I’m writing this while I’m pissed off so sorry if anyone gets offended. I just cancelled two orders at Gearbest because the items (2 EE X6 Hosts) I ordered on 2-13-16 will not be restocked until 3-23-16 and the item (Ganzo Knife) I ordered on 2-28-16…they have no clue when it’ll be restocked. At first, they gave me a bs answer on the hosts, saying that they just got back from Chinese new year and they’ll start shipping items soon. However, I received a light from a Gearbest representative to review on 2-23-16 that only took 4 days to get here. When they want you to do something that benefits them they’ll break their necks trying to get it to you as fast as they can so you’ll write something good about them. Gearbest has a bad habit of not labeling their items out of stock. They will let you buy whatever you want and when the item doesn’t ship after about 5 days and you submit a ticket inquiring as to why, that’s when they tell you it’s out of stock. Then they will keep feeding you different dates as to when it will be in stock and as those dates pass…more tickets submitted…more lies received. I’ve spent $852.29 at Gearbest over the past year and I will never spend another dime there. They’ve fed me all the bs that I can stand. My recommendation is to avoid this company if you’re looking to get something in a timely manner. They ask you to do bs reviews on their products and lie for them in return for more free items for review. They are not a very reputable company and they have lost another customer. I’ve seen many threads in this forum about avoiding them and this is what I’m going to do and recommend to everyone else. I hope everyone else that does business with them will get the items they pay for in a timely manner and will not have the issues that many others have had.
Another thing that I noticed today, while browsing mtnelectronics, is that RMM has a new listing for Convoy L2 hosts. He also has a separate listing for scratched and dented hosts. It seems to me that some of the Chinese sellers are getting very lazy when it comes to product inventory and quality control. RMM shouldn’t have to have a listing for damaged hosts. I can understand damage from shipping but a lot of this is damage from the factory. My first Convoy L2 host had reflector damage, these hosts are not cheap and there’s no excuse for damaged products. I’ve never had a damaged flashlight or host when ordering from anywhere in the US. RMM’s host line up seems to be getting a little bigger every couple of months, hopefully he’ll start carrying the EE X6 host, lol. That’s enough whining for now, I just wanted to give my honest opinion of the way things are being handled by a few different companies out there.
I don’t disagree with you on any of those points. I personally avoid Gearbest at all cost and only do business with them on some of the special edition group buy lights here - things I can’t get anywhere else.
I also don’t disagree with you on Richard’s Convoy blow-out issues. Illumn had some blow-out Convoys for cheap not long ago, too. I bought some of them. They had all sorts of issues, from bad drivers to bad machining. I bought them cheap and fixed them so no big deal, but retailers shouldn’t have to blow out inventory to folks who can fix it because that costs them money, obviously. However, I think this issue has already been addressed here elsewhere in another thread. Convoy was in the middle of transitioning to another warehouse and other growing pains and has supposedly got their act together, or at least are working on it. There’s still no excuse, but supposedly the issues are being addressed and should not be repeated. I personally hope that’s true because I really like Convoy and hope to see them thrive in the future.
I cancelled my EE X6 Hosts yesterday too. Waiting time is unbelievable. Received my refund within 24hrs, so nothing much to complain exactly. On the other hand, I saw on EE website last month stated that they were on CNY holiday break till 22 Feb. Delay was inevitable, I am not going to blame either parties. Anyway, I already told GB rep to notify me when they are back in stock again.
As for Convoy… I doesn’t have much lucky with them recently. My M2 came in shiny anodizing, poor M1 machining, BD04 dent on tailcap, polishing stone stuck in clip, etc. What irk me most is that he refused to exchange my M1 and claimed that I have damaged it myself.
I will still continue to purchase from them since their isn’t much choices for mod/diy host.
