porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

That's great as a jingoistic slogan, but overall an empty phrase, and presumptuous/judgmental too. I think we can all make our own decision on where and what to buy, and shouldn't be telling each other what we need and don't need.

What exactly does "buy american" mean in this global economy? Virtually every RC vendor sells in the US. Am I "buying American" when I shop at HK and order from the US warehouse? Let's say I want a DA-200 engine and order one from DA (is that engine built in the US from all US components). What if I throw in a Xoar prop (made from German wood), and a Mejzlik spinner (eastern European)...have I not bought American? The store brand ESC from A Main and Heads Up RC...are those American products? I don't think so. They are foreign products sold by a US company. Same as Tower or Horizon.

I do know a local guy who hand builds his engines, but I can't say for certainty that all of these motors are made with US products:

http://syssaaircraft.net/faqs/

"almost all" of his parts are US made (by his operation too).

It would be great if everything we needed was made and sold in the US, but that's unrealistic. And even if it was possible, there is nothing "unamerican" about choosing to by something from where we want. Kinda actually goes along with being American, as in having the freedom to make those choices right?

I tried to challenge myself a few years ago to build a RC plane with only US sourced and sold products. Got as far as a frame. No luck on the ESC or motor, or servos. Or hardware. Or battery. The closest I got was this:

http://toughjets.com/

So I'm thinking if I buy something from a company that is based in the US (in part or in whole), and that company employs US citizens, pays taxes of all kinds (real estate, payroll, sales tax), I'm satisfied that I'm "buying American".

If you know of any US based company that can sell all the items, and I mean ALL of the items needed to get a plane in the air, by all means share the info, I'd be willing to look into it further.



The simple fact is without Japan/China, RC of any type would be completely different than what we see now. Even more so for electric flight.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Interesting information on distribution times.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...3&postcount=15

Location location location. Guess it helps to have the Fed Ex hub there. I figured NJ would have been a contender even with high costs, just because of air freight and cargo ship/rail capacity.

Thx1326

HK customer service has really become non-existant - worse yet - it has become awful. Paid for an order last Thursday - 6 days ago - still hasn't shipped from AR warehouse. Repeated chats with HK gives absolutely NO information. For 4 days they can only say they are following up.

Anyway... AR Warehouse phone # is (501) 457-5190. I talked with a nice lady and she said she would call me back... we will see.

GallopingGhostler

AFAIK, HK is not the quickest shipper around. About a year ago I ordered some stuff from their west coast warehouse I think in Oregon, it took about 8 or 10 days before they shipped, got it in 2 weeks. I was still glad to receive as it saved me quite a bit of money.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Something is going on there, and it ain't good. You would think with all of the shipping problems going on with the ports in CA the Western Warehouse would have some serious issues, but they all seem to be coming out of AR lately. I've had several boxes from both US and HK locations come in fine, but my buddy has finally had a taste of how frustrating it is dealing with them when things go wrong. He had multiple orders from both US and HK locations. two got hung up coming out of the AR branch. After two weeks (and getting stuff from WA and HK), he writes and says hey, what's up. They looked into it. oh, it's on it's way. a few days later, again he writes. Well..now there seems to be a problem. HK blames the USPS, says his address isn't good. Weird he says, i've bought there before and it worked, and you just sent me stuff from HKong and WA, what's up with this. They don't respond. He gets the CSR Rob from RCG involved, he responds right away. Ya, AR warehouse says your address is a problem. No it's not he says, o/k, they will dig more. More days go by, back to Rob...what's up? Ya, I'm working on it. See a pattern? Now they want a "secondary address please". Wait...what? Who has a secondary address...what's wrong with the one you've been delivering to for the past 5 years? The guy is 74 years old and can barely deal with the live chat, then ticket, then PM and e-mails from Rob. I wrote back to them today for him, said forget it all, just give the money back in full. It's been 30 days, no product, no end in sight. No credits either, but the cash back on the credit card within two days or we go the chargeback route. Also, the two items are in stock, with over 10 items in stock, and have been that way for over a year.

I can't for the life of me understand what the issue is. Rob noted it's a widespread issue in AR only , and they blame everything on the USPS. In this case I think it's bull. Rob usually takes care of everything pretty fast from what I've seen, and the overall number of complaints seems to have gone done since he's come on board, but in this case, everyone at HK has dropped the ball. When things go well they go well, when they don't....lookout!

topspin

First of all blaming everything on the USPS is nonsense. I get a lot of stuff shipped to me through the post office and don't have any of those problems so maybe they just don't like HK. As for Rob, I'm sure he does solve many problems but doesn't it strike anyone as odd that they even have to have him and that he is on RCG? I mean, HK has their own site and online chat that is supposed to resolve stuff so why don't they just do that? They need some independent guy on Long Island to resolve problems?

Another thing that is priceless are the poor guys who get jerked around for one or two months until they find Rob who then either resolves the issue or placates them somehow. They then declare what happy customers they are after getting shafted for two months? That ain't right, most people don't put up with that. So that whole company is surrounded by weirdness and has been for a long time and yet, the fanboys say they have been filling 5,000 orders a day, day in and day out since 2008, amazing. That's enough RC stuff for a quarter of the people on the planet, wow.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

5,000 a day is probably low, given the huge growth the company has seen since 2008. Any other company open in Russia lately? At the risk of the thread going the way they normally do, they continue to have service issues and probably always will, this probably isn't news to those that use them. So does every company out there, even the big boys. I don't doubt the ratio of sales to complaints mirrors others. Everyone makes their own decision on using them, simple. When things go wrong, you try to fix it their way, and then when that doesn't work, you let the credit card and PP company deal with it.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

alternate address

Shipping things I have had times where an address works with Fedex but USPS doesn't recognize it, if I remember right it's when the address is a "State Route #" instead of a common street name.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

yup, that can happen no doubt. When I've used the USPS online their system is pretty exact, even a letter off will flag it as a potential problem.

In this case, my buddy has received the items from both US warehouses in the past, as well as the Honk Kong one. He had two from the AR one, one of them made it to him, but the other is stuck in this bizzare groundhog day like fiasco where they keep saying his address doesn't work. Except that it does, and they have shipped to him before. The live help and ticket people have tried to help, but they are unable to make it happen. I reached out to Rob as he has historically waved some type of magic wand and cut through the fog. In this case though, he's not really helping much. In fact he wrote my friend again yesterday to ask how to spell his towns name for the 4th or 5th time. I told my friend to just call it a day and get a refund, or just file the chargeback. Not worth the aggravation to him at this point.

I'm trying to get him involved in quads, told him they are much more fun.

Checklst

Something strange for sure going on if its been 30 days for your order, HK is slow on ship out, it seems to take around 3 to 5 days no matter which warehouse I use if the item is in stock. They are notoriously bad on items not in stock. At 30 days I would just let my credit card company do a charge back and move on.

I just used HK AR for the first time......and it was 3 days to ship on 3 in stock items, right at the same time frame, as I get form west coast or international.......I have a lot of patients but 30 days is way past any reasonable time I could wait.

Good luck