Ripped off by hobbyking?
 

Hey guys, I just was wondering what other peoples experience has been while trying to deal with hobby king. I have ordered multiple lipo's from them, which I did not receive. They did however, take my hundreds of dollars. I chatted with someone on the web page that said I'd be refunded for a failed order, but that never happened. Go figure. Whenever I call the support line, it hangs up, but when I call the order line, it works fine. Go figure. The emails I send to united hobby (who it says to contact in paypal) can't be delivered, because their inbox is full, most likely from emails just like mine. Can anyone point me in the right direction to getting my money back or have any experiences they can share? So far all indications point to them scamming me.

Thanks in advance

I've ordered A LOT over the years with HobbyKing, they may have some problems, but have never done me wrong... File a dispute with your CC company or Paypal if you're not get the results directly...

They may have credited your account on the HK site & not refunded your account too.

Good luck. :)

Bummer..I've bought from them lots and lots of times and never had any problems..but when you sell the volume that they do you are going to have a few that go bad..have you tried to contact pay pal directly to start a claim ? The other is how long ago did you order and did you order from the hong kong or the usa warehouse..if you ordered from the hong kong warehouse it could take up to 3 months to get your order..not to good but it is what it is..

They are slow with refunds. I recently just received a refund for defective products after 6 weeks. Definitely file a claim with PayPal if you are still with in the 45 days and do not under any circumstances cancel your claim, or through your CC company.

Like I said, the order was never created and the gentleman that I chatted with on their site said it was a failed order. I ordered from the hk warehouse. Because the shipping time is so long, it is too late to open a dispute with PayPal, which I already tried. I could have noticed sooner possibly if I would have checked my email for a confirmation, but the order went through on the site and I've never had problems with them before. Thanks for the advice. I'm looking for some info on how to get my money back, because I know my batteries are not coming. They didn't try to resolve the issue in any way after having my money for months other than to return it, which they didn't even do. :cry:

Thanks for the info. I used a debit card through PayPal so I should probably open a claim with my bank. 6 weeks for a refund is unacceptable in my eyes.

It is for me as well. I will be using them less often from now on.

12 smooth orders for me... Sorry about your bad eexperience. Hobbyking has been spot on for me.

I would call and talk to paypal. They've been known to make claims after the 45 day period in cases like these. Just call and talk to someone.

I cross my fingers everytime I order. I think I'll pass.

I have received all of my orders, one in particular with a two month!!! delay. Then the damn thing malfunctioned.

And their RMA process is a pain. They even required a video to show the failure... Too much hassle for me, so I chose to take the loss. 40$ lost.

Not thrilled.

My buddy had the same problem. Ordered 6 lipos and never received them. After several weeks of getting no where with Hobbyking he filed a dispute with paypal and all of a sudden hobbyking started to reply asking him to close the dispute. He didn't and paypal refunded his money after the 30 days period had elapsed.

My advise is file a claim with paypal. Don't bother with hobbyking as their CS is pretty much non existent. They deal with quantity basis not quality....

This failed order problem happened to me twice in a roll and hobbyking was absolutely useless and unsupportive. The only way I got my money back was to open a paypal claim, and it still took a couple weeks to get my money back. I have never ordered from them after these fiascos.

Turnigy batteries are junk anyway.

Anyone that can break off leads from 3 different lipo's (how is that even possible?) and then whines that all lipo's are fragile is obviously someone who's advice should be taken with a grain of salt.

And besides, someone posted in a different thread "the bad thing about the internet is anyone can appear to know what they're talking about and they all call themselves a professional this or that. in actuality they're just some random person spewing half truths."

