Helihobby.com has the worst customer service.

[Yellow Spectra]

I bought a CNC pitch tail slider from them and it didn't come with set screws or screws to hold in the tail rotor blades. It is suppose to because another friend of mine got them. Anyways, sent them an email from their site over two weeks ago and no reply or courtesy email acknowledging receipt of the complaint. I've never seen such terrible customer service. I will never buy from them again.

[NolanManley]

Crap man ...I do not know of ONE hobby supplier that doesn't get things messed up severals times a month and I mean ALL of them.
Have you tried more than ONE way of contacting them. I guess not since it would take less time than you making a fuss here.
More people need to grow up and do a bit more follow up when they have a problem. It won't fix itself.
They may have had a loss of emails thru their ISP...happens all the time. Could be some spoiled dumb ass kid not following up too! :shock:
Don't rant all over the damn place till you do the leg work and then not get any results and we'll call them sorry SOB's with ya. :twisted:

[Yellow Spectra]

Messing up an order is one thing, but being SOBs in customer service like leaving the damn order incorrect is another entirely different thing. And yeah, I have tried OTHER ways like calling them. Got their message and left them voicemail. Could it be possible that they are losing voicemails through their answer machines too? Most people need to get their heads out of their asses and stop making excuses for these outlets. Service at a hobby shop shouldn't be any worse than services at a restaurant. If you ordered something and is missing, am I expected to do the leg work and run back to the chef and ask for it? Hellz no. What anyone pays for anything is not just for the product but for the services. An email according to their website should be enough which is BS. I don't need to go out of my way to mail them a banner saying i have a missing acccessory. If that was the case, then state it on the damn website. Maybe it is run by a dumb ass kid.

[NolanManley]

I bought a CNC pitch tail slider from them and it didn't come with set screws or screws to hold in the tail rotor blades. It is suppose to because another friend of mine got them. Anyways, sent them an email from their site over two weeks ago and no reply or courtesy email acknowledging receipt of the complaint. I've never seen such terrible customer service. I will never buy from them again.

Not making any excuses for them as I know they screw up on a regular basis. Must be a language bearer or something. But you make only ONE mention of trying to contact them in your original post and that's all anyone that reads it has to go on. OK then you've done the leg work and now just like at a restaurant don't go back to them. ;) If they have so much business that they can't get back to their customers then it'll balance it's self out when they lose a bunch of them.
Now that we know the rest of the story, thanks for the heads up on those SOB's. :D

[noviceclass]

I bought my complete shogun package from them in store. The owner, David, stated they just moved to a new location and things were hectic. In fact, he needed to mail me my escape, blade holder and crystal, and it was received within five days. Give them another chance, as I am sure you will not be disappointed in the future.

[rob_jones]

Let's keep it civil, fellas. :wink:

[NolanManley]

Severely Off Balanced ??? :D

[rob_jones]

LOL :lol:

[zoomcorvette]

I have another Helihobby story to share about their customer service and dishonesty. I ordered a set of "machined delrin" wide landing gear from them. I receieved the stock landing gear bent to a wider stance. THere were witness marks from the molding process and even parting lines. After sending two e-mails to their web response system and receving no response at all I finally got thru the phone to a lady at helihobby. She stated they would send the new part out that day. A week later I still had not received the part so I called again and they stated they were waiting for the return part and again they promised to send out the part and that they would send it the faster shipping method which was against their policy of sending there mistakes by mail (7 day delivery) regardless of how your first order was sent. I called two days later and they said they had sent the part out but the part I ordered from them two days later had arrived (the last part I will order from them).Again a few more days went by and no part so I e-mailed there response system to cancel the order and they stated finally responded thet they would credit my account when they received the part and that they had recalled the part they had shipped out a week earlier which is impossible. Then to make things even worse when I got to my club on Friday another member had been bait and switched by them also except his stock landing gear was dyed black and widenened same molding witness marks and same order of machined delrin landing gear. I have still not received my credit for the returned landing gear and I would warn anyone not to use Helihobby as they are dishonest. :(

[rkeith2]

I too have received much less than stellar service and defective CNC parts.

I will not do biz with them again.

