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Kevin_Mc

Hobby King - has anyone ever had any issues?

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I bought an item from Hobby King that arrived with parts missing. I contacted them but had several e-mails bounce back. I decided to open a Paypal dispute and managed to get in contact over live chat. I was told that they would send out the missing parts. Later that day I was then contacted to say that they don’t have the parts in stock and i would be issued compensation through Paypal if i closed the dispute. I asked what sort of compensation and was offered a full refund or store credit to the same value. I chose a refund and closed the Paypal dispute to enable them to process the refund. Then all went quiet. I have tried to contact again and have had no reply. Have i been scammed? 

Thankfully my Paypal is linked to my bank via Direct Debit so i can speak to the bank to recover the money owed to me but i will never shop with Hobby King again and would recommend others don’t if my experience is anything to go by. 

If anyone is in contact with Fallon from Hobby King please inform him of this thread. 

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Lol, I had a body set show up partially crushed,  but decided that the overall price was so cheap that I didn't bother chasing them down for a refund. It was my very last order with them.

Really they just seem to specialize in undercutting competition and little else. I see that they have several warehouses globally, but my money says they're all fulfillment centers. 😖

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I've only ordered a few small items from them (for my Losi Mini-T).  Those were really too small (literally) to mess up so I didn't have any issues.  ;)

 

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They burned me a few times. But until about a year ago I had an inside connection to solve my problems with them. I don't know anyone who works there anymore... They completely lack any form of customer service. They just want money. Horrible retailer! 

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Interesting.  I've placed numerous orders with them over the past five years, and with only one minor exception every order turned out well.  In that one instance I used live chat and submitted photos of the issue, and they took care of it.  They seem fine for basic items like LiPos, chargers, wires, connectors, receivers/servos/ESCs/motors, and tools.  The USA warehouse seems to deliver just fine.

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@Kevin_Mc

Give PayPal a call. They can re open a dispute. 

If you do it via your bank you then run into problems with PayPal.

This seems to be normal for hobby king by various accounts.

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Have to say although I rarely purchase from them I haven't had any trouble either. The truck I bought arrived quickly, well packed and all present and correct. That said, I always check availability and make a point of only ordering from stock in my local warehouse. This seems to help minimise problems. Sorry you have had trouble though, and you are quite right to take your money elsewhere if you are properly annoyed with them. 

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Not had any problems ordering stuff from the UK warehouse.

I did order 6 OrangeRX receivers from the Hong Kong warehouse last year. All 6 turned out to be DOA. That said, once I posted a video of them all faulting, Hobby King refunded the purchase price straightaway. After some promoting they even gave me store credit to cover the import fees and taxes that I'd had to pay.

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2 hours ago, Prescient said:

@Kevin_Mc

Give PayPal a call. They can re open a dispute. 

If you do it via your bank you then run into problems with PayPal.

This seems to be normal for hobby king by various accounts.

Thanks, i’ll give Paypal a call at lunch time. 

Apparently my order was coming from the European warehouse wherever that may be. It did arrive quickly to be fair. 

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I've used them a lot and never had issues.  I also treat them like a "bulk distributor" and given their prices, I'm not too fussed if one item on a bulk order is defective.  I have used them for more expensive stuff (kits and ESC/motor combos, LiPos) and never had issue with anything, so not had to use their customer service.

It's a tough decision as nobody else really competes on price, I can either take the risk with HK or just not have it at all.

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I treat them in the same way as I do Chinese eBay sellers. I make sure that anything I buy from them is something that I don't really need in a hurry, and don't really mind if it never reaches me at all. More expensive items I purchase from more reputable sellers, ideally Tony's Tamiya Parts, Modelsport or somebody local like that.

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That’s who i normally go to but the item i wanted was sold out everywhere else. I eventually tracked one last set down through RCMart so it’s on the way. 

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Lesson learned: never close a paypal dispute unless the dispute has actually been resolved. If the seller wants to compensate you outside of paypal, then they have to accept the risk of not being able to prove that they did anything and the buyer fraudulently gets a full refund via paypal in addition to a store credit etc. If the seller doesn't like that, their only choice is to refund via paypal or do nothing, which results in you escalating the dispute and getting your money back anyway. If they aren't willing to accept that as a solution they shouldn't offer paypal as a payment method.

That said, I've used Hobbyking many times and never had an issue. I see their site has a dispute system, they probably want you to use that as their 1st tier customer support staff probably don't have access to their paypal account. I assume that they had good intentions telling you to close the paypal dispute as they wanted to handle it via their own internal system, but incompetence has resulted in no further action being taken. I would continue bugging them via chat or email and if you get no where contact paypal and get them to reopen the dispute.

