Rating: GearBest.com [AVOID]

[hank]

it’s extremely unethical for a company to bribe (what GearBest calls a “big gift”) people to only post positive reviews and tell them to lie about their reviews being unsolicited by the merchant.

That’s what personally ticked me off. A direct personal invitation to help them lie to potential customers and be rewarded for doing it.

I responded directly and pointed out they’re offering to compensate me for doing something that’s not only unethical but illegal where I live.
And they certainly know where I live.
No reply.

The FTC revised its Endorsement Guides in October 2009 to keep them up-to-date with current marketing techniques, such as blogging and word-of-mouth advertising. The Guides point out that marketers using these new techniques are subject to the same truthful advertising laws that other forms of advertising always have been. That means, among other things, that marketers who are compensated to promote or review a product should disclose it.

Advertisement Endorsements

It makes me wonder if there are other online forums/discussions/communities-of-interest where GB also promotes themselves.
Is there a drone-copter forum? A slinky-nightgown forum? An android-phone forum? Are they doing this same sort of marketing elsewhere?

Yeah, there are good people there doing good cooperative work with folks here.

It’s someone in marketing or purchasing who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, allowing the fakery to thrive.

Example from the above-linked FTC page:

September 2, 2015

A California-based online entertainment network has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it engaged in deceptive advertising by paying “influencers” to post YouTube videos endorsing Microsoft’s Xbox One system and several games. The influencers paid by Machinima, Inc., failed to adequately disclose that they were being paid for their seemingly objective opinions, the FTC charged.
Under the proposed settlement, Machinima is prohibited from similar deceptive conduct in the future, and the company is required to ensure its influencers clearly disclose when they have been compensated in exchange for their endorsements.
“When people see a product touted online, they have a right to know whether they’re looking at an authentic opinion or a paid marketing pitch,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. “That’s true whether the endorsement appears in a video or any other media.”

[pilotdog68]

@can

Yeah, 2 for 1 sale
Complain you did not recieve flashlight, then get another one shipped out now you got 2 for the price of one.

And they say Gearbest are the unethical ones….

[eebowler]

my only experience with gearbest hasn’t been best. Items were paid for with my PayPal info but the stainless steel blf lights I ordered were sent to a friends sky box address. Gearbest decided it was best to put my name together with my friends skybox address to ship the package. lol

[bugsy36]

Online buying and selling practices are always undergoing a constant evolution. In most cases we deal with a third party that we have no contact with, nor any true basis to say good or bad - the shipper. We order, we pay, then we pray that the shipper fulfills their end of the bargain...and then hope that customs does not choose to single out our package or shipment container.

These problems are not all Gearbest, and we as buyers have to share some responsibility for some of the problem. For example, over $40 gets us free tracking. Under $40 costs $2. I too have almost lost two packages over the last two years. Both sub $15 and no tracking. One showed 100+ days later but Gearbest did issue a credit. The second is at 90 days now...again, I received the credit. I lost a few on point but so what.

What gets me is that many love to lavish in the phenomenal deals but when $5 goes south all hell breaks loose. I think some people need to weigh things out and look at the true score. I honestly do not think that Gearbest has the margins that many believe and thus the "wheeling and dealing" of 50% credits, or added money etc. A couple bucks here and there is nothing compared to the total savings we all enjoy. OTH if one wants to avoid worry then they should spend $2 on tracking. If that is too much then maybe they should not be buying the product anyway. I buy many things for pennies to a couple dollars that if they show - great and if not - the cost is still less than a hamburger.

Also as already mentioned there are some people that will complain complain and complain just to get free stuff and then use this forum as their hammer WHICH IS COMPLETELY WRONG. Those are easily spotted.

Gearbest obviously does have some issues to work out but one thing they may want to consider is lowering their free tracking threshold and bumping the product pricing appropriately or make the purchase of tracking mandatory. I do not believe that what they do is intentional deceit.

