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Re: Hobby King

PostPosted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 5:22 am
by Sid Sideslip
My first attempt at completing an order with HK was a real hassle. I created an account but every time I went to stage two of the checkout process it would not show all the relevant fields for me to fill out.

I tried again next day in case they had a server issue. No dice. Their instant message person was no help at all (the usual "delete cookies and try again", which didn't work).

So I e-mailed their customer support and they got back to me in a day to say that my account details had a corrupt file. They reset my password and said try again. Well, I never did because I had already created a new account using a different e-mail address, which worked.

As far as delivery speed goes. I live in the island state of Tasmania and it usually takes a bit longer for post to arrive here, even from mainland Australia. I Have four orders with them so far.

One, a Leo engine from Hong Kong, took about ten days to arrive and in fact arrived today, along with my Turnigy 9x radio (it works!) which came from the Aussie warehouse and took a week to arrive. Not too shabby. I'm still waiting on two more packages from Hong Kong which were also ordered a week ago; not expecting them until next week sometime.

So, so far so good.

My only real beef to date is that the Aussie warehouse seems not to have a lot of stock in, which is annoying, as I have to pay more for postage from China and it's about twice the wait. Also, there is too much on backorder even in China, especially for ARF kits.

Re: Hobby King

PostPosted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 10:18 am
by bmsweb
Don't heaps of orders from Australia and the HK. I find ordering from Australian Warehouse delivery is always really good. All in all very happy with HK because of pricing and generally quality has been OK. I've had a model arrive with gear stripped servos, a Kinetics that was warped and bent in all directions and a mate purchased a 9X with some dead pixels on the LCD which wasn't worth posting back.

Some of the models I've purchased:

2 x Mini P51D Mustangs - Both in PERFECT Condition in every way & couldn't be more happy with the models
1 x Kinetics - Model is warped in every directions but it still flies with creative trimming :lol:
1 x Phoenix 2000 - Molding on Plastic Fuselage had issues with Wing Mounts, Screws that were stripped, 2 broken servos - but I'm still happy with this model!! Flies great

All other hardware etc that I've purchased has been fine.

Re: Hobby King

PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 3:37 pm
by DejaD
I ordered a key fob camera from HK. It took 2 days and a live chat session with customer service to dispatch the order to the warehouse. It then it took 3 days and 2 live chat sessions to ship...I was pretty ticked off by that point. A total waiting period of 13 days from order to delivery, from HK to Detroit, Michigan, USA. And all the while the order status showed "dispatched". In fact, 6 days after it was delivered it still showed "dispatched".
I would have thought even HK could do better than that...appearently, I was wrong. I cannot say with any degree of certainty that I will EVER order from HK again...

Re: Hobby King

PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 4:40 am
by pete139
I've done 4 orders with Hobbyking now in the last few months. Be prepared for a slower than usual delivery time - it takes a good few days to process and get packed assuming nothing is back ordered, it can take another 5 days after that to be put onto a plane, then your quoted shipping times kick in (i.e. 3-4 day EMS delivery). (that seems to be what has happened on my orders anyway).

Product I've recieved has all been ok. I buy from there assuming no warranty.

Re: Hobby King

PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:01 am
by RCModelReviews
Yes, the order before my most recent one was picked and packed within an hour of placing it. The last order however, took 72 hours. Things are a bit slow at the moment.

Re: Hobby King

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 12:39 pm
by finecutpost
I ordered some BlueBird BMS 375 DD servos listed on the HK website as having metal gears, On installation one of the 3 had broken gears. on dismantaling I was amazed to discover the only metal gear was on the motor. all other gears were pretty flimsy plastic. On checking the Bluebird website it's clear that these are plastic gear units and the HK advert is incorrect.
Fortunatly HK has metal gear sets that fit these so I contacted "customer service" to get 3 sets so as to make them as they are advertised! 2 months later I'm still getting dumb emails from Vivian who cant understand the metal gear servos should have metal gears!! 3 sets of gears cost about $10 so far more than that has been spent on the endless emails from Vivian and now Sam and still no idea if they will actually act on this! If HK closed down the CS department and made the items cheaper again we would all win except the useless CS staff. If you buy from HK and something is wrong don't waste your time contacting CS just suck it up and put it down to bad luck.

HK if you read these posts. i've spent $2000 in the last 18 months and you cant pony up $10 for your mistake??

