ORIGINAL: RosscoW

Some more great customer service from HK-

Outrageous!

So, here's the history of this order-

On the 3rd I make up an order including an Sbach ARF aircraft. I delay paying till the next day as I wasn't sure if i wanted it or not. Decided I did, but by then it was on back-order with a ''Will arrive within 50 days'' ETA. I decided that was OK and made the payment.

On 13th, website announced the Sbach was in stock and my order went from ''Back-order'' to ''Reserved''. Cool! On thing I noted was that I had only ordered one servo in the original order, so I made a second order getting some additional servos, a spare prop and a couple of batteries, SPECIFICALLY for the Sbach which is now in stock and coming my way.

1 day later the SECOND order (the extra servos, prop and batteries) ships- the kit still hasn't.

On 17th I contacted on-line support to check, and was told ''All items in stock and will ship shortly'', and a note is added to my order asking the factory to expedite.

0n 21st I contact again and am told the same thing. I ask for this to be followed up and am assured all is OK.

Today, 22nd, I again contact support, am again told all is OK. I insist they contact the warehouse to check- AND- they inform me the kit is actually on backorder due to ''Factory error''. I ask three times what that means, and am never told.

I explain that the second order was only made because Hobbyking erroneously told me the kit was in stock and coming soon, and that I want a refund on both orders. I'm told that I can refuse the parcel, and will (eventually) get a refund, but will not be re-reimbursed for postage.

I ask when the kit will be in stock and am told (because she's just reading from the item entry) ''Within 50 days.'' I ask if that is 50 days from now, or 50 days from the original order on the 4th- and she can't tell me!

I canceled the order....

Errors happen and systems are imperfect. The measure of a good company is their reaction to errors.

From this I've learned-

Hobbyking do not train or empower their customer service people to actually deal with customer problems. I knew there was a problem when the latter package shipped first and reported this to Hobbyking. The CS person just looked at the same page I did, saw the item was reserved, and told me everything was OK. If I can tell something is wrong, why can't your staff? How about training your staff to actually try and detect problems and deal with them?

Hobbyking will only do the minimum to help after their error- I'm out the postage on the second package, and will wait a long time for the refund. Hobbyking made an error, took forever and a lot of persistence on my part (5 different contacts) to admit it, and will now not part with one cent more than they have to make up for it. As the second package was only ordered because they told me the first was coming, it is only fair they cop the postage charge.

This was my 25th and 26th order with Hobbyking.

And the last.