Hobby King (BAD SHOPPING EXPERIENCE!) ZIPPY Flightmax 5000mAh 6S1P 30C

[pilotkid333]

So I wanted to share my first shopping experience with hobby king:
about 2 weeks ago I ordered a pair of ZIPPY Flightmax 5000mAh 6S1P 30C (USA Warehouse). I live in FL, so it took almost a week to get here from WA.
No problem so far!
When I got the batteries I tested them, and one tested 6s, however the other only tested 5s :-(.
That same day I immediately contacted hobby king and advised of my problem. To my surprise I was told by online customer service rep that I need to send back the defective battery on my expense(!) back to them for it to be tested, and if indeed its bad they will replace it for me.
They didn't offer a return ticket, they actually told me to find the cheapest way which could be tracked and send to them!
I refused to accept it, why do I need to pay for a defective item shipped to me?? and so I tried my luck with another online rep who said for me to email picture showing the battery, the reading, and the warranty number which is on the sticker attached to that battery.
I did it, and since then for 5 days I have been getting the run around saying "its under investigation with product specialist" what a BS!!
How long does it take a product specialist to review 2 pictures showing a 6s battery reading 5s?????
It's 5 days now since I sent the pictures, and today I was told it is going to take another 2 weeks!!! before they can determine if they will honor a replacement!
Thank god I paid American Express, as I am going to cancel the charge, and no more hobby king for me!
I can understand a bad product shipped, but I can't accept bad customer service, and vendor who does not back up their product.

[Kneedragger75]

You ordered from HobbyKing, a very cheap alternative to the higher end shops.
You probably paid 1/3 the price of a Hyperion battery. You simply can not expect
ReadyHeli customer service from them. This kind of thing gets posted all the time.

It will most likely get resolved, but don't think you will get much empathy here.

[Cailid]

Hobby king routinely sends batteries with dead or low cells. They always demand that the buyer pay for return shipping. They do it because they know most people won't bother paying to send them back and they get to keep your money for defective parts.

That's why a lot of people won't do business with them any more.

For a few extra $$ you'd be way better off buying Gens Ace, Voltz, Pulse, Chrome, or the new Thor batteries.

[Redlight11]

Originally Posted by Cailid

Hobby king routinely sends batteries with dead or low cells. They always demand that the buyer pay for return shipping. They do it because they know most people won't bother paying to send them back and they get to keep your money for defective parts.

That's why a lot of people won't do business with them any more.

For a few extra $$ you'd be way better off buying Gens Ace, Voltz, Pulse, Chrome, or the new Thor batteries.

+1. Gens Ace FTW

HK is great for ultra cheap bargain gear................ and not much else.

[emberjelly]

Originally Posted by pilotkid333

So I wanted to share my first shopping experience with hobby king:
about 2 weeks ago I ordered a pair of ZIPPY Flightmax 5000mAh 6S1P 30C (USA Warehouse). I live in FL, so it took almost a week to get here from WA.
No problem so far!
When I got the batteries I tested them, and one tested 6s, however the other only tested 5s :-(.
That same day I immediately contacted hobby king and advised of my problem. To my surprise I was told by online customer service rep that I need to send back the defective battery on my expense(!) back to them for it to be tested, and if indeed its bad they will replace it for me.
They didn't offer a return ticket, they actually told me to find the cheapest way which could be tracked and send to them!
I refused to accept it, why do I need to pay for a defective item shipped to me?? and so I tried my luck with another online rep who said for me to email picture showing the battery, the reading, and the warranty number which is on the sticker attached to that battery.
I did it, and since then for 5 days I have been getting the run around saying "its under investigation with product specialist" what a BS!!
How long does it take a product specialist to review 2 pictures showing a 6s battery reading 5s?????
It's 5 days now since I sent the pictures, and today I was told it is going to take another 2 weeks!!! before they can determine if they will honor a replacement!
Thank god I paid American Express, as I am going to cancel the charge, and no more hobby king for me!
I can understand a bad product shipped, but I can't accept bad customer service, and vendor who does not back up their product.

There may be nothing wrong with the 6th cell, maybe one of the wires has just come unstuck. If you have any friends who could open it up and actually test the voltage of the non responsive cell to ensure it actually is dead. It may just need a spot of solder on the balance wire, 5 minute fix.

If you have no experience with this don't open the pack yourself!

[Mr Nice Guy]

Originally Posted by emberjelly

There may be nothing wrong with the 6th cell, maybe one of the wires has just come unstuck. If you have any friends who could open it up and actually test the voltage of the non responsive cell to ensure it actually is dead. It may just need a spot of solder on the balance wire, 5 minute fix.

If you have no experience with this don't open the pack yourself!

Be warned that doing this will void the warranty. It may be an easy fix like stated. I fixed a lipo that way but it was cheap and not worth sending it back anyway. After having several HK batteries go bad or come bad I no longer use them. I would recommend Gens Ace, Sky, or Thor as they have better performance, and customer support.

[heathy]

I had a similar experience. 5000mah 6s from German warehouse. 1 of the 2 packs looked like a rugby ball.
I now call them turd-nigy


Sent from my iPhone 4s using tapatalk

[Raydee]

Originally Posted by Cailid

Hobby king routinely sends batteries with dead or low cells. They always demand that the buyer pay for return shipping. They do it because they know most people won't bother paying to send them back and they get to keep your money for defective parts.