I do not have problems with any of our online vendors...Gearbest included

[sb56637]

I’ve personally bought a lot of products from a lot of different Chinese vendors, including GearBest. In my personal experience, I’ve had quite a few good transactions with GearBest, and two that went south. But I’ve also had a lot of bad experiences with other vendors too. So why is GearBest now labeled as AVOID if many other vendors also have a bad record of faulty products and slow shipments? Above all, it’s due to the following points in this rating thread:

• Multiple reports of offering bribes for positive reviews
• Negative product reviews often not published
• On at least one occasion GearBest customer service told a user to delete a negative comment in order to receive a refund.
• Frequently incorrect stock status of items, often sells unavailable items and accepts payment without notifying customer

I don’t mind waiting for a slow shipment, and I’m often thrilled with the quality:price ratio of lots of Chinese products. I can even understand that the whole international trade ecosystem lends itself to chaos and disorganization. There’s a lot of factors out of their control. But what IS under their control is honesty, and I can not and will not accept a vendor that has developed a consistent track record of greed and deceit.

Hopefully they’ll change for the better, and of course I’m not in a position to tell anybody here where they can or can’t buy. But our Chinese vendor rating threads are ranked very high on Google (as evidenced by the number of one-off posters that come here just to vent a bad experience with a given vendor) and I can not in good conscience give a GearBest recommendation of anything higher than AVOID at this point.

[sb56637]

Hi everyone, please feel free to discuss GearBest, but there’s no need to lash out at other BLF members.

[Ormbett]

•Negative product reviews often not published
•Frequently incorrect stock status of items, often sells unavailable items and accepts payment without notifying customer

Doesnt these two points apply to nearly all sellers we buy from? :bigsmile:

[sb56637]

@Ormbett

•Negative product reviews often not published
•Frequently incorrect stock status of items, often sells unavailable items and accepts payment without notifying customer

Doesnt these two points apply to nearly all sellers we buy from? :bigsmile:

Of course all of the vendors make mistakes, but I have not received reports about other vendors not publishing negative reviews, and other vendors usually contact buyers when an item is not available, instead of sitting on the buyer’s money indefinitely.

[Ronin42]

@sb56637

I’ve personally bought a lot of products from a lot of different Chinese vendors, including GearBest. In my personal experience, I’ve had quite a few good transactions with GearBest, and two that went south. But I’ve also had a lot of bad experiences with other vendors too. So why is GearBest now labeled as AVOID if many other vendors also have a bad record of faulty products and slow shipments? Above all, it’s due to the following points in this rating thread:

• Multiple reports of offering bribes for positive reviews
• Negative product reviews often not published
• On at least one occasion GearBest customer service told a user to delete a negative comment in order to receive a refund.
• Frequently incorrect stock status of items, often sells unavailable items and accepts payment without notifying customer

I don’t mind waiting for a slow shipment, and I’m often thrilled with the quality:price ratio of lots of Chinese products. I can even understand that the whole international trade ecosystem lends itself to chaos and disorganization. There’s a lot of factors out of their control. But what IS under their control is honesty, and I can not and will not accept a vendor that has developed a consistent track record of greed and deceit.

Hopefully they’ll change for the better, and of course I’m not in a position to tell anybody here where they can or can’t buy. But our Chinese vendor rating threads are ranked very high on Google (as evidenced by the number of one-off posters that come here just to vent a bad experience with a given vendor) and I can not in good conscience give a GearBest recommendation of anything higher than AVOID at this point.

sb56637, you have been and are a paragon of virtue and fairness. I have no issue about warning folks off from GB (never trusted them enough to buy from them in the first place) but I did notice that one of the reasons you sighted was greed. Please correct me if I am wrong but with more than some experience in business, early on I came to the conclusion that ALL for profit business are in business to maximize money(profit), there is no such thing in business as too much profit, so by definition they never have “enough”. Which I think is a pretty good definition of greed.

If all businesses are greedy by definition, then I find it inconsistent to single one of them out.

So I agree with your conclusion.

Consider that Tigers kill (because that is what they do) when put in proper context and we don’t punish them for being killers. Businesses seek unlimited amounts of profit (to varying degrees of competence and success) but taken in context I don’t think greed is the nuanced way to think of it.

