Hobbyking

[RickM]

Through a bad experience at my own stupidity, I have taken a very, very "slow to speak" approach in dealing with Vendors on these forums, but I find it important to share this story of caution.

I ordered three lipo's through hobbyking using paypal a while ago. The shipment never came. I reached out to HK through the website chat tool. About two days later a representative from HK responded that the order, although processed through Paypal, had been essentially lost at HK. He then encouraged me to file a complaint with Paypal rather than ask for my refund. I really would have preferred them pick up the ball and complete the order, but those batteries may have now been out of stock. Anyway, I did file a complaint with paypal, but several things concerned me here.

1. Something strange had happened to the website when I initially placed the order (an error message before the transaction had been completed, but my payment was processed.)
2. The fact that the order never went through.
3. The customer service email on Paypal was not valid
4. The fact that they were not readily willing to refund my payment directly is concerning

In this day and age of CC fraud, I think it is worth offering this cautionary tale to everyone. I am not saying HK is in the act, if you will, but do they trully have the ability to protect its customers? Nothing has come of this with my ppal account since, but just an FYI.

[BBCorvette18]

was this the usa warehouse or global?

[DeoreDX]

Not to make excuses or stick up for HK but if if something went wrong with their ordering system and your order number was lost or never valid he probably doesn't have a way to refund your money. He probably doesn't have a way to tie the non-existant order to a paypal transaction to initiate a refund. By I'm guessing you will get quicker response by initiating a Paypal dispute than if you had someone on the other end of their web chat trying to work outside of their system.

[JatoTheRipper]

HobbyKing is awesome. I've had nothing but great experiences with them and their products in both the global and USA warehouse.

[uclabruins89]

Just a thought for CC fraud, you can never trust any store.

I bought parts from a Honda dealership in San Diego. During their processing of payments a couple weeks later, they emailed all the customer CC numbers within the dealership (for some sort of record keeping). Of course the numbers were stolen, its in an unencrypted email!!! They have since changed their methods, but this goes to show that even large reputable companies make dumbass mistakes when dealing with customer's records


That being said, I've always had good luck with hobby king. I'd be worried about that error thing you described

[RickM]

Historically I have had great success with HK myself, and I get it that something might have gone wrong on there end to prohibit the ability for a refund. All extremely logical situations. Just find worth pointing out in case a third party is causing HK and then us problems.

[RickM]

Historically I have had great success with HK myself, and I get it that something might have gone wrong on there end to prohibit the ability for a refund. All extremely logical situations. Just find worth pointing out in case a third party is causing HK and then us problems.

[JesterSpec]

Go to value hobby for your batteries.

Hobbyking horror stories are about once a month here. Its always a toss of the dice on what you'll get.

[fatroofus]

Just send me your credit card and I will check it for you.

[The Violator]

Originally Posted by JesterSpec

Go to value hobby for your batteries.

Hobbyking horror stories are about once a month here. Its always a toss of the dice on what you'll get.

I would bet hobby king does 10,000 transactions a month. And since the number of never satisfied douchebags runs around 2 in a hundred, there are going to be a whole lot of people who piss and moan about HK. Face it. We are buying the cheapest products made in what is a hell on earth by children who live in the factories, and expecting it to show up in 48 hours, perfect, and then get a credit back because the sticker was crooked.


Hobby King is great. Never had any issues.

[Meatwad]

Same here with Hobby King, can't really complain. The usa warehouse gets me stuff alot quicker. If I need random crap from their world warehouse, waiting to make a big order to make the shipping worth it is the plan.

[tlakose11]

I've had awesome experiance with hobby king ordered a combo kit motor/esc and a servo from Hong Kong had it in 2 weeks. Just ordered 2 lipos for my scaler and had em in 3 days. lipos came from a us warehouse.

[Stregone]

I occasionally have an issue where the paypal payment goes through, but somehow it doesn't get processed on their end. A quick email after I noticed the order hasn't processed at all and they are quick to get it moving again.

[RickM]

Always funny when a forum gives a simpleton like the Violator balls of steel so he can call guys like me and Jesterspec douchebags. Someday I hope our paths cross in person violator. That would be fun.

