An experience I just collected recently. That orders are delayed is nothing new. That can be extremely frustrating, when you selected an ‘Express Shipment’ option, willing to pay some extra bucks to get the stuff fast. But there is not much you can do about the usual delays, which are around 3 – 10 days. Thats the price you pay, for buying cheap.
A different story are delays which are weeks or even months. In my case, things went wrong badly twice on one order.At the end I ordered 3 times the same stuff to get it.
Chapter I – The totally and completely wrong box!
When I ordered my FPV goggles and the HK250 Mini Quad kit, I was pleased to see that it was shipped in less than two days. In about a week, I received the package. It was my biggest order yet, with almost$500 of value and plenty of stuff. I was really surprised when I came home and saw the package. It was small and quite light, “How can some FatShark Goggles fit in there?”, I thought. Well they were not in it, all I gotwas a $40 Turnigy remote for cars I never ordered. I got in touch with the support almost instantly, by just creating a case – not going to the live chat. That whole thing worried me, ultimately that would mean myself against HobbyKing, proving that they did wrong and convince them giving me what I paid for. I attached pictures and a PDF copy of the invoice for the customs. More than 24h later nothing happened and I contacted the Chat. They told me I need to use the ‘Returns’ function, fill a RMA form and attach pictures. Even better a video. So I did both and after pressing the ‘Return’ button in the customer portal, I had to select each item, express hat I received the wrong one for it and attach the pictures or video. There is no ‘I have received the wrong shipment’ function. Despite doing all requested, they wanted to get the package back first, before giving me store credit. I suggested to deduct $40 for the Turnigy remote from the entire amount. Then I would be able order again and they credit me later the 40 bucks, once the package is back. I pointd out that it is entirely their fault and causes me a lot of inconvenience. But no way, I had to ship that box back first. They had all the jokers (my money) and therefore I was easy pray. Luckily there is a warehouse in Australia, so that accelerated the process. The overall processing time from wrong shipment arrived, to providing me store credit (Bonus Points) was almost exactly two weeks. Overall not good, but also not to bad. However, that day I got refunded, I waited for my Goggles and the other stuff already 3 weeks.
Important: You can’t use store credit, to pay for the shipment. But you get your shipment costs in the form of store credit refunded. Funny?
Chapter II – More patience than you got.
So here the journey continues. I ordered all the stuff from the original order again, but with my regained trust in them I thought ‘Heck, I also need the Mobius and the ImmersionRC 600mw vtx!”. So I added that to the order and topped about another $150 up. That was also a good way to consume the almost $30 extra cash I got as store credit for my initial shipment costs. To the Mobius I also added the AV cable.
I thought, this order will get priority and will be processed quickly, as I complaint via the chat and these guys messed it up. But I was wrong. The order was printed quickly and what followed are the weeks and weeks of waiting. After about a week I contacted the support. Explained them that I am waiting already about 4 weeks, due to the wrong shipment before. They took note of it but nothing happened. From there I decided to be an annoying customer. Every 2 – 3 days I contacted them. After 2 weeks waiting, I asked them to check with the warehouse. Maybe one of the items on my ordere, which was reported in stock, wasn’t. Now I am waiting for something to return in stock, so that they are able to ship the complete order. They wanted to check for that, but even 2 weeks later (and many chats) they had zero information from the warehouse. What annoyed me most were this Copy & Paste standard responses:
Rest assured that we will do our best to process the order as soon as possible.
I have checked your order and noticed a delay. Your order is already Printed and waiting to be Scanned at warehouse. Once scanned and packed, then it is good to go. I already have escalated your concern to the attention of our warehouse manager. I have sent a follow up message for this order to be shipped sooner. We will also send you the tracking details once your order has been Posted. We are sorry for this as we received no response yet for the reason of delay.
I understand and I respect your opinion and decision in this matter. Rest assured that we will do our best to help you sort this out. We will also keep an eye on your order so once we have an update, we will definitely inform you. We really apologize for the inconvenience.
Just to list a few of them. I thought there must be a reason why this is order is delayed and it should be possible to sort this out. My suggestion was to remove the items, which are not in stock and by mistake reported in stock. But the support was not able to get this information from the warehouse. My impression is, that both are different companies. What I noticed was, that the Mobius AV Cable and later the Mobius itself went out of stock. What I assume is, that the order was stuck due to $4 AV cable. But thre is no process, to get this information and have it removed from the order.
The ultimate solution was, to cancel the order. They provided (again) instant store credit. Now it was the third time I ordered my FatShark FPV Goggles. This time I split my order in 2 different shipments. I thought when one gets stuck or lost, I get at least 50% of my stuff. To my surprise, were both orders processed on the day I made them and shipped the next day. The Mobius AV Cable and camera is not yet back in stock while I write this – about a week later. It looks both packages will arrive the coming Monday. The draw back was, that I had to top up again to pay for shipment and I paid this time twice.
My advice?
When you order got stuck for more than 10 days, check for each item if it is still in stock. If not, one of them might be the cause. Stop waiting, cancel it and order again. Sometimes it is frustrating, especially when its one of the item you really need. Then there is not other option than waiting.
On the positive side
I was able to change due to the canceled order, from the HK FPV250 Kit, to the Dart 250 quad with DYS BE 1806 2300KV motors. It was not yet in program, when I ordered initially. That was more than 2 months ago. Just about $20 more for a lot better quad. Due to all my complaining they provided once $5 and on another chat $10 bonus points. That covers at least a part of my shipment costs.
When my stuff arrives next week, we are looking at 2 Month and 1 Week delay.