People can be greedy (because that is not what our core purpose is) people are greedy out of fear of lack. If we found that we all lived in the garden of Eden and would never run out. (Poof) greed would be counter productive, (why carry the burden of cans of air around to breath) when you can just breath air anytime you want.

Thank you for allowing me to rant, no specific request is made.

[brad]

@gearbest

We are very sorry and sad to see BLF admin has rated GB the “Avoid” rating. GB wishes to announce that we have been intensively trying to improve our services, as you may see a number of our customers also are starting to receive their orders faster than before. Those that are in transit and are already very late to arrive, how we wish we can still make it faster. Please be assured that we are currently doing our best to improve our services and hopefully regain your trust. Again, we are really sorry, and hopefully give us more another chance.

11/18/2015 Today’s pull quote

Please be assured that we are currently doing our best to improve our services and hopefully regain your trust.

Look at the date of your own thread that you had to start back in 2014 to try to quell the complaints, this is 15 months later and nothing has improved, it is even worse.
8/12/2014

[antiparanoico]

@Tom E

I’ve been critical, but I still buy and, sometimes, recommend GearBest. I hope this banning is temporary, …

My shipments/deliveries have been pretty decent with them. … … This about the same as all the other vendors, at least for me.

+1
In my case about 30 orders and lost just 1 which was refunded by Karen action, via PM.

[sb56637]

@Ronin42

I did notice that one of the reasons you sighted was greed. Please correct me if I am wrong but with more than some experience in business, early on I came to the conclusion that ALL for profit business are in business to maximize money(profit), there is no such thing in business as too much profit, so by definition they never have “enough”. Which I think is a pretty good definition of greed.

Point taken. They’re definitely not philanthropic organizations, that’s for sure.

[Ormbett]

@Skytrooper

If an Aliexpress vendor doesn’t ship an order within a few days, and the customer doesn’t authorize a further delay, the order is automatically cancelled and the money promptly refunded.

Yes, that is a nice feature. The amount of days for processing and shipping varies alot between Aliexpress vendors though.

[Muto]

Paying for tracking and then the tracking seldom works, that is what is upsetting.
Have had many tracked shipments show up on my doorstep without having ever come up on 17track, USPS, Fedex, etc.
So what good did my extra fee buy me? Nothing.
Tracking does not “magically” make a package move any faster or more reliable.

Totally agree with another member that the Onus is on the Seller to prove that they did, in fact, deliver a product, not on the buyer.
Try telling Ebay/Paypal that you delivered something that the customer says was not received and you shipped it without proof of delivery.
They will refund that customer and charge you back the cost of the item, plus the seller fees in a heartbeat and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

That is the real reason Aliexpress does not accept Paypal, they won’t be held to the standards demanded by Paypal.

It would just be nice if when ANY of these China websites are out of stock on an item, that they say that or reflect that on the order page.
I will go ahead and order something on back order if it is a good deal and do not need it in a certain time frame, but I need to be made aware of that Before placing the order, not 3-4 weeks later.

Gearbest has delivered 95% of what has been ordered over the past year by me personally, still waiting on the $3 Xtar MC1 chargers after 55 days, they have until next Monday till that one hits the dispute stage. And the infamous Olight S15R, still haven’t seen it yet but confident it will appear.

I understand things are out of any vendors control once it leaves their hands, but the Honesty BEFORE THE SALE is always in their control.
That is what they need to work on.

As far as those rating sites, never looked at one and probably never will. Most of the glowing positive feedback on Amazon is fake, just a fact of life.
I don’t need “Angies list” to help me find a plumber and don’t need these bogus rating sites to help me chose/trust a flashlight vendor.

Anyway, that’s how I see it from my front porch, your view may differ
Later,
Keith

[hank]

I should note that covertly paying people to plant positive stories (I call it “sock puppet advertising”) is deprecated by the Federal Trade Commission, which is an agency of the United States government.