[lfalsetto]

Wish I would have read this before. PUrchased a bevel gear set and they sent it to the wrong state. However they got the state right when they charged my credit card. Now they don't answer their phone says it will not receive calls. The emails I received just reiterate where they sent the order. Guess I will have to charge it back on my card. :arggg: :arggg: :arggg: :arggg:

[belair]

I bought a BK117 fuselage from Causemann in Germany, they took the money but after a month now I haven't seen my fuselage. I phoned them 5 times from belgium to Germany, I sent I do not know how many e-mails but they never reply. When you phone them they will sort it out and send you an e-mail within 5 minutes, they never do. I made a complaint with Pay Pal and they would look into it. Now if this is the way to make money on the net, I'll throw my computer out.
Belair :(

[steide]

I have done quite a bit of business with HeliHobby and have received abysmal service. I tried to order a complete heli kit, but the web page showed errors before I finished the order or received a receipt. Long story short, they billed my card, shipped the kit and the only notice I got was when the shipping company notified me I had a package. Sure enough when I check my credit card, they had billed me. Two months later I finally got my refund, only $122 short for restocking and shipping fees. I'm stationed in the United Kingdom and spent quite a few hours on hold fighting with customer service to get my refund, and all of it at that. I will NEVER do business with this company again. If you do buy from these people and there is a problem, don't expect timely, accurate or acceptable resolution.

[futura]

I've done five orders from Hellihobby in the last 4 months. No less than 5 parts for each order. Parts for both my Hornet II and Shogun. Four days later, the packages arrive and everything has been in perfect order.

I'm just lucky I guess.....a consistant four days is fast for parts and I've never had to pay more than 4 dollars shipping. Good thing all these parts are small and light.

I did call them once with a question on CNC tail bits. Lady on the other end of the phone was "ho humming" me and didn't answer questions very well. My first thought was that Hellihobby must not be very "hungry". $165 in CNC goods and you would think I was asking about a 1mX10mm main shaft pin. Needless to say I bought my bling elsewhere.

If I gotta get it flying by the next weekend though......it has happened so far using Helihobby! :)

[RSL_Mongoose]

At least you can complain about it here, over at the other place you would be banned, persecuted, and have your family threatened with concrete sneakers.

[pilotError]

I'm just lucky I guess.....


Your fine as long as they send the right stuff and ALL of the stuff. Any mistakes and your pretty much screwed as they don't respond at all.

I bought a bunch of stuff from them, had a little problem with one of their parts (wrong screws), after chasing them for a while I ended up buying from someone else.

Good prices, but certainly not worth the aggravation if there's a problem.

Mike...

[futura]

......its still alot better than ordering from overseas eg china!!!!!

Internet shopping is a gamble in the best case. What it really comes down to for those of us in metropolitan areas is telling your LHS what you need and let them get it for you. In the last month I've found or ordered my bits from my favorite LHS.

A smiling face and a handshake is so rare in business these days.....and more valuable than ever.

<sigh>

[skyboy50]

I certainly don't want to minimize the comments above; however, I do want to talk about my experience with HelliHobby (HH). On July 9, very late at night, I bought from their web site a Zoom 400. On the 10th I received an email from HH describing notifying me that they had received my order and provided a HH order number. At their site I was able to see the progress towards getting the Zoom out the door. On the 11th, I received an email from the USPS stating that HH had notified them that they HH had contacted them to advise that an item would be picked up by USPS soon, that day I also got a USPS tracking number. For several days I was worried because I did not see any change in status at the USPS site. Well, guess what, on Thursday the 14th I was working from home when the USPS delivery vehicle drove up to my house. I thought, can't be, but I was pleasantly surprised to see her take out a package for me. It was indeed the Zoom heli, double boxed and in great shape! The best part, for a few days it was on sale for $89.00 plus shipping, so for lees than $100.00 I got the Zoom delivered, and BTW, its the V2 version with several upgrades, 2 sets of fiberglass blades and one set of woodies. It's back to $119.00, but I still think that it's a heck of a buy. Tatter that day, the 14th, I received an email from USPS notifying me that the Zoom had been delivered to my home. I have ordered through USPS, with tracking, before, and they were timely in notification of progress, however, in this case, it is obvious to me that USPS vas not very diligent about updating the tracking info, this obviously was no fault of HH. No, I don't work for HH. I began flying R/C when I was 14 (a Testors galloping ghost single channel ARF low winger (anybody remember this one?), then on to an EK Logictrol 4 channel, followed be an Orbit 4 ch (with the small, fancy PS-4Ds 4 wire servos (I still have one of these servos!). I quit flying R/C helis 15 yrs ago (last heli was a GMP Cobra w/OS50) when I left Anniston, AL and R/C airplanes 10 yrs ago when I left Bowling Green, KY for Anderson, SC. I now live in Marietta, GA and am getting back into the hobby. I forgot to mention that my first heli was called Mantis, with lite-ply sides, a K&B 40 (non-schnurle), and of course, no gyros in the early '80s! No, this piece of work never flew… I personally will be buying from HH again... Thanks for reading my post!

