This may be the wrong forum, but I fly helis so this is the forum I watch.

A while ago I purchased 2 orders from Hobby King. I had to separate the order because the items I wanted were in two different warehouses(first warning to stop the order). I ordered some batteries from a US warehouse and blades for my 500 size heli. within a week I watched tracking for the batteries... they arrived at my local PO and then got shipped back for wrong address. I jumped to my email and check the receipt... oddly enough the address was correct. I contacted the PO and they said it had to go back tot he shipper. I contacted Hobby King and they said it had to get back to them before they could say anything...

1 week later...

Hobby king rep says that they can't do anything until it us processed into the warehouse(it has been at the warehouse for a day according to USPS tracking)

After about 2 more weeks I get a contact saying that they have received my package returned.

I told them to refund me.

They replied saying I have in store credit (minus shipping)

I said refund my PayPal the full amount.

They replied the will refund me minus shipping cost.

I filed a PayPal dispute...

I understand an employee or the post office messing up... I can get over mistakes everyone makes them...

However the other order I placed for the blades has never arrived. It's been well over a month... nearing 2 months and they haven't arrived.
I order stuff from Hong Kong all the time HeliPal has delivered ever order withing 6-7 days.... they sent an order to Afghanistan within 3 weeks when I was deployed.

So I don't know what is up with Hobby King, but since there are about 20 other websites perhaps consider them.

I read the forums. I know people buy stuff from them. Awesome, lucky, what ever? I have never seen this from any online business(and I have purchased a lot of stuff from Hong Kong... I played with Walkera stuff).

When I ran my website, customers came first... more than 50% of my gross income went to making sure that customers got what they wanted... and I made quite a bit of money and never had a single person(literal) post a negative comment.

That is why this "business?" has got me so dumbfounded.

This is an email from them in response to me saying PayPal allows partial refunds.... I finally agreed to take the cost of my items with out the shipping cost, however I will not cancel my PayPal dispute until they do the partial refund.

"Please kindly note that if you don't close the dispute, we can't refund the rest money to your account, you will get nothing at last, we really want to help you solve this problem, you may think about it and let us know your decision."
Thanks for emailing support.
If you have any other questions, please let me know.
Regards.
Kyle
HobbyKing Support Team
Dont forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for discounts and promotions!
www.facebook.com/hobbykinglive
www.twitter.com/hobbykinglive"

This is from PayPal when I went to end the dispute and allow them to give me a partial refund:

"Remember, a closed dispute cannot be re-opened or escalated to a claim
with PayPal. Make sure that you are 100% satisfied with the outcome of
this dispute before you close it.

For example, if the seller is offering a refund, wait until the funds are in your PayPal account before closing this dispute. "

Obviously, I can't end the dispute until they give at least the partial refund.

welp i personally never had an issue with HK but i also never used paypal. wonder if that has anything to do with it. very few complain about HK based on the thousands that buy from them.

Take a look at the vendor forums. There are a number of people who have been burnt by HK. It has nothing to do with paypal, nor the size of the order. Their service just plain old sucks......

Yea, I know this probably wasn't the proper spot to put it, but I tried multiple times to let them rectify the problem and it just spiraled into insults and what not, which is just embarrassing for any "company".

I wanted other prospective purchasers to notice, and also see the many other reliable companies that sell and deliver all of the stuff we need.

http://www.hobbypartz.com/ <- if it's in stock it's super fast
http://www.helipal.com/index.php <- ships from Hong Kong in close to a week if not less.

Hobby King has a LOT more than a random number of customer complaints. As well as an extensive archive of emails from "support" just like the one quoted in OP.

I would be reluctant to do business with a seller having so many outstanding dissatisfaction claims. Hobby King is also accused of employing a team of shills on RCG but of course this can neither be confirmed nor denied. One has to read the entire body of contention and decide for one's self.

My long and annoying post pretty much sums up all the bellow similar threads and what not...

Prospective customers... purchase from any number of other websites.

Save yourself the headache.

Originally Posted by TangoPIC

Yea, I know this probably wasn't the proper spot to put it, but I tried multiple times to let them rectify the problem and it just spiraled into insults and what not, which is just embarrassing for any "company".

I wanted other prospective purchasers to notice, and also see the many other reliable companies that sell and deliver all of the stuff we need.

http://www.hobbypartz.com/ <- if it's in stock it's super fast
http://www.helipal.com/index.php <- ships from Hong Kong in close to a week if not less.

I've had problems with hobbypartz and xheli (same folks). I've got over 70 orders with HK and other than being sloooooooooooow, haven't lost an order. I don't think there is any hobbyshop that is perfect but the less folks buying from HK the better for folks like me who place regular orders.

Heres how it works, place an order, and be patient. HK can't be held responsible for your post office, unless they put the wrong address on the box. BTW, I still order from hobbypartz and xheli,but their service sucks pretty badly too so hopefully I won't need any.