I can’t tell whether a company outside the US doing this risks any legal problem. I’m not a lawyer. Thank God, I’m not a lawyer.
That is I have no idea if receiving covert payments is a violation of the FTC rule. Making the payments violates the rule.

I don’t know what, if any, other countries restrict paid sock-puppet advertising.

[Rafter1]

Placed an order for 3 ea GBGB: BLF-348 using code GB348CM.
The price in the cart showed $6.69 ea, so I placed the order.

When I got the paypal confirmation, I had been billed at $9.90 ea.

I emailed them, but did not receive a reply.

Soo, NO MORE!

[EricE]

@can

@MountainKing

$0.1 flash sale sk68 clone: Never arrived
$3 flash sale charger MC1: Never arrived

I seriously never bothered starting a paypal claim for the absurdity of these petty amounts. I keep my claims for more important amounts or when I am seriously pissed off (even for $1 then) I am sure other people got ripped off. Do not worry though. For every dollar they ripped me off, they paid it Hehe!

Yeah, 2 for 1 sale
Complain you did not recieve flashlight, then get another one shipped out now you got 2 for the price of one.

+1

@pilotdog68

@can

Yeah, 2 for 1 sale
Complain you did not recieve flashlight, then get another one shipped out now you got 2 for the price of one.

And they say Gearbest are the unethical ones….

+1

@Pregulla

So far my experience with GB was reasonable. I didn’t have any problem with my orders that was not solved via CS,

Their CS may be slow at times but eventually they get the issues solved, at least in my cases.

+1

@kuoh

I don’t know what the problem is for others, but so far I have gotten all of my orders,

KuoH

+1

@can

I have not read the whole thread.
But a few pros are :

- Currently offers probably the best and most frequent deals and promotions on BLF

- Probably the top or second most used seller for BLF members

• Good and frequent communication on BLF forum

I really like gearbest and they have not paid me anything to say this. And I do agree some have had multiple problems, but I have not.

- Some bangood affiliate linkers have said negative things about gearbest.

- Some people are just negative on a daily basis with a black cloud following them, and these individuals have made many many negative posts regarding this, probably 20 or 50 or more from one person??? maybe they are just really negative or maybe they are getting paid to say negative stuff?

• gearbest clearly does a LOT of volume with BLF members and this will result in more bad experiences reported, -it is just math

+1

@Tom E

I’ve been critical, but I still buy and, sometimes, recommend GearBest. I hope this banning is temporary, and can be lifted if GearBest can show progress. Again, all I want to see is a pattern of improvement, and there are some things they are improving on, as noted by corrections made to listings above. Of course there’s a lot more issues goin on. For example, if I ever can find a 3 star review that we would deem negative actually posted, that would be a 180 degree turn-around for sure.

My shipments/deliveries have been pretty decent with them. I have a history of 44 orders from them, maybe 1 or 2 that didn’t arrive, and no long delays in shipping. This about the same as all the other vendors, at least for me.

+1

@bugsy36

Online buying and selling practices are always undergoing a constant evolution. In most cases we deal with a third party that we have no contact with, nor any true basis to say good or bad - the shipper. We order, we pay, then we pray that the shipper fulfills their end of the bargain…and then hope that customs does not choose to single out our package or shipment container.

These problems are not all Gearbest, and we as buyers have to share some responsibility for some of the problem. For example, over $40 gets us free tracking. Under $40 costs $2. I too have almost lost two packages over the last two years. Both sub $15 and no tracking. One showed 100+ days later but Gearbest did issue a credit. The second is at 90 days now…again, I received the credit. I lost a few on point but so what.

What gets me is that many love to lavish in the phenomenal deals but when $5 goes south all hell breaks loose. I think some people need to weigh things out and look at the true score. I honestly do not think that Gearbest has the margins that many believe and thus the “wheeling and dealing” of 50% credits, or added money etc. A couple bucks here and there is nothing compared to the total savings we all enjoy. OTH if one wants to avoid worry then they should spend $2 on tracking. If that is too much then maybe they should not be buying the product anyway. I buy many things for pennies to a couple dollars that if they show - great and if not - the cost is still less than a hamburger.