I think China's business community is on par with how things were in the west in the 1950s-1970's*, consumer rights are nascent and still rudimentary, and a great deal of things come down to your relations with the vendor rather than legislature. For example I had issues with a Convoy L2 host that had defects, and while it did take me a fair amount of time to resolve the issues they were resolved in my favor eventually (it just required many, many emails and help from a forum member here). But if you are aware of the issues and can navigate the environment you can get some great deals. You just have to realize that you aren't dealing with western firms operating businesses in accordance with normal western business practices, and that cultural differences are involved which can make both parties perplexed as to the thoughts and motives of the other party. So in short, when a Chinese firm does something like this I half expect it to happen and factor it into my decision making process (i.e. "it's cheap as hell... but it may take a month or two to get here, and when it does it will likely need some work to make it 100%"). But if a American or European firm did this, it would be a strong deterrent to ordering from them again.
* Considering where China was in the 50's - 70's, where they are today is an astonishing accomplishment.
I really like Convoy products, I’m carrying a blue S2+ triple right now. I feel that they have the very best products for modding/building. I just can’t believe all of the issues with the L2 hosts here lately. I ordered mine from Banggood so it seems like it’s all across the board. I hope they get them fixed too…I ordered another one from Banggood 2 days ago and just happened to see that RMM had them listed for sale today. I’m wondering if the one I ordered is old stock and comes with the 17mm driver cavity or is new stock and comes with the 20mm? We’ll see.
I ordered 4x 30Q from banggood 6 weeks ago and yesterday they were still showing “ready to process”. Some may say “CNY”, but it’s almost a month passed! They can’t justify that. Also, I never received any email explaining why, this is no language barrier, they just don’t care about the customers as long as they’re making money.
Ironically, just recently I started a thread about how we were complaining too much towards chinese sellers, but in this case things are just ridiculous and the CNY excuse is getting old.
Very true Hank, but I think moving out of this phase is going to take China far less time than it took the west, in part because of direct sales to western consumers who will expect the same levels of service they get locally.
That sounds really weird, I’ve ordered 30Q:s from them three times during that time, and they have posted all of them as fast as everything else, even during CNY. Also very strange that you haven’t received any mails from them, they have always contacted me quite quickly when there is an issue, and the few times I’ve had to contact them over some issue, I think I have always received a reply within 24 hours. Have you tried contacting them about it? And have you checked so they haven’t ended up in your spambox? And if you use hotmail/msn, you have noone to blame but yourself.
“You don’t get what you don’t pay for.” - that’s my mantra.
None of us like the crappy service, poor communications, delays, and sometimes outright deceit we get from these sellers but we all love their prices. I expect little from them and my expectations are met. There’s no point in expecting more- it ain’t gonna happen. If you want better you’ll have to go elsewhere to get that and it will almost always cost more.
Truly sorry you had problems and thanks for letting us know of your experiences, but I will still buy from these sources when I feel the risks are acceptable and I’ll continue buying from better sources when I feel that is my best option.
Well, I kind of feel that we do get what we pay for, in a way. We go for the lowest price and typically, that means possible fake products, or possible defective product. I remember when our grandfathers swore at the poor quality coming out of Japan. For a long time, made in Japan was synonymous with Junk! I think it’s the same thing here.
I think that anyone here in the forums, who has high expectations, at this point, just hasn’t taken the time to research all of the issues before ordering. There’s enough threads here, rating different sellers, that it’s pretty plain what can and does happen.
I placed an order with Fasttech, just before the Chinese holiday. In the last week of February, I wrote them to find out about why my product had not shipped and was told that the Mfg. had start up problems after the holiday and they could not tell me for sure when the product would arrive. They did not volunteer the problem, I had to ask them. I told them to refund me immediately and they wanted to give me store credit, so I told them again, either refund me fully, or a pay-pal dispute would be lodged. They refunded within 24 hours. If they had not, I would have filed the dispute. I have never lost a PP dispute yet.
I think you have to take the initiative to contact these sellers, keep on them like a squeaky wheel and not to take anything but a full refund, if they balk at the request. Every time I have been firm in what I expect, sellers have refunded. Only one time did they not and that was with Dealextreme, who I never use any more.
Received my refund within 24hrs, so nothing much to complain exactly. On the other hand, I saw on EE website last month stated that they were on CNY holiday break till 22 Feb. Delay was inevitable, I am not going to blame either parties. Anyway, I already told GB rep to notify me when they are back in stock again.