[spin-up]

I agree... I've learned my lesson the hard way. I went as far as sending my shogun v1 in for repair, it took them 10 weeks before I got it back and they didn't send back my manual for either the shogun or my futaba radio manual. When I called them they told me they would send it out. Week and half went by, no manuals. I called, oh yes sir we will send it right out. 2 weeks passed, I called ( If they would ever pick up the freaking phone!!) oh sure we will send it right out. A 10 days later, nothing. So I tried to call, finally talked to the lady(Nicki) oh sir, we don't have it here, I will contact our repair person. Never heard back. Called after a week, the repair person doesn't have it and we don't either.

They also forgot to send my billing statements on 3 of my purchases, have sent me items which I didn't order.

I've purchased hop-ups from them which some would work and others were peices of sh*t.

I still have 10 dollars of credit with them, it's the best 10 dollars I ever spent with them!!! :bomb:

[stick]

that is weird I have been buying from them for 2 years without a problem .All orders have been received in 3 days .I was missing a blade holder in my 1st shogun kit and I called them and got it 3 days later .so far fantastic service

[Chad Douglas]

I'm very saddened by my latest experience with Helihobby. I'll try and keep this short. I've spent many thousands there. I bought a Logo 14 kit. It came all in order except the gear bag.., opened., and only weeks later(not getting ANY real help from HH) finding that the gears were 2 short AND the complete wrong gears to begin with., So I had countless hours of problem solving on my own. Tried to explain to the gal at Helihobby that pinion and gears provided would NOT work., she insisted they would and that "many other exact set ups" had no problems. Finally, I called the Mikado Dist in AZ., where a tech began to help me problem solve., he voiced concern on the set up and wasn't keen on the motor matching choice, ESC, etc.,(again assuming that the right gears were in hand)
NEVER has HH returned a call from me even when they've promised to get back to me.
They treated me like a rookie!(I am in the air but I've BUILT many many helis)

When I finally talked to HH., she nicely bad mouthed the guy at AeroModel in AZ saying he didn't know anything about the Logo 14. The guy in AZ CALLED me back! 3 times! And he was the guy who helped solve it. I then spent more money on getting the right parts because HH was out of stock.., HH hasn't credited me.., and STILL after a week not called me back.., I'm through with them., I'll never spend another dime there., and I'll tell you that if only they had decent customer service., there'd be no issue.

And BTW., AZ distributor didn't charge or try and sell anything., they spent major time helping solve the problem., I ended up buying the parts elsewhere as AZ suggested for cost reasons.

[Wazzer]

Sorry guys but I must say that Heli Hobby has an extremely bad reputation that has been well documented all over the forums.

I too found out the hard way and was stung badly. So now, I do a background check before each purchase from a new shop. I do a search on each of the major forums before I let go of any of my limited Heli budget. It takes all of 20 mins to do a pretty thorough search.
The only thing good about HH is their website its nicely designed and easy to find info about products.

If you are a regular on a particular forum you will easily find out which shops are the best to deal with.

All the Best for the Future guys

oh and one last thing

STAY AWAY FROM HELIHOBBY!!!!! they Suck!

Ben

[Jafa]

They also spam you continuously
You use their "remove me from your mailing list" facility
and it just ensures you get a fresh lot of spam

[jfa1368]

Dudes,

Go to www.Flying-Hobby.com (http://www.Flying-Hobby.com). I have a fixed budget also and looked around at all the forums myself before buying. The guy there (Fung) has been totally cool to me and technically supports everything he sells. Just a suggestion.

[redrsv]

I have bought a ton of stuff from them. A few times they screwed up but it was a $5. part and not worth my time to try and fix it.
I have a LHS but the guy is hurting so bad he can't keep anything in stock and has to order everything. Sometime if the order is not big enough he can't even order it so I go to heli hobby. I usually have the stuff in 3 days and I can order parts right after I CRASH!
LOL
Its to bad for the LHS but in these days of being CHEAP and in a HURRY you get what you pay for!
Is there such a thing as a great Mail order? :nanabobo
I have had more problems and slower service from Heliproz but they are a lot better to deal with .
Rotor side down'
Steve