Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ravi Gaddipati on September 8, 2010 at 4:48pm

They do that for customs, so the cost is less. Usually, you don't have to put it as what you payed, as you can debate its value.

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Permalink Reply by Mike on September 9, 2010 at 1:51pm

HK wouldnt confirm my payment as the delivery address was different to the billing address. They asked for a scanned image of my debit card with the first 12 numbers hidden. I contacted them via Live Chat from Angola and got an almost immediate response from Jenny who confirmed the requirement. She was certainly not monosyllabic, was efficient and very polite and helpful. Their site at least has 'discussion' and 'review' sections which I always read and have not bought many items due to bad feedback. Also a quick search on RCG for feedback is useful. You just ahve to be aware that some of the stuff they sell is garbage and priced accordingly yet a lot of their stuff is excellent yet cheap. Do your research and you have less chance of being disappointed.

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AdminPermalink Reply by Thomas J Coyle III on September 9, 2010 at 5:22pm

Hi all,

Just placed an order for two Flightmax 5000 mahr 3S LiPos with HK this evening. LiPos are about the only thing that I will purchase from HK lately. So far I have placed 19 successful orders. However, most of what HK sells is marginal at best especially the motors which can develop bad bearings in a hurry. Their ESCs are not too bad, but I would put them through a burn-in period if you are going to use them on a drone that you have put a lot of time and money into.

Regards,
TCIII

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Permalink Reply by Sami Finnila on September 10, 2010 at 5:24am

My experiences with HobbyKing have been so and so. The first order I made about a year back went alright. I changed the order twice before it shipped since some of the stuff I originally wanted had come back in stock. All the items I received were ok too or above average if you take into account the price. (Yes, most of their stuff is substandard. Read the reviews carefully.) Later on a charger I ordered broke under almost no load at all.

The second time, however, didn't go so smoothly. I placed a small order this spring and had some LiPos in it. One of the three LiPos was severly puffed when it arrived and had its wrap badly molten. It clearly was in no condition to be returned to HongKong but still HK insisted that I should return it at my own expense and more importantly on my own risk. They stated that I should take the risk even though I didn't even ask about it. To me that was almost like a threat on their part not to return the item.

Generally the problem is that there is absolutely no QC what so ever and that they don't hesitate to send you faulty items since 99% of the time the customer is not going to return the broken item and it's still good money for the HK. This makes it pretty hard to compare the eventual prices with the prices of European or American dealer's prices.

I think it all comes down to cultural differences: in China companies' and the country's interests come first and the individual is of very little importance to the system. So it's quite the opposite to what we're used to...

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Permalink Reply by Marco Glattfelder on September 10, 2010 at 6:05am

I have history of over 30 orders (mostly helicopter parts and batteries) and can say that 90% went well. Only Li-PS's got damaged cells in 3 cases after 3-4 charges. 1 time I sent back a fly-mentor (3D stabilisator for hhelicopter) thinking it was broken, but it was not (I just didn't understand the semantic mening of the meanual). The send me back a new one without discussions... but I had to send back the 'damaged one at horrible costs. Beside that I saved a lot of money with HK and I'm mostly happy with them. For someone in the US ordering from a inland shop with little shippement costs it may be an option to HK, but from switzerland I can afford 50% of damages and still save money. HK learned in the years to ask how much you want to have as value on the customs invoice: Some shops in HK set a ridicolous value per default declaring it as gift. Our custom puts a heavy overtax in this case, so that I ask to set the real value. Finally we pay only 7.6% VAT here so there is no value to fake anything.

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Permalink Reply by Andrus Kangro on September 11, 2010 at 1:22pm

Hi, I've made 24 orders from Hobbyking so far and will order more.
I've had one issue - one order which I originally selected to be paid with Visa, I paid with Paypal, and this order did not go into "Processing" status automatically. I sent e-mail to support and got no reply for couple of days. Then, I waited for an hour to get contact with live support, and he fixed the issue in 5 min. I believe the customer support person they have talks to 4 people simultaneously and has buttons for standard phrases.
Goods quality varies - I did not know that one needs to balance propellers or glue loose magnets back to motors before use, while I dealt with LHS only. However, the price is so much cheaper at Hobbyking, and if you do your own Q&A you come out pretty good. Its also good to read product reviews.
If you cancel an order, then the money goes into your bonus balance, which you can use for new purchases - but you cannot pay for shipping with bonus points, you will get billed for that anyway.
One more issue that comes into my mind - sometimes they have delays with shipments. This is usually caused by local holiday or some disaster which affects shipping companies.

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Permalink Reply by A. Rafael Ptacnik on September 13, 2010 at 8:10am

I have placed several orders and no problems at all. im actually very satisfied with the service and products ( i never place orders on back ordered stuff since i like to know exactly when my order is arriving ) the ups prices are good for a nice heavy package the one thing that i dont like is that they limit your order mass size. i always the maximum capacity

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Permalink Reply by John Ryan on September 16, 2010 at 5:11pm

I placed 2 orders early last week. The first, was valued over US300, the second was under US100.

Instead of combining orders they sent them out separately, fair enough. The first order arrived today and everything was as ordered. They sent a power plug for a different country, but luckily I happened to have plenty of compatible plugs handy.

The products were well packaged and everything seems to be working to specification.

But I am mildly concerned about the second order. They sent it via 'nothing special' post and the tracking number and link they provided doesn't work.

So hopefully it'll show up soon, and next time I'll make sure I order more than US300 per transaction ; )

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Permalink Reply by John Ryan on September 22, 2010 at 12:25am

The smaller order via HK post has just updated the status to say that it was on it's way to the destination country "yesterday"!

So (apparently) it's taken them 11 DAYS just to get that 1 order out of HK.

I definitely won't be selecting the International posting option again, as good as the price seems, it's way too long for such small but mission-critical components : (

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Permalink Reply by John Ryan on October 1, 2010 at 4:40pm

So the order arrived and its all there, in good working order. The packaging could have been better (box with a 3 inch tear on a bottom corner) but fortunately there wasn't anything missing or broken.

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Permalink Reply by Ed Stewart on October 1, 2010 at 7:21pm

I've had several orderes through HK over the last couple of years, delivery to Arkansas typically runs about 10 days, not too bad I'm thinking. Had one minor glitch so far, forget exactly what it was but had email correspondence and got store credit. I'm sure they ship a LOT of small packages so there's bound to be a few fubars in the mix...

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Permalink Reply by Mike Bakula on November 3, 2010 at 12:17pm

I've just given up on getting satisfaction from Hobby King for my first purchase. I bought a Turnigy 9X set, which arrived packed in green paper. No corrugated paper box, no packing other than the styrofoam in the display box. When I opened it (it was delivered while I was at school), the foam had clearly been crushed, and the left gimbal was damaged.

I took pictures and weighed the package (?) as Hobby King's website directed, and corresponded with one of their people by email. After some going back and forth about investigation, I heard nothing further for two weeks. When I asked for a follow up, I was told to pack and ship the broken radio back _at my own expense_, and they would investigate whether there was anything they would do about it.

The cost to re-pack correctly and ship it is about equal to the original cost of the radio. It will also take weeks, and they won't tell me whether they will repair, replace, or simply deny the claim. Rather than go though that, I'm cutting my losses, and apply that money to a different radio from a reputable manufacturer.

Anyone got a dead Turnigy radio I can salvage a gimbal out of, or want a deal on my 9X as-is?

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