Hobbyking Customer Service.

[The Mighty Volt]

I just received 3 rc lipo chargers and 3 little cell log gizmo's and a bunch of connectors and wire. One of the chargers fan didn't work. On opening the chargers two of the 3 chargers had fake USB ports with a jumper cable and no components on the board to drive the usb. The other had a working usb port. All 3 chargers had QC stickers that said pass :? One of the cell logs screen's went scrambled after 5 min use. I also got that stupid never look back gizmo. Its for bad Asian drivers to stick on the corner of the review mirror .

It dose give you the shits but what can you do? I try and order local so if there is a issue you can send it back. Some times I just write it off as its all to hard. Even when you take into account the say 10% loss for dead on arrival, missing, faulty and what not. You are still way in front compared to buying from a local hobby shop. Read all the reviews on anything you are about to buy then you know what faults to look for when you product arrive.

Kurt

True, true. Thats how I felt. Its too much effort to get a scales and weigh and send emails etc. HK are still the best, you are right.

 

[Sunder]

Hmm. I've placed two orders from them with no problems yet. One came from HK, the other from their Australian Warehouse.

I do dread the day, because I know these low margin, high volume shops basically have a no-refunds, no-warranty basis, regardless of what they say they have.

I also dropped Paypal, because they always side with the vendor. In the worst case, I bought a USB memory stick on eBay. It was empty - case only, no electronics inside. The Parent company, eBay, sent out a fraud alert, and deregistered the seller. Paypal still insisted I have an independant party verify that the case was empty, and then send the empty case back - at a higher expense than I paid for the item.

In dropping Paypal, I've actually found shops that accept direct credit cards have a MUCH better returns policy than shops that only do Paypal. Probably because Paypal default on the side of the vendor, whereas credit card companies default on the side of the consumer. Also, evidence required to set up a payment terminal is higher than that to set up a paypal account - so they're less likely to be scammed.

Best thing I've ever done in terms of avoid online-fraud was to close my Paypal account.

 

[bobale]

One of the cell logs screen's went scrambled after 5 min use.

You just leave it alone plugged in, it will come round eventually. At least mine did. It still goes off at random intevals, but always turns back on after few minutes.

 

[LI-ghtcycle]

Man that sucks, I have had pretty good luck so far but I haven't bought a whole lot from HK.

I know it's a pain, but if you wanted to get an accurate weight, stop by the local post office and use theirs, I'm sure it would be digital.

Maybe they are trying to send you a subliminal message with the "never look back" mirror!

 

[NeilP]

Well try again with the online chst and not the online complaint, justvkeep going back and pestering, Ig worked eventually for me

Have to agree about paypal though, ghey really are crap for fustomer protection
Am not sure if I am covered by my credir card though, as I do all my Paypal transactions via credit card payment
Am trhing to get money back from Sure Electronics at the moment

 

[LI-ghtcycle]

Wow, all this time I thought Paypal was good about that, my father never received batteries from two sellers on Ebay when the 36V Dewalts were hot, and Paypal got his money back pretty quick after it had been a few weeks and nothing came in the mail.

Maybe it's harder to prove when it's a faulty product. :?

 

[neptronix]

1) always look at the reviews for hobbyking products... anywhere near 15% negative reviews is a big red flag that you are taking a chance on buying a potential paperweight
2) accept that you could get boned... unfortunately this is how hobbyking operates and there is no alternative that i know of ( maybe hobbypartz.com ? )
3) hobbyking/turnigy/hextronik stuff is basically cheap chinese crap with a hobbyking brand label slapped on it. One example is the eBay MD-80 cameras. Hobbyking sells those as '30fps highrate camera' or whatever... same item, but with a turnigy label on it.

source whatever you can from epbuddy, progressiverc, and other local sellers. IMHO all that hobbyking is good for is cheap iChargers and lipo which arrives without bad cells... 90% of the time.

 

[Sunder]

Wow, all this time I thought Paypal was good about that, my father never received batteries from two sellers on Ebay when the 36V Dewalts were hot, and Paypal got his money back pretty quick after it had been a few weeks and nothing came in the mail.

Maybe it's harder to prove when it's a faulty product. :?

Yeah, I had a one good experience with them when the Seller just went AWOL. Nothing after 6 weeks, lodged a complaint, 2 weeks later the case settled in my favour.

