Neal's Gadget silence

30 days ago I placed an order on Neal’s Gadget website, I paid over $ 300 via PayPal and - apart from the order confirmation - I had no more news and my order still results unfulfilled. I wrote by the site, via email and on his Facebook page but to no avail. I even threatened to open a dispute on PayPal but without any response.
Does anyone know about this e-store? I would like to know if it’s just a matter of bad communication or there are more serious problems.

One issue is the poor communication (this is known problem with Neal’s Gadgets). Another issue may be the corona virus.

After the end of the Chinese feasts on February 14, all my orders were immediately shipped by every stores except Neal’s Gadget.

I have a much smaller order pending since the 8th or so, and got the same message you did. Based on a previous order last summer, I would expect it to ship in the next week or so. It is just how he operates some times, the virus is definitely slowing things down.

I had the same bad experience with him, had to file a paypal claim, I will not order or do business with him.

Deal Alert?

If someone intentionally posts a thread in the wrong sub-forum to get attention, I do not take them seriously.

If that's your goal, mission accomplished.

If it is worth saving money, and willing to deal with the stress I would buy from Neal. I personally had to file a paypal claim since he does not communicate at all. Your choice your money.

Good to know… :+1:

He is legit, but sometimes slow to respond not sure why… and now this with coronavirus over there i wouldnt buy stuff from china atm really…

I bought straight from lumintop, Viktor said he will post on Monday , things are slowly getting back to normal , a lot of people are working from home also , the country is on lock down and people are scared to go outside

There is light at the end of the tunnel

There are numerous threads on BLF about Neal. There are a few people that ferociously defend him - he’s very busy and has a newborn child, apparently that makes it OK to not ship paid stuff for weeks and not responding to people’s communication attempts at all.
I also had negative experience with this store. Won’t buy again.

If you have alternative stores for the products that you wanted, I’d fill a PP dispute and buy them from the others, if I were you.

An on the other hand there are a few crabby persons who jump to any occasion to slander him.
So statistically speaking there are a dozen people or so to the far right of the graph.
And there are a dozen people or so to the far left of the graph.

What about the majority of his clients, or does he only have the two dozen I mentioned before.
I bet the majority of his clients are at peace with him because they got what they payed for.
And they have no cause to mention that because that’s the way things should work.

There are discussions with other webshops I can tell you about. But why should I.
You want it yesterday? You know the expression: You want it 1/ good, 2/ cheap and 3/ fast?
Forget about that. Pick any combination of two.
But if you are patient and keep it polite, things will work out eventually. My record is 123 days :wink:

A few crabby persons, really? Have you seen the threads? I’ve never seen so many people on BLF complaining from the exact same store with very, very similar issues. Not to mention other platforms like Reddit.

And yeah I’m sure there are many happy customers. It’s just that the percentage of unhappy ones is unusually high with this store.

Thank you for the good/cheap/fast cliche. However, 1) there are many stores that offer all three and 2) we are not even talking about this.
We are talking about LACK OF COMMUNICATION and ANSWERS, something that the ferocious Neal defenders don’t seem to understand, despite it being a fairly simple concept.

And what is even more baffling to me is that Giancarlo ordered goods for 300 dollars ffs, this makes him far more valuable customer than the average who spends $50 or so, and still Neal doesn’t care. Amazing.

A customer is highly valued regardless of todays invoice net. Period, end of story.

Hm $300 is a bit steep. You think the average buyer spends about $50 a time?

I’m a thermodynamic/mechanical engineer who started his career designing powerplants. As time went by I gradually turned into a pencilpusher buying and selling energy. Where the margin per kWh is many zero’s after the decimal point and the total turnover is many, many, zero’s before the decimal point. And I slowly became someone who creates spreadsheets of almost everything. My current flashlight worksheet covers several hundred lines (1 line/1 buy).