Also as already mentioned there are some people that will complain complain and complain just to get free stuff and then use this forum as their hammer WHICH IS COMPLETELY WRONG. Those are easily spotted.

Gearbest obviously does have some issues to work out but one thing they may want to consider is lowering their free tracking threshold and bumping the product pricing appropriately or make the purchase of tracking mandatory. I do not believe that what they do is intentional deceit.

I do not have problems with any of our online vendors…Gearbest included

+1

I also do not have problems with any of our online vendors.

[FlashPilot]

LETS ALL BAN PURCHASING FROM GEARBEST! (Just ignore the aff-link beggars/shills when they come crying for their 8% sales commissions. We will take our business elsewhere, regardless of their self serving deceptive opinions. Enough is enough, and its time to move on and purchase from resellers who want to earn our business).

With regret, I must also advise people to steer clear of Gearbest and purchase elsewhere. Akin to a call center full of disgruntled, ill-trained, grossly incompetent employees who turn their customers against them, GB is very good at providing canned apologies and hollow promises, yet they have often proven completely useless in resolving problems.

My last several orders have been screwed up to the point where I am certain their warehouse and shipping dept must be staffed by monkeys who were denied their daily allotment of bananas! They also lost 2 recent orders, which has never happened before.

Trends:

• Lost orders during shipment.

• CS usually copy/pastes an inappropriate apology with a false promise to resolve a problem and do better in the future, yet they do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to correct their problems.

• CS ignores and avoids answering questions regarding quality issues, incorrect descriptions, large volume single order discounts and shipping/packaging screw-ups. Even when something so simple as a request for a tracking number is asked in 3 consecutive emails, they ignored my question and did not provided the tracking information… until they miraculously produced it when paypal was about to approve my claim for a 100% refund of over $600 after a package didnt show up after 8 weeks.

• Neither the dollar amount of the order nor how valuable a customer you might appear to be to their company, it means absolute nothing to them. You can spend as much as $2500 per month or as little a $1… it doesnt matter and they simply dont care about you. The CS rep behind the work station answering your questions often knows absolutely nothing at all about the products or how to find answers, much less resolve quality or shipping related issues. They must sit and play games on their computers while typing vague ambiguous answers to problems they arent even capable of understanding. Does the computer beat these people in a game of tic-tac-toe? If I were a gambling man, I wouldnt place my bets in favor of the CS rep.

• I’ll try and put this as nicely as possible: Beware the CS imbeciles who proclaim themselves to be an “expert”. Often within the first 1 or 2 sentences, you will quickly realize that you’re dealing with an entire new level of “stupid” that most of us have yet to encounter. YES, THEY REALLY ARE THAT BAD… AND IT IS REPEATABLE!!!

I have had many great prior transactions while spending several thousands of $ with GB throughout the years we have conducted business. But now I am spending a large amount of time answering foolish repeated questions while filling out and tracking paypal disputes and still not getting what I paid for. This is unacceptable. While I truly hope they may find a way to return to their former glory, many resellers who have fallen to these low standards no longer exist, and very deserving so.

So for now, I will spend my loot elsewhere.

Good luck GB. It will be sad to watch your business collapse upon the negligence of your own undoing, but there are others who do a much better job in providing the same products at the same or better prices. As evidenced from all the unresolved complaints in this thread, you all truly deserve to become a bad memory of the past.

[CSgearbest]

@Rafter1

Placed an order for 3 ea GBGB: BLF-348 using code GB348CM.
The price in the cart showed $6.69 ea, so I placed the order.

When I got the paypal confirmation, I had been billed at $9.90 ea.

I emailed them, but did not receive a reply.

Soo, NO MORE!

Hi Rafter1,
We are sorry to hear that.
Could you please PM me your order number? I will check and solve it for you.
We wish to apologize for any inconvenience this may caused and hope to hear from you.
Best Regards
Gearbest Customer Service
http://www.gearbest.com/

[Wilson]

Please stop! You are making the problem worse. Get 2 or 3 more people to help you and think about your answers, please.