But if the seller can show they have a tracking number to your address... I've actually never heard of a successful case - and on car forums, there are plenty of complaints about dodgy sellers and products.

 

[sn0wchyld]

hk have been, well, pretty great for me so far. Ive had 1 dead battery out of about 20 that ive bought so far. after about 5min with the online chat, I had to send it back to the aus warehouse. cost me $8, but got $40 back from HK. Really, given how much cheaper they are than the next closest option paying $8 to return a batt is no biggie.Though for small stuff like forgotten connectors it'd be a PITA.

The few local hobby stores ive checked out want something like $50 for a 3s 2ah 20c lipo pack!! One LHS didnt even understand the concept of parallel charging, he insisted that the individual cells would not be balanced . He also wanted to sell me a 50W charger as a 200w charger, for $110. Clearly paying more locally doesn't necessitate better service.

Now if HK can just get some bloody 80-100B's in!

 

[sn0wchyld]

dupe post. anyone else getting bogus error messages from ES lately?

 

[NeilP]

Well what PP tend to want you to do is return the product via a tracked service...and this is not refundable, and often the return shipping price is so much that it is not worth your while.
Once you prove the tracking parcel has been received by the vendor, then they will then refund you the amount you paid the vendor in the first place

In my case recently I bought a Meanwell from Sure Electronics on e-bay, they advertised the S-350 but sent me a NES ...happened to a couple of others on here too.
For me to send my Meanwell back will cost me $36 and that is for a standard not tracked parcel post.
The item cost me $58...
They have offered me $18 refund...and stupidly I have accepted...well they started at offering $5... I can see that I am not goign to get any further...and I know from past experience that taking it further through Paypal or E-bay dispute panel is a waste of time.


Back to the question of Hobby King...when you do the Online chat, there is an option to have the content of the chat e-mailed to you at completion...do this so you then have proof of what the operator offered you
Have any old order numbers easily to hand..have your account page opened in another tab, so you can copy paste your old order numbers.
if they se you are a customer who has bought stuff before they tend to be more willing to help.
My previous order was for 8 Nano Tech 10S packs at $130 each..so they knew I was a returning customer

 

[sn0wchyld]

Well what PP tend to want you to do is return the product via a tracked service...and this is not refundable, and often the return shipping price is so much that it is not worth your while.
Once you prove the tracking parcel has been received by the vendor, then they will then refund you the amount you paid the vendor in the first place

In my case recently I bought a Meanwell from Sure Electronics on e-bay, they advertised the S-350 but sent me a NES ...happened to a couple of others on here too.
For me to send my Meanwell back will cost me $36 and that is for a standard not tracked parcel post.
The item cost me $58...
They have offered me $18 refund...and stupidly I have accepted...well they started at offering $5... I can see that I am not goign to get any further...and I know from past experience that taking it further through Paypal or E-bay dispute panel is a waste of time.


Back to the question of Hobby King...when you do the Online chat, there is an option to have the content of the chat e-mailed to you at completion...do this so you then have proof of what the operator offered you
Have any old order numbers easily to hand..have your account page opened in another tab, so you can copy paste your old order numbers.
if they se you are a customer who has bought stuff before they tend to be more willing to help.
My previous order was for 8 Nano Tech 10S packs at $130 each..so they knew I was a returning customer

lol. looks like you fell victim to the same crap i did. (as in ES creating dupe posts, not in reagards to hk)

my first purchase was the one with the dud battery and the relatively painless return, but then I guess it was a reasonably large order so maybe that won me some 'good service' points.

 

[zombiess]

I only use Hobby King for batteries wire and connectors. I try to avoid low quality junk which is China's main export. I had an issue with one out of 17 6s batteries I ordered and they gave me credit on it after showing pics/volt values so I don't have anything to complain about there (but I was fully ready to eat the cost of the defective pack!).

I'm always ready to lose out on the small stuff I order from them unless it's a large order. Sucks, but it's China and getting things to happen correctly in China is next to impossible. Once you visit there you finally understand why it's called a Chinese fire drill.

 

[wojtek]

Recently ordered 21x 6s 8ah zippy packs.. got only 20 of them - 1 pack missing!

+ they came totally late as i added a led strip that they didn't have in stock. But according to the website , they had it!
OBVIOUSLY nobody cared to inform me about it. Only after few messages and few more days after they bothered to give me a response.