For paypal transactions outside of ebay, I personally try to contact the seller about the issue via the contact details on their site (contact form, email, live chat) first. If I get no where with that, I'll then open a paypal dispute. If they promise a solution outside of paypal (e.g. store credit or send a replacement) I'll give them a reasonable amount of time for that to arrive and if I don't receive anything the paypal dispute gets escalated. If they request that I close the dispute before they send me compensation I'll refuse. The worst that can happen is that the dispute becomes a stalemate and you wait the requisite amount of time to escalate it to paypal, who will issue a full refund to the buyer approximately 99% of the time if you have proof that the item was damaged/incomplete or the seller can't prove that they sent anything (no tracking).

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27 minutes ago, nbTMM said:

The worst that can happen is that the dispute becomes a stalemate and you wait the requisite amount of time to escalate it to paypal, who will issue a full refund to the buyer approximately 99% of the time if you have proof that the item was damaged/incomplete or the seller can't prove that they sent anything (no tracking)

The easiest way to avoid all of this is to simply fund the PayPal transaction with your bank-issued credit card. If PayPal drags their feet even a little, I just call the bank and have them do a reversal. The card issuer does not care about settling disputes, they just want to be sure your balance is correct.

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That’s my thinking about the bank. However, i contacted Paypal again today and they issued me a refund. Lessons learned - 1. Don’t close a dispute and 2. Don’t use Hobby King. 

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Never had an issue with them to be honest. Loads of bits and batteries over the years with no hassle.

Website is hard work and UK postage is over kill but no worse than others

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17 hours ago, OCD said:

The easiest way to avoid all of this is to simply fund the PayPal transaction with your bank-issued credit card. If PayPal drags their feet even a little, I just call the bank and have them do a reversal. The card issuer does not care about settling disputes, they just want to be sure your balance is correct.

The problem here is that the transaction on the credit card is with PayPal, not the seller.  If you don't care about losing access to PayPal then maybe that's not so bad but if you use it a lot (or have a high balance on there) it could be costly.

I'm pretty sure HobbyKing let you pay directly by credit card, if you do that you can always use your bank to reclaim the money, although PayPal's dispute system is generally easier to access and I've yet to hear of anyone who hasn't been awarded in favour as a buyer when they've had a genuine reason to complain.  (Different story for sellers though, hence why I'm very careful about selling anything valuable on ebay).

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On 4/11/2019 at 2:51 AM, Mad Ax said:

The problem here is that the transaction on the credit card is with PayPal, not the seller.  If you don't care about losing access to PayPal then maybe that's not so bad but if you use it a lot (or have a high balance on there) it could be costly.

The banks I deal with don't care if a *service provider* disagrees with the charge reversal that their customer initiated, and that's exactly what PayPal is: a service provider and not a bank as they'd like us to believe. The bank reversed the charge because I disputed the withdraw. If PayPal doesn't like it, it's their responsibility to claw the money back from the seller, who is also their client. It is not my bank's problem, and PayPal is beholden to what the banks demand from them. Not the other way around.

Although I'm sure things are a bit different for you on the other side of the pond, I'd actually expected it to be more likely in your favor since Europe seems to have better consumer protections.:unsure:

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No issues here. They even sent me 3S lipo batteries, some plugs and a charger for free, when they missed the fact that I had canceled an order. They could just have asked me to not accept the parcel, instead they let me keep the items. I'm sure they perfect, but so far I have had zero issues with them.

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A few years ago I bought two receivers from them that were supposed to bind with spektrum but they didn't so I asked for replacements! In fairness they sent the replacement receivers and I hadn't got round to post the faulty ones back but the replacement receivers didn't work eather! I didn't send any back just put it down to a lesson learned🤔

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Well, in the end Paypal refunded me the money, HobbyKing sent me a refund and i kept the item as they didn’t want it returned. I’m sure Paypal will see i’ve been refunded and take their money back from me as i have a DD with them. But a happy ending nonetheless. 

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13 hours ago, moffman said:

A few years ago I bought two receivers from them that were supposed to bind with spektrum but they didn't so I asked for replacements! In fairness they sent the replacement receivers and I hadn't got round to post the faulty ones back but the replacement receivers didn't work eather! I didn't send any back just put it down to a lesson learned🤔

Were they ORX Orange receivers?  I have loads of the 3ch receivers and they can be quite slow to bind.  Yesterday it took about 15 attempts to get one to bind, the second 2-3 attempts before I was about to wander off to do something else and suddenly it bleeped - they were binding all along, just taking a long time to finish and become active.

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12 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

Were they ORX Orange receivers?  I have loads of the 3ch receivers and they can be quite slow to bind.  Yesterday it took about 15 attempts to get one to bind, the second 2-3 attempts before I was about to wander off to do something else and suddenly it bleeped - they were binding all along, just taking a long time to finish and become active.

Yes orx orange ill give them another go when my house is finished (ahhhh building work😩) and I bring everything back from storage!👍

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