I have had a nightmare with Hobby King China. I ordered a plane from the China site because it was not in stock in the USA warehouse in early September and it showed the plane in stock and I wanted it shipped to Los Angeles. I placed my order with them and I paid through Paypal and paid for air shipping and after three weeks they still did not ship the plane. I made a request and they said the plane was in a different warehouse and would be shipped 3-5 days. Again a week had passed and still no plane shipping information. I made another request and I received the same excuse. Week five I wanted a status and I received the same excuse again. Week six I received an E-mail saying the planes are now in stock and the plane is in another warehouse and it would be shipped in five days. I made a complaint with Paypal. Another problem the E-mail address and phone number on the Paypal HobbyKing page are not valid. Hobbyking said they would not send my plane unless I released my complaint with Paypal. I am so frustrated. I really wanted this plane and I even purchased special batteries for the plane. So far they took my order on their site and keep my money. Buyer beware with these guys. They took my money knowing darn well the planes were not in stock. Something they should not be doing. This will be the last time ordering from China.

I ordered a couple batteries plus a few other things a month ago from the China warehouse (not in stock at the US location), and four days later received an email

Dear Customer

We have been unable to ship your order right now because of an issue with one of the items purchased.
Please log into your account in our website to view the status of your order.

I logged in, and saw they made a mistake with stock quantity listing (I ordered the last two in stock packs, but they were probably bought before I paid for them).
I went to chat, and opted for store credit for the out of stock packs. They shipped the order four days later. I of course used the store credit with no problem a couple weeks later.

Satisfactory performance, as I am very used to HK. The time to make this happen would probably not sit well with others.

bart4u has a valid complaint though. But I would have gone to chat long before 3 weeks and cancelled the order and asked for a refund or store credit.

If you want to save some $$$ at a place that undercuts similar sites in China and is half a world away, you need to be a bit more proactive other than reporting them to Paypal. Go to chat early after the first email saying there is a delay or when it is taking too long to ship (1 week) and tell them what you want first I think. I've only had that one thing happen in the previous post over (a lot) of orders.

my experience : if you are dissatisfied and can supply reasonable suggestion as to what you would deem an acceptable remedy, they are quite helpful

case in point - slick 360 with faulty esc :
sent video demonstrating problem, suggested they reimburse the equivalent esc
they offered a 6amp 2s esc, i pointed out it needed a 3s esc and the 10amp one fitted the bill > store credit for the item almost instantly

would have been better to not have an issue, but the outcome was mutually satisfactory - no returning the part from me, no major delay except for waiting till next order, except i had a spare of the size needed, so the wait was zero

if you are after a single item, then caveat emptor if you are used to perfect quality control; but if you are flexible and show initiative, all's good

I have an hobby king micro slick 360 and it does have a 6 amp esc but there is no such thing as a 2S or 3S version at least not for that plane.

Originally Posted by 2012boxterS

I have an hobby king micro slick 360 and it does have a 6 amp esc but there is no such thing as a 2S or 3S version at least not for that plane.

See Durafly Slick 360 V2 3s Micro 3D 490mm (PNF)
Different plane?

Originally Posted by 2012boxterS

I have an hobby king micro slick 360 and it does have a 6 amp esc but there is no such thing as a 2S or 3S version at least not for that plane.

your google must be broken

there's the 2s version (older)

and the 3s version (which i have)

thanks for your input, but it's wrong

I just got 1 of my orders from Hobby King I will let ya know!

Originally Posted by goldsworthy

I just got 1 of my orders from Hobby King I will let ya know!

LOL that is pathetic... You should have refused that package the moment it arrived. Its on the courier if anything in there is damaged.

Originally Posted by goldsworthy

I just got 1 of my orders from Hobby King I will let ya know!

unless you ordered a crushed cardboard box, i think that's a no-go

unless it's a collection of velcro and "you cannot fly this plane" t-shirts, i'd be documenting everything with video, and asking for refunds

or simply refusing the parcel

You can't really ask HK for a refund when the postal service has crushed the box though. They say to refuse to accept any damaged or open parcels.
Then the post office has to send it back to them, and they can claim the damage from the post service and replace your items.

My parcels usually turn up in good condition, but sometimes you can see they've been drop kicked at the post office. They are always packed well enough though with airbags, and the contents ok.

You can't really ask HK for a refund when the postal service has crushed the box though. They say to refuse to accept any damaged or open parcels.

Not true. Of course you could ask HK for a refund, how they respond is another matter altogether. HK's stating to refuse the damaged packages is really nothing more than their policy; it's not rooted in anything other than the ease of a claim with the shipping end of their supply chain. HK absolutely can file a claim with the postal service even though you accepted the damaged package.

As a matter of fact, it happens all the time.

It is, of course, much more difficult to win these types of claims from HK's point of view and Im sure this drives their "policy".

In fact, you as the receiver cannot legally file a damage claim with the postal system (assuming you can even find out which postal system from here to there damaged the package) as long as you didnt directly pay for the shipping charges. That right is held exclusively by paying party for shipping.

But unfortunately with vendors like HK, it then becomes a waiting game for the customer as HK will wait until the postal service sends it all the way back to HK, sort through the mess (and realistically, the package will probably become MORE damaged on the return trip), file the damage claim with the postal service, get the package inspected by the postal service, settle the claim, etc. and THEN send you your replacement parts (if they are still in stock). Get yourself a good calender.

Most major shipping companies (USPS, UPS, FEDEX, BAX, etc.) have well defined specs as it relates to packaging specs (burst strength, cardboard thickness, number of ply's, etc.). Im sure HK's specs (HK uses what's referred to as "rice cardboard". Its a cardboard with rice addded during the mfg process to cut costs) probably dont meet those standards so Im sure this plays into the claim as well. I would imagine the claims dept at HK must be a nightmare based on the condition of the few orders Ive placed with them. Can you imagine how many damaged packages come back each day and what a pain it must be to try and sort through them all?

Ive had other RC vendors send replacement orders out immediately without needing pictures, waiting for the orders to get back to them, etc. Ultimately its HK's decision how to package their products, how to best protect them during shipping, what type of box to use, which carrier to use and how to react to you as a customer when their is a problem with damage. Dont get lulled into the sense that nothing can be done because it can.

Oh, agree completely. You should of course receive goods in original condition.

I just meant it can be quicker and easier to know a retailers policy and follow that.
"Never accept a parcel that is crushed, damaged or has been left open, possibly allowing contents to fall out."

Never had a badly crushed box, but if I do and suspect damage I'll be refusing delivery and contacting HK support as per their policy, so they can fix it for me.

113 orders and never had problems...knock on wood.

There's more than one reason TowerHobbies is much more expensive than HK. In my experience with TH, if you call them saying you received something damaged, they usually just take your word for it and immediately send you a new one and don't even ask you to send the damaged one back. That level of customer service costs money. Anyone in the U.S. dealing with HK has to decide if the money they save is worth it, realizing it's possible you'll have little or no recourse if things go wrong. For me, if 2 out of 3 orders are delivered successfully, I'm so far ahead with HK, that I don't spend a lot of time worrying about the third one (and I think the success ratio is actually much higher than that).