That's why a lot of people won't do business with them any more.

For a few extra $$ you'd be way better off buying Gens Ace, Voltz, Pulse, Chrome, or the new Thor batteries.

Originally Posted by Redlight11

+1. Gens Ace FTW

HK is great for ultra cheap bargain gear................ and not much else.

I have had the same problem with 5 or 6 Gens ace packs too and each time I had to pay to have them returned. I am not really happy with Gens Ace QC department either. How hard is it to put a battey on the balancer and make sure that all the cells are good BEFORE shipping to the customer.

[emberjelly]

Originally Posted by Mr Nice Guy

Be warned that doing this will void the warranty. It may be an easy fix like stated. I fixed a lipo that way but it was cheap and not worth sending it back anyway. After having several HK batteries go bad or come bad I no longer use them. I would recommend Gens Ace, Sky, or Thor as they have better performance, and customer support.

What warranty?

[Mr Nice Guy]

Hobby Parts has a DOA warranty. I bought one of their Blue lipos and it came with a bad cell. I contacted them and they had me send it back and they replaced it. Sure I had to send it back but it only cost me a few bucks and I had a replacement in less than a week. Now I would not recommend the blue lipos to anyone because they did not last long at all before they got puffy and one dropped a cell.

[Ant1989]

I work for plastic molding company and you think it wouldnt be hard to look at a part an check it for defects but we are always having problems with employees not paying attention to what they are doing and bad parts getting put in a box and most of the time it makes it past our QC department. Seems like people just get lazy anymore and dont wana do
What they get paid for and its always the simplest things

[rablett]

I had the EXACT same experience with HobbyKing in the past. Bought a pair of 6S 5000 Zippy packs from their US warehouse expecting that they wouldn't be great batteries but at least got some flight time on them. Was I wrong. One showed up with a cell at 1.2v. Soldered on a connector to charge it and see if I could resurrect it but no luck. Went round and round with them asking for photos, then asking for more photos then asking for them again. They never initiated contact with me. I always had to send numerous emails to get a response. Their on-line support is never on-line. Finally they said that the warranty was void because I didn't report it the day I got it, which actually I did. Tried arguing with them and they said I voided the warranty by soldering on a Deans connector. Finally I took it outside and had some fun shooting it with my AR-15 after I filed a claim with the US Attorney and the Postal Service. At least I got a few $$$ worth of enjoyment out of it.

On the other hand, I got a bad battery from Haiyin. A dead cell. I sent them an email which they answered almost immediately. They asked for a single photo which I sent and a few hours later received confirmation that they had shipped a replacement battery.

Can you guess who I'll be ordering future batteries from?

[Jolly Roger]

Hunderds of $$$ spent in the USA warehouse and China.
I only order my 3/6 cell batteries from the USA warehouse. If I ever have a problem it won't cost much to send them back to US warehouse.
So far everything I have ordered from HK I have been very happy with.

Sorry about yours and others problems .

[AzChopp3r]

Originally Posted by rablett

On the other hand, I got a bad battery from Haiyin. A dead cell. I sent them an email which they answered almost immediately. They asked for a single photo which I sent and a few hours later received confirmation that they had shipped a replacement battery.

Can you guess who I'll be ordering future batteries from?

Not to hijack, sorry but how does the Haiyin perform say against a Blue or Sky lipo?

[Wellhungsmurf]

I just ordered 4 6S 5000 MaH zippy's, i'll post my results once I get them

[Natewin]

I recently received 3x Zippy 6s 5000 40c batteries from HK. One of them had a puffed cell and was about .3v lower than the rest. I sent them a support ticket the same day and received a response asking for pictures of all labels on the battery and me taking pictures of each cell voltage. I ended up sending a 30sec video taken from my phone and some still shots from that. They issued me a store credit for the bad battery. This took about 2.5 days to turn around and I am quite pleased with the result. I just need to reorder the battery that I am out now. I suppose I have to pay shipping charges again, but that is better than I expected.

[Wellhungsmurf]

I ordered my Zippy 6S 5000mAh batteries Monday, paid paypal 2 minutes later, and it has been sitting in "warehouse" since.

I opened up "live chat" asked what's the delay to ship them to me, and she said "our warehouse is closed these hours, so it will probably ship tomorrow" and ended the chat. Kind of rude. plus it's noon in Washington? Closed WTH?

How long does it take most people for HK to actually package and ship the lipos?

[conefree]

It takes them forever to box up and ship out stuff, all the while having your money. In my experience, average is 2-3 days from ordering to actually getting shipped from intl warehouse. US warehouse is typically a little faster, although they keep very little in stock there

[Wellhungsmurf]

Originally Posted by conefree

It takes them forever to box up and ship out stuff, all the while having your money. In my experience, average is 2-3 days from ordering to actually getting shipped from intl warehouse. US warehouse is typically a little faster, although they keep very little in stock there

Yeah the sad thing is I ordered from the US warehouse. It's awful how slow they move.. Not sure it's worth the $$$ savings

[Jackass1277]

my experience weather its hobby king align usa heli direct. if you need to return it your going to have to pay for it. thats my 2 cents.