Last time I payed more than $50 on this hobby was pretty much 2 years ago, on the BLF GT. Last time before that was 2 more years ago, on the BLF SE X6-SS / X5-Cu in a numbered box. Partially because (as a rule) I break up my buys in as many buys/parcels as possible.
I am an economic thinking creature, but our governments pick up the tab for the extra shipping. At least for now. Until those contracts end I divide my riscs over as many parcels as possible.

I agree that a 300 dollar order requires extra attention from the seller.

That said,

communication being simple is very much thinking from your very own perspective, I found over the last 8 years that for chinese vendors communication the way we “westerners” expect instead is very hard. It being a cultural thing or whatever, many sellers, not just Neal, have problems with that, problems that are enlarged because many of us can not imagine communication other than being simple. So we start our usual conspiracy thinking ( :weary: ) that we are being scr*wed or something.

In those same 8 years I developed a very laid-back approach to the chinese sellers, and found that every problem that I had was eventually solved to my satisfaction, despite the difficult communication.

If you want to take part in all the nice and cheap stuff that comes from Neal and other chinese sellers that lack our desired communication skills, have a little patience, stay polite, try again after a while, and eventually you will probably get your stuff. If you need your seller’s communication the way you like it, buy local and pay the price.

That’s true in theory. In reality everyone that deals with customers knows that a person that spends more is more valuable to try to keep around, than a person that spends less. You do the same effort, but with greater results possible. Just maths.

I think the average flashlight buyer on Neal’s webpage probably spends something closer to $50 than to $300, yes.

I’m hardly a Westerner, as I was born and live in Eastern Europe. I’ve been shopping online since the late 90s and I’ve never seen anyone so hard to reach as Neal. I also haven’t seen so many complaints from a single store/person.
“Buy local and pay the price” is not really an option when you want a highly specific product + when you live in a small country.
Plus, let’s get something straight here:
The seller offers a product plus service (shipping), states the conditions and requests payment. I agree on the conditions and send the payment. My part of the deal is complete. You think it’s OK for the seller to not honor his own part (that he set himself), just because he’s in China and “I shouldn’t expect much”? I don’t think so. And I will never pay my money to a person like this another time. If you want to do this, it’s completely fine by me. Just don’t tell another user it’s normal to spend $300 and not having his product shipped in a month, plus of course the lack of any answers from the seller.

everyone here has verygood information

i agree also 300 doller-euros is quite a lot to spend, and i would want a great service for this
id want some better shipping then normal air china, id want it in a week!

neal has got a lot of bad advertisment for this , and i hope he would come on the forum and explain thats happened or why his system is like it is

ive not in my time of buying stuff online from people/compnays had anything really bad happen to the extent for 300 euro+
ive sold things before on ebay and it go missing and had to pay myself for the items
also on ebayive bought things and they have gone missing and had a great service

ive also seen videos of china post and personally i think china post isnt the best postal service.and also ive seen the amount of post that goes into china post, there is actually 10000s of items per day and they get that all sorted . whilst steping on parcels and letters…… not thegreatest service, but thinking about the mount , its figures!

no one likes to loose money
if you bought it from aliexpress or banggod ,then claim on it!

ive just had to make a claim on aliexpress and the seller explained to me the situation…

i hope ou get some closure!

In December i sent an email, facebook message and a message on here for a faulty order and heard nothing back.

The fella is a disgrace and I’m not the only one having the same problem, anyone promoting him is just as bad knowing that his customer service / after sales is shocking.

From what I understand from the outbreak of the “virus” in china that most businesses have been on an extended hiatus, my shipment from neal was sent and had been taken in by DHL I called DHL for current reasoning’s for the delay and THEY as in DHL international told me that due to the holiday’s and the outbreak of the “virus” that the china warehouse was essentially “abandoned” till at minimum the 15th of February and more than likely that date has been extended.

Reason I believe that is the case a few moba games I play and have a fairly engaging moderator and support informed us that due to the “virus” they haven’t been able to access their own offices and are making due from home. I assume IF a software company is barred from going to work I highly doubt any mail is moving forward at any speed.