal dispute with GearBest?

A little while back, GearBest was having a “free gift” promotion, where they had a light plus a Xiaomi backpack for $36.

When my order arrived a month later, instead of the backpack, there was some sort of other case from another manufacturer.

GearBest refused to ship the correct item or give me a partial refund, since they insisted that I didn’t pay anything for the “free gift.” After over a week of arguing, the best they will offer is 300 store points ($6 according to them).

The way I interpret the original offer was that GearBest made an invitation to treat for the two items for one price, which was then accepted by both of us when I paid them and they accepted my payment. Thus by refusing to ship the item I payed for, they are in breach of contract and possibly committing mail fraud (since the package’s final delivery was by USPS).

So, I am pretty sure that PayPal would side with me if I opened up a dispute. But, is it worth possibly getting blacklisted from the site, considering that BLF codes and lights are usually from GearBest?

A few weeks ago, I got an email from them advertising 10% off sitewide, I put in an order, and the discount was rejected as having reached its limit. Huh? What limit? 1 per customer? Ordered the goodies anyway, but opened a ticket questioning that, was told there was a limit of 1500 discounts worldwide, and it “expired”. Huh? Still had the email, and webpage it pointed to, and there was NO mention of any limit, expiration (other than the date, which was days away), exclusion, nothing. They offered me something like 50¢ in GB points.

50¢? Wellp, I reckon now Maw could get that opuration…

Had a dispute over parts that I never got, but they insisted were delivered. Umm, exact address, delivered to a company, receptionist would even sign for any packages, and guess what? Nothing. First they wanted to split the difference and I’d pay half (to reorder parts I might not get again??), all kinds of wacky deals, ’til I just said I’d dispute the amount and let them deal with all the finger-pointing (carrier 1, carrier 2, mailman, whatever), and then they refunded me the full amount.

So, point being, they at least tried to make good on the first dealy, even if they fell woefully short, and they did come through in full on the second dealy, even though it was like trying to get someone to donate a kidney. Haven’t been blacklisted, and I still order goodies from them (2-3 orders since).

You’d have to read the offer again, but put yourself in the other guy’s place, and see if that interpretation is reasonable, or if they’re just being jerks.

If you really think they’re being jerks about it, pulling a bait’n’switch, whatever, then yeah, open up a dispute. If you think, nah, maybe they are trying to make good, but I’m being a stickler, they you might just eat it.

Thing is, it takes a while to sink in, but you really do gotta learn the Chinese business-model. That includes doing things like the above. Hidden super-secret exclusions and limits that aren’t mentioned anywhere, throwing in something that fits the “a bag is a bag is a bag” idea and thinking you fulfilled your part, etc. Ie, they ain’t Amazon, and there’s no a-to-z guarantee for anything.

If your intent to purchase was to get that particular backpack bundled with the light then you should have no problems with Paypal siding with you.
It’s false advertising… Otherwise other retailers could show a picture of a Gucci bag, but they give you a brown lunch paper bag instead!

I don’t think they’ll black list you from the site. I’ve raised a paypal dispute with regards to a Xiaomi Yi camera about 5months ago and it was pretty heated.

However, I recently bought some IMR batteries from GB and the transaction and delivery went through just fine so I don’t think they want to lose business either. Though YMMV.

Wrt the Xiaomi Yi camera, I paid for it but they still haven’t sent it after 80days. They actually had no stock but still allowed the transaction to go through. Even after 80 days they still didn’t even re-stock.

Worse comes to worse and they don’t serve your account, just set up another one in a relation’s name!

Hey mate try messaging the rep on here. They can usually help.

Definitely don’t get taken advantage of. Not only is it bad for you, but it teaches them to do it to the next guy. That’s where that 50 cent offer comes from. Someone before you took the 50 cent token offer to just move on. Don’t let our world work like that.

I have my fair share of issues with GearBest’s customer service. Had one order that I pressume missing after a month’s wait. Contact them and was told it will only expire after 60 days from the date it was shipped. Wait another month, and contacted them again.

