Each SET of springs, pill and reflector came packaged in their own ziploc bags. This sounds all fine and dandy…. until you see the product in its packaging. The masters of illogical reasoning in their shipping department shipped all the hardware loosely in these ziploc bags, resulting in the pill and/or spring resting inside the reflective portion of the reflector… Genius…. Talk about scratch-city!
All 4 reflectors were badly scratched and beaten up. ONE SIMPLE task of separating the reflectors from other hardware, or simply protecting the reflective surface with additional packaging would have kept them in mint condition… and i wouldn’t be writing this complaint about Fasttech.
I explained my situation to Fasttech and of course they are not honoring any sort of free replacement and expect me to mail back the reflectors for warranty exchange… AT MY EXPENSE.
I feel robbed of 8 dollars, and all my P60 drop-in projects have to be put on hold until I can get my hands on replacements. Very disappointing to say the least. I, for one, will not be giving these guys anymore of my money until they send me free undamaged replacements, and i suggest to anyone reading this, to refrain from purchasing anymore reflector pill combos from Fasttech. You’ll likely end up with a scratched pile of junk, and ALOT of time wasted. The grief is not worth it….
I read about this problem some months ago, along with comments in their forums asking for the reflectors to be properly packaged.
In fairness, my last order contained a number of drop-in kits and none of mine were packed in the way you describe. All arrived intact and undamaged.
I'm sorry to hear that someone there can't be arsed to put his brain into gear when assembling this stuff but I would imagine it is not actually Fasttech staff packing the little kits themselves - rather their suppliers.
They should be checking this kind of thing though. You are right to be upset.
I always expected the return to have to go all the way to China with these types of vendors. I have been taken for refund/return runarounds with Chinese companies far too many times, resulting in a lot of grief and money lost (rather, stolen). I guess you could say I am very sensitive to it. For instance, I don’t really trust my return shipping to be refunded…
FastTech were a lot better when they were smaller and lesser known.
The reflectors are not fit for use now they are scratched. They qualify as defective on arrival so you need to state your case to the agent. They should cover return shipping if they insist you return the parts.
I have had this very thing happen with DX and Fast Tech. I immediately took images of the damage and e-mailed them. Both companies fixed the problem. I as well had Fast Tech send an incomplete order recently... they did make good on that as well. Took a month but a lot of that was mail time. _ _ it happens! Sure not fun. That incomplete order held up a lot of work!!
When FastTech was new, they were shipping that way until customers complained, then they started shipping with the springs/parts in a bag separate from the reflector to prevent damage. I ordered several previously that were all properly packaged. Apparently, they've reverted back to their old ways. Sad. I've referred several people to FastTech in the past, now I'm having to warn them to avoid FT, at least for the time being...
+1, you will find that with every one of these sellers. Once they get big, or the original people that started it up move on, the place gets sloppy and the longer they are around, the sloppier they get. Just look back on DX many years ago and KD, etc, etc. Fasttech had their 15 minutes and their moment in the sun, but after a while they will fall like the others.
I think they are at the crossroads and will inevitably sink down with the likes of DX.
We noticed they were slipping so now we mostly do small, simple orders with expedited shipping and that’s worked much better. The bigger these companies get, the more they get overwhelmed by larger orders. I order just a knife or two and I’m still getting decent service. Currently there are no Chinese sellers I trust enough to get me a large single order. Chopping those orders up definitely seems to help.
I believe you’re correct; my larger order (12 items) is extremely late, well over double the average and still not here. All my $10-20 orders (1-4 items) average out to be around 8 days.
The only reason to place a big order in the first place is to get the expedited shipping for free for a bunch of items at the same time. But it’s not expedited if it takes them 7-10 days to ship the order. The benefit of the free expedited shipping is completely negated. When Fasttech was fast it was awesome. Now that they are slow, there’s not much reason to place big orders. Also, as these companies struggle with their growth, every item you add to your order is another point of failure.
Sure not fun. That incomplete order held up a lot of work!!