Re: Hobby King

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 2:13 pm
by rogueqd
finecutpost wrote:If you buy from HK and something is wrong don't waste your time contacting CS just suck it up and put it down to bad luck.
Yeah, often it's better to buy two or three of something in the first place. There are some small parts I've bought for my AXN (eg prop colets) that have known quality issues, so the forum posts recommending them all said buy a few and you should end up with at least one good one. :)

Re: Hobby King

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 7:25 pm
by quarry44
Have done 2 orders with HK,and the small one arrived in 8 days.The 2nd one(actually the 1st order)took a bit longer because it contained an arf plane,but still got it in 10 days.
Currently have 2 orders supposedly"shipped",but don't show up on tracking.So it's hurry up 'n wait.

Re: Hobby King

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 11:48 pm
by RCModelReviews
HK processing is pretty slow right now. My last orders took a week or so.

Re: Hobby King

PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 3:18 pm
by kaye620
I placed an order last week with Hobby King. It was to be a birthday gift for my husband. He's used Hobby King many times and has always been happy with his orders. I went to check yesterday the order has been shipped yet. I couldn't just put in my order number and check on it that way. You had to sign in first. No problem I thought; until, I figured out that I had used the wrong email address when I set up the account last week. I put @aol.com instead of @gmail.com. I din't think this was a big deal. LITTLE DID I KNOW!

I couldn't get an answer at the 1-800 customer service number. I clicked on the nice 24 hour online customer service chat link. I got someone right away. Here is how the next 45 min. played out:
CS: Thank you for contacting the Hobbyking support team. How may I help you?
me: I placed an order last week and set up the account under the wrong email address so I'm not able to check on the order. how do I go about changing that? The email I used was ....... and it should have been ....... The order number was ........
CS: May I have your order number please? One moment please. My sincerest apologies. Our accountant requires futher verification of the credit card used to pay for this order. Please take a picture of the last 4-digits of your card, showing your full name (you can cover the rest) and email it to support@hobbyking.zwendesk.com. Please attach the pictures to your message. your order will be futher processed upon successful verification. Thank you for your patience. After you receive the order, we could change the email address.
me: has the item been sent out yet? It is a gift for my husband who's birthday was yesterday.
CS: The order is in our warehouse now
me: Why do you need the credit card info?
CS: It is for security check
me: has my card been charged for this item yet?
CS: yes
me: Okay, is the item going to be sent out anytime soon?
CS: Please send a photo of your credit card to us first.
me: It's a big deal to try and get a photo added to my pc because I don't have a smart phone. I don't understand why the item won't be shipped when I have already paid for it.
CS: Please mention your order number in the subject. Our email is ......
me: Can I cancel the order and have the charged removed from my credit card?
CS: yes. It takes around 4-6 weeks to credit the moeny back to the card account. Please check with your credit card company or next credit card statement for details.
me. no! Either I get my order sent now or I get my money back now.
CS: We are sorry for direct credit card refund usually take 4 to 6 weeks. Plase advise if you want to cancle the order.
me. My husband orders from this company all the time and he hasn't had any issues like this. I'm very upset that he wasn't able to get his gift in time. Can you get the order shipped out today?
CS: We are sorry we could process your order after we receive the photo of the credit card.
Me: This isn't logical. I have already paid for the item. The money has been taken out of my account. I went through the verify process at checkout. I received an order number and statement that the payment has been approved. I want my item and I want it soon. I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get something I've already paid for. I'm not changing the item, payment, or shipping address from the time the order was placed. So there shouldn't be any issue. Insert: the order verification and payment approved reply from the time the order was placed...
me: I have never had a company ask for a photo of my card. It makes me very worried about identiy fruad. we need to find another solution.
CS: Please be advised that for security purposes, our risk management department needs the information before we can process your order. If you do not feel comfortable to provide image of it, you may provide a screen shot of your credit card statement showing the payment to Hextronik Ltd. for this order #......., also show the credit card holder's name on the same screen.
me: can you please give me the number so that I may speak to someone live. I wasn't able to get an answer to the 1-800 number.
CS: We have checked for you with our account department again and we could process your order. your order is now under process. We will ship theorder as soon as it has been packed. We will send you an automatic email with a tracking number once the order is dispatched from our warehouse.
me: Can the email be sent to the corrected email? Insert: correct email vs. wrong email...
CS: The email will be sent by our system automatically. plase contact us about 3 days later.
me: Thank you for your help. I know you personally don't make the policy and have to go with what you are told. I just think all of this was stupid and a huge waste of my time. all I wanted to know from the start was when the order was going to be shipped and if I could changed the email. Fingers crossed my husband will have his new hili in 3 days so he's happy, I'm happy, and I don't have to bother you again. Thanks!

Lesson learned: You better make sure you have all of your information correct before ordering because you won't be able to change it later and they will be happy to take your money without ever shipping your order out.