Given an option to either refund or re-ship. Choose re-ship option. Let’s hope it’s coming to me this time round.

What makes me mad is that the package is untraceable (they don’t use conventional post) and when I request for a contact of their postal service, they can’t give me anything at all.

It’s understandable that it’s not their fault, but still it’s their vendor obviously. Not to mention the CS can’t help much.

I’m switching over to Banggood nowadays.

File your Paypal dispute, this is what the protection is about, and Gearbest is as shady as they come.

I’m assuming this is for me?

Total discount would’ve been 2-3bux total. Forget the “conversion rate” between GB points and USD (2:1?), so was assuming 100pts == 50¢.

Just letting people know about it would have the effect of “waking up” others, to be vigilant and to learn to question things like that. Rather than shrug it off, they’d go, open up a ticket, and make Betsy or Lacey or Maven reply to the tickets. There comes a point where it’d cost GB more to have these tickets “dealt with” than just make good on the offers.

Even snarky comments like, “Pffft, yeah, another ‘sale’ like last time, when they rejected the discount code at checkout. I ain’t falling for that one again…”, could make people think, maybe even make people buy from someone else instead.

Hey, Thorfire got a little bit of a black eye offering a VG10 for 8bux, which then went to 10bux. And that’s not considering the screwups in the codes that had them “discounted” from 90bux to “only” 45!

Companies act, and what they do can make or break their reputations. Enough bad stories, and people will avoid them and buy elsewhere, and they’ll start losing business. Enough good stories, and they make it back, but trust is hard to rebuild once broken. Good to bad can happen fast, but bad to good can take forever, if it ever happens at all.

That’s one thing a lot of “overseas” companies have no clue about, sad to say.

I did it once against gearbest. PayPal found in my favor.

Yeah, I think I’ll give GearBest one more shot with a PM to their rep before I start a PayPal dispute.

Yes, send a PM to their rep. It was quite some time ago, but that lady took good care of me. Even though I was not able to fulfill my end of the deal. Because she also realises that you are one of the of 20,000+ members of this forum.
And NO, I’m not payed to write this. I only lie on demand when someone offers me (a big bar of) chocolate. Yum.

Contact them here (users Gearbest AMD GearbestCS) and it will be sorted out, this is a grey thing IMHO and not worth a dispute, PayPal is not happy with too many of those so I’d only do that in very clear cases.

I’ve found gearbest to be very reasonable when something goes wrong, and most times I get a full refund once you have jumped through a couple of hoops. Personally I wouldn’t go down the path of a PayPal dispute over a small amount. These Chinese companies save us a fortune ( where would we be without group buys and codes?). They also use some marketing techniques that we don’t use in the West, but we’re way ahead over all. If they go under, we lose too. Personally, I wouldn’t have this hobby if I couldn’t order out of China. I’ve lost out on only a couple of 100 orders. I cried all the way to my banking app. :slight_smile:

But But dogs can not eat chocolate :stuck_out_tongue:

Same thing happened to me. I too ended up foregoing the 10% discount and just ordered some stuff.

Not worth getting my knickers in a twist, but I will remember.

Hello FT and AE and BG.

Yeah +1
And I have been really mad at Gearbest at tines
But staying calm and Juno through the hoops and all got resolved in the end.

I don’t expect much when ordering direct from China so I’m almost never much disappointed :stuck_out_tongue: Whether to open a PP dispute or not is your call, not mine. GB willingly chose to allow the use of the PP system so they have no real complaint if it costs them when they do something wrong.

Nothing is easy in this world, and if it is there;s usually trouble at the end of that path :open_mouth:

Phil

+1

So I make the ultimate sacrifice: I eat all the chocolate myself :smiling_imp:

Anybody still waiting on anything GB sent “Netherland surface mail” from the first or second week of December whose tracking trail ‘ends’ as it supposedly enters the U.S.?