[idaho]

I look at it like this, you get what you pay for and hobbyking is cheap so....
I have a sensored esc from them, works great in my drift car, cogs like crazy in my crawler with the same motor in both
I also have one of their batteries that I got 4 runs out of now there's a bad connection inside the hardcase, so it's junk.

[Wade]

Originally Posted by JesterSpec

Go to value hobby for your batteries.

Hobbyking horror stories are about once a month here. Its always a toss of the dice on what you'll get.

Not bad prices on the Lipo's. I might have to take a look into this company and their bat's

[Joshs4x4toyz]

I had the EXACT same thing happen. I completed payment but instead of getting and order confirmation it popped up as an error. I too cantacted them through the chat and relayed emails with two people wanting my order number... Well there wasn't one, I gave them the PayPal transaction # and they said there wasn't an order on it, hmmm. I filed a complaint and within 24hrs I had it back. Yes it would have been great to complete the order but something was lost and they couldn't take care of it. I'll still get my batts and supplies through them, and others as I have been fortunate to never been hosed out of anything (besides dishonest sellers).

Not sure what happened but they didn't blink when I filed PayPal. So I went right back and completed the order again all was well and got my stuff. So 1 out of 40 or so ain't bad

[Corrupt]

+1 to Value Hobby. They have great prices on lipos. GForce lipo's are also decent in quality. Running 4 of them, no issues. They ship quickly, all in all what a company should be like.

Way I see Hobby King is like Harbor Freight. It's stuff to mess around with, but if it messes up on you, you really shouldn't be mad because it was so darn cheap to begin with.

Some stuff is great, other stuff not so much. Just look for reviews before you buy, and you'll be in good shape.

Now, I will say this. They are horribly slow on shipping from the US warehouse. Been a few weeks already and I haven't received my products yet..

-Corrupt

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by RickM

Through a bad experience at my own stupidity, I have taken a very, very "slow to speak" approach in dealing with Vendors on these forums, but I find it important to share this story of caution.

I ordered three lipo's through hobbyking using paypal a while ago. The shipment never came. I reached out to HK through the website chat tool. About two days later a representative from HK responded that the order, although processed through Paypal, had been essentially lost at HK. He then encouraged me to file a complaint with Paypal rather than ask for my refund. I really would have preferred them pick up the ball and complete the order, but those batteries may have now been out of stock. Anyway, I did file a complaint with paypal, but several things concerned me here.

1. Something strange had happened to the website when I initially placed the order (an error message before the transaction had been completed, but my payment was processed.)
2. The fact that the order never went through.
3. The customer service email on Paypal was not valid
4. The fact that they were not readily willing to refund my payment directly is concerning

In this day and age of CC fraud, I think it is worth offering this cautionary tale to everyone. I am not saying HK is in the act, if you will, but do they trully have the ability to protect its customers? Nothing has come of this with my ppal account since, but just an FYI.

Knock on wood I've always had good service from them, only had one battery that went bad in only a couple charges, wasn't worth my time and money to ship back to them for possible credit...still worthwhile considering how many lipos I've bought from them and price...only one bad ain't bad. They are slow shipping, but I always have ordered from the HK warehouse with standard shipping...they arrive in 3-4 weeks and I always order as many batteries as I can fit without going up to the next shipping weight/cost. Pay with CC, not paypal as it's easier to get CC to fix bill imo. Good luck, contact them again...I've chatted with them and they are helpful but not always the most knowledgeable.

[Odd-M]

What I've heard and read from others you can forget about making any sort of warrant on objects bought from them. Some times shipme ts just seem to dissapear, and it can be an annoying process getting money back. Never experienced this my self.

I've complained about parts for one of their cars being out of of stock for a long time, requesting a date for it beeing back in stock.. Each time their responce is surprisingly similar (copy - paste...), "I'm terribly sorry... we restock every 4-6 weeks... please check later..." and so on. Basically just a lie. The much needed parts have been put of stock for 3-4 months now.
I've not ordered much from them but do use their lipos and OrangeRx recievers. They seem to work ok for me.