I spent almost 5000USD this year alone on Hobby King and this is the answer i got from John:

John, Oct-18 01:47 (HKT):

Hi Wojciech ,

Thanks for contacting the HobbyKing Support Team.

We are sorry to learn that items are missing from your order 2003299239. Our warehouse utilizes bar code id, product scanning, RFID security, final item counting and parcel weight recording to ensure each order is full and correct. We take our shipping and dispatch accuracy very seriously.

To open a claim file for you, you must do the following within 48 hours of receiving the parcel.

1) DO NOT throw any of the packaging or product materials away. Keep the entire package 100% as you received it.
2) Weigh your parcel and its content. You can use a kitchen scale for this. It must be accurate to 5g.
3) Photograph the parcel and its contents. The photo must show products, parcel box with postage slip and packing materials clearly with the following information:

Order ID:
Parcel Weight:
Missing item(s):
Attach photos of the parcel and contents, as stipulated above.

* Failure to follow the procedures above will result in a rejection of the claim.

needless to say, you cannot weight a 10kg box on a kitchen scale! and what is the point of taking pictures? If i wanted to con, i would take one battery out, and then take a f****** picture.

I have to say though , none of the cells were dead. But this CS is pissing me off. No respect to loyal big customers...

 

[dogman dan]

I'd be pissed too, though not their only customer in that class, you should get a more trusting response than the auto email. They clearly don't realize yet what a good customer you have been. Send em more email, till they snap out of it.

Weigh the stuff, bit by bit. then add up the weights. Stuff happens, and they can make mistakes, but also bear in mind how many scammers there are out there. do be sure to confirm that you actually did get billed for 21 packs.

 

[auraslip]

Our warehouse utilizes bar code id, product scanning, RFID security, final item counting and parcel weight recording to ensure each order is full and correct. We take our shipping and dispatch accuracy very seriously.

Very cool. They must be a very large business. Sucks for you though. I'd contact them a few more times and then file a paypal claim.

 

[neptronix]

If you missed 1 pack out of 20, and your remaining 19 packs were great, you've already done better than most people ordering, who often get 10-15% of their packs defective.

I ordered 13 packs total and 2 ended up being duds that i threw away or repurposed.

Guess i'd be pissed too tho. But just wanted to put that into perspective.

 

[wojtek]

i bought 21 and got 20..

yes im impressed too. actually all cells i ordered this years were OK. And i ordered a lot!

the only thing is, i always order from the german warehouse. I think the QC is better when sent from Germany. Obviously the price is also higher.
But im saving on time and shipping.

 

[auraslip]

I think the QC is better when sent from Germany.

Insert stereotype here.

 

[wojtek]

sorry i meant QC of batteries shipped out of German warehouse. I would imagine due to strict German laws and regulations. Just a quess based on experience or .. good luck
neptronix - which warehouse did you get yours from?

 

[NeezyDeezy]

They also rely on terrible business practices. For example, there is no link to remove yourself from spam emails. When I sent an email to different people in the company, they told me I had to log into my account to end the spam. I don't have my password. Either way, not having an easy opt-out link, AND refusing to manually remove me really runs against good ethical standards in the business. I'll never buy anything from them.

 

[neptronix]

sorry i meant QC of batteries shipped out of German warehouse. I would imagine due to strict German laws and regulations. Just a quess based on experience.
neptronix - which warehouse did you get yours from?

Got half of them from the USA warehouse, the other half from China ( before they had the USA warehouse )

 

[Sunder]

I think Australian eParcels have their weight printed on the shipping label - that's the weight when Australia Post receives it.

Does German post have the same thing? A 6s battery is about 800 - 900g depending on the Ah - even stuffing and packaging for 20 batteries wouldn't come close to a kilo, so if you were one battery out at the time of Post Office Receipt, that should be irrefutable proof.

That said, about 1/3rd of my packages from overseas are opened by customs, and sometimes I do wonder if they ever forget to pack anything back in after inspection, but it sounds like you got it local.

 

[fizzit]

I ordered 3 4s 5000mah packs on thursday night and got them delivered saturday afternoon! Hobbyking is ridiculous!

 

[jamo96]

I've had a few orders from the Australian warehouse and they have all been correct. Really fast too. I guess we can all make mistakes.