Aint that the truth?:nod:

:nod: couldn't agree more. I've been burned a few times with turnigy packs. Never again. Wouldn't personally buy anything else from hobbyking - cheap crap.... Get what you pay for IMHO.

im no expert but I can say.
I have turnigy nanotech packs 2yrs old.
and they still work great
and I didn't take very good care of them.
sometimes a week at full charge or weeks at less then storage.
just saying that's my experiance

Probably goes to show that there's no consistency in the product. Some fail quickly and some last and perform well!! Luck of the draw I guess.

i take everything i read about brand quality on lipos with a grain of salt. the problem is there is too many variables. one guy has great luck with a certain brand, but you never find out he is running a 6000mah 50c/100c pack in a 2wd brushed slash. meanwhile another guy hates the same brand because he had 2 packs puff on the first charge, however you dont hear that he is running 4200mah 20c packs in series in a savage flux with big joe tires and tall gearing.

I had the "failed order" also.... I filed a claim with paypal to get money back after I got know where with HK.

Same here! They loss me as a customer for good!

they are dirt cheap but they also have the worst customer service ever.
Kind of take your own risk for what you pay kind of thing.
Personally I only buy stuff from them if it's really worth the risk. (i.e. if they are significantly cheaper, or it's so cheap I don't care it's s**t or not).

When s**t happen. You need to keep contacting them in multiple ways, keep calm and don't focus on it.
1. the online live contact stuff is awful, it reply you maybe 10 sentence in maybe 3 hours, and most of them are completely useless. maybe put your laptop there and do something else, plan to have a multiple hour "conversation", read and reply once a while you take a break from doing other stuff. If you are pissed, they will block your account's access to this service. (tried another account, service functional, back to main account, service ends as soon as I enters).
2. the email contact is a bit more useful, it will take days to get any reply though, but you may at least get treated like a human, and maybe some useful information.

Oh, and when you get "Refund", don't expect it to be very fair either. expect a little loss from your end.
i.e. I got a battery with polarity reversed. Contacted them, they told me to mail it back and they will send me a new one as soon as they get it, and they will cover the fee shipping back.
After I sent it back, it went quite, contacted them again, they say their engineer will need to examine the battery and it will take a week (new).
Then a week later, nothing happened, contacted them again, they say they will refund me instead.
Still nothing happened, and that battery got sold out. contacted them again, took about a week to reply, saying they will refund soon.
Many days later, some store credit appeared in the site, and it's just the price of the battery itself. Cost of shipping it back, cost of shipping to buy another one, etc is never covered.
All these, because their battery had reversed polarity.

You tell me how. They're strapped in very well and I only handle them by the pack not the wires. Except to plug in and unplug from the charger and car.
And it's only 2 this has happened to. A turnigy and a gens ace. Every plain turnigy I've bought has self destructed. The 2 nanotech I have are slightly puffed but I caused that by forgetting them in my starter box for about 2 months charged to about 4.09 per cell. But they still balance and work just fine. These are soft packs.
My third battery you might be thinking of was an Smc that one cell went dead.
Bad luck or just junk? I think it's a case of cheap Chinese junk.

I'm not giving a half truth. This is my experiences. Lipos are fragile. They demand high maintenance and special care.

And you don't comprehend what I was saying at all. We'll just leave it at that.

I'll give a thumbs-up to Hobbyking. Sorry you had a bad experience but it is not the norm. I have 21 orders in my history and one of them was failed. It did take about 3 days to speak with someone and the refund took about 3 weeks, but if I want great customer service I will over pay for the same batteries with the same quality control and a fancy label. If I need something quick I will check with my local hobby shop or Amain.

As for Turnigy batteries they are OK. Some of my first lipos were standard Turnigy 20C packs and I would rate them just below average. More recently I have some Nan0-Tech packs and would rate them well above average. As you can see, with 21 orders we are not talking about a small sample size. I usually order a few samples and if we like it I order several more for the club. We have yet to see any more inconsistencies than when we have ordered from Tower or Amain. I don't doubt the stories like this one because I have seen people get ripped off or buy junk from just about every company. I just have to post my successes when I see people jumping on the "get what you pay for" bandwagon. If you need a warranty and someone to hold your hand when you don't know how to plug in your lipo you had better get your moneys worth.

Sorry for the rant, just buy what makes you feel good!