Good luck, hope you get satisfaction.

"store credit only" and "we don't credit shipping" is becoming standard practice regardless of who's at fault. I've seen a few people say that one supplier has the policy of "I'll give you a credit but I'll have to cancle your account and you can never purchase from us again".
Xheli has had an F rating with the BBB since probably the second week they were in business. Every forum is full of xheli horror stories, again going back many many years. Guess what, still one of the biggest suppliers out there.

I have made orders from both Xheli and HK and never a problem and was always able to get a hold of customer service for minor issues. I never had a problem with an actual recieved item though. We all know ordering from HK and other like vendors can be risky.Sooner or later I might get shorted an item, and they might fix it, might not, I'll have to decide then if I want to consider doing business there, doing the math and seeing if it's still overall worth it. That's what buying overseas is like, it's a crapshoot sometimes. You are right though, they have no concept of customer service, You have to try to be as bad as some of the reports I have read. But I take calculated risks when buying if I want to avoid full price (The items I buy at Hobbyking are not available anywhere near me at any price). Hobbyking doesn't scare me, I just bought a car yesterday on ebay sight unseen and it's going to be paid for before I leave for vacation and delivered by truck carrier after. And you guys are worried about a few RC parts?!??! HA! It's the second car I have bought on ebay. Saved enough money to buy 10 years of RC crap.

Recommend a heli shop, they have good service and fasting shipping. hobbyrover.com

Originally Posted by Airrover

Recommend a heli shop, they have good service and fasting shipping. hobbyrover.com

So I went to your webb site, looks nice and prices look great but then I noticed pop ups when ever I click on a link. If you want business from me you had better end that crap. I will never buy from a site that brings up non-related links.

Originally Posted by ewoodcox

I've had problems with hobbypartz and xheli (same folks). I've got over 70 orders with HK and other than being sloooooooooooow, haven't lost an order. I don't think there is any hobbyshop that is perfect but the less folks buying from HK the better for folks like me who place regular orders.

Heres how it works, place an order, and be patient. HK can't be held responsible for your post office, unless they put the wrong address on the box. BTW, I still order from hobbypartz and xheli,but their service sucks pretty badly too so hopefully I won't need any.

Good luck, hope you get satisfaction.

lol 70 orders , i have over 5 pages of orders there . i finally gave up ordering from them because to get stuff in a reasonable time was the ems shipping . then i needed to order at least 2x the original order because 90 out of 100 , i got something defective. not worth my time to ship it back and wait for a 10 month refund.
alot of the stuff i order is in the U.S.A. now so i have no need to use them or paypal .

Originally Posted by Airrover

Recommend a heli shop, they have good service and fasting shipping. hobbyrover.com

i clicked on the canopy link and it set off my antivirus. no thanks!

I have over €5,000 worth of orders to Hobby King in the last 2 years and never yet had a problem.... guess I'm lucky

Delivery times are no better or worse than any other far east supplier, usually 2 and a bit weeks. Products have been OK, reasonable quality and fit for purpose.
Only issue I had was some B grade batteries that lasted only about 10 cycles with quite poor runtimes, but then you get what you pay for

The problem we are seeing here is that if someone gets a good service they say nothing, so you only hear the bad things. when you take into account the volume of orders HK must process every day, they are bound to have a few unhappy customers.

There is an old saying in retail industry
"A happy customer tells no-one, but an unhappy customer tells everyone"

Originally Posted by karlik

"store credit only" and "we don't credit shipping" is becoming standard practice regardless of who's at fault. I've seen a few people say that one supplier has the policy of "I'll give you a credit but I'll have to cancle your account and you can never purchase from us again".
Xheli has had an F rating with the BBB since probably the second week they were in business. Every forum is full of xheli horror stories, again going back many many years. Guess what, still one of the biggest suppliers out there.

Came here to say that... the OP is basically asking HK to take the hit on something that was out of their control, and they are willing to do it, and it didn't even take very long to work it out. I don't see any reason to complain about this. Have them send you your batteries and be done with it.

Honestly, I can't understand complaining about something not getting checked into a warehouse after only 24 hours. Do you know the size of the pile of returns they have? How do you know it's not a 2-day job? Also, once you enter service land, you are outside the normal flow of business. HobbyKing's primary business is mail-order RC parts, NOT processing returns. Those things get second priority, and complaining that the process is not as fast as the normal process is kinda lame.

IMO, you've been treated as well as could be expected. You misunderstood what you were ordering and where you were ordering from, and even after being told what the situation is, you still don't like it? YOUR problem, not theirs.

Remember, this stuff used to take "6 to 8 weeks for delivery" and that was AFTER the post office sent your order form, which you had to fill out by hand and any mistakes you made were your problem. These days, people complain about things after 24 hours?! Are you NUTS? Have some perspective. These companies are moving mountains for you.