My Final Debrief On Gearbest

[Joel Irwin]

Last year I purchased both an 0805 and 0806 from Gearbest. I had incorrectly assumed that since the product had a US ship option, that it was a US vendor. I did not know about this web site at the time of my purchases. My interaction over those purchases is now over. So here is what I know/believe -

1. Had they had any sort of intelligent technical support, I would have found out that my problems were not malfunctioning units.
2. Their technical support comes from China and is via email only (which takes forever due to 12 hour time zone differences with the US). They only understand purchasing and returns and IMHO are clueless about those many things we discuss here. If they actually lurk or participate here, they are not the same people who I dealt with in support.
3. They have a return policy which requires returning the product to China and then you only get a credit for another purchase from them. I really don't care as the customer that their return facility is in China. If I purchased from a US Location (Staten Island, NYC), then I should be able to send it back to where it shipped from and they can worry about getting it back to China. Perhaps some retailers in the US allow returns for store credit only, but if they are going to compete with eBay and Amazon vendors, they have to be able to give credit card/paypal credit for returns (without a restocking fee, by the way).
4. The 0805 I purchased from them had problems with the GPS and the 0806 which I purchased from them while trying to figure out the 0805 problem, had the infamous '3 beep problem' since I was using a Sandisk Ultra. Everyone here understands that these are no 'malfunctions' and that there are solutions that allow us to continue to use the units. Gearbest did not.
5. Having been frustrated with the above, I went ahead and disputed both charges with Visa. While the dispute was ongoing (took about 2 months), I learned here that neither was a malfunction problem. I offered to keep one unit (0806) and return the other (0805). But Gearbest insisted on its return policy.
6. Yesterday, I was notified by Visa that the dispute was decided in my favor and I effectively ended up with both units for free. I do feel sad there was no way to work out something with Gearbest, but if I factor in all the time I spent troubleshooting (before I came to this site) and the time I spent in dispute with Visa, I would consider it compensation for my time.

What I would suggest, perhaps if I were Gearbest (i.e., and they lurk here and read this), is to:

1. Have a 0806 option which ships with a card known to work without the three beeps (e.g., Samsung Pro Plus) or at least have something in their documentation or website, describing the cards known to work all the time.
2. Provide a description in the documentation or web site where the best locations would be for placement and why certain windows can cause GPS problems. It should also describe for those who don't understand GPS technology about why it takes 2 to 4 mins the first time to lock (i.e., the satellite triangulation).
3. Change its return policy to ship back to a US location and provide a full refund (minus initial shipping costs) via credit card/paypal.

 

[jokiin]

Too many sellers only care about making the sale unfortunately, after that point you're on your own with a lot of them

 

[ljw2k]

I'm glad you made this post as I purchased my 0806 from a EU Warehouse hence why I purchased it in case anything went pear shaped which it has done. Now Gearbest want me to send it back China which will cost more than the camera when I bought it.

I have emailed Gearbest stating I purchased fro EU so I want to return to EU because of the cost of postage back to China is Uneconomical.

Unfortunately I paid via PayPal with a Debit Card not a Visa Card, but I am waiting a reply from Customer Service to see if I can send to EU if not then I will be opening a PayPal Dispute.

As above too many sellers after just making a sale and your on your Own but lesson learnt and I will Buy UK in future at least their Customer Service will be up to date.

Conclusion:

If they will not accept a return to an EU Country ( Belgium ) where I thought it was coming from then I will have no choice to try a PayPal cashback.
If a product is found faulty on arrival then they should accept FULL liability including return postage cost, why should I pay for their Poor Quality Control.

That's my rant but I fully 100% agree with you Joel.

 

[DT MI]

It's unfortunate that you had the experience you did but you may take some solace in the fact that you're not the first to have that same experience.

Just goes to reinforce my personal philosophy that the 'best price' is not always the 'best value'.

 

[steve11]

I had a similar problem with the site.

The mini 0806 I purchased last June had become faulty 5 months later (November), I emailed Gear customer service never to get a response. I opened a paypal dispute but seeing as it was a warranty issue Paypal could not rule in my favour, although to their credit they did seek a response from the site but they too were ignored. All so in paypals good faith they offered me a $30Aus partial refund.

I still pursued Gear for a response, it was only when I private messaged the Gear rep on this forum that I finally got a response from the customer service team. They offered me a partial store credit, I asked for a monetary refund instead, again that request was ignored. So again I private messaged the rep on this site and finally was credited some money back to my Papal.

You would notice I purposefully didn't use the word "Best", just referred to the site plainly as Gear, they by no means have achieved the claim of being the "Best".

So even though the experience directly with the sites customer service was woeful, my experience with the rep on this site was great. The rep was polite, understanding and very helpful.