

Hobby King warning


Active member
Sorry to put a FT vendor on blast, but this is what I’ve been dealing with for a month...

My order for some electronics about 6 weeks ago never got to my residence. Contacted Hobbyking, they said to make a claim with FedEx and give them the number and it would be taken care of. Did that. Followed up with hk, they had no status updates for me other than it’s being investigated and to check with FedEx. FedEx said it’s an open claim and when there is a resolution, I would be contacted. Skip a few weeks and customer support chats later, still nothing. FedEx advises me to submit claim to PayPal and inform Hobbyking. I did. Today, almost 6 weeks into the ordeal PayPal closed the case because FedEx reported it delivered, which it wasn’t. Now paypal can’t do anything without a police report, the police won’t write a report because too long of a length of time has passed, Hobbyking says their waiting of FedEx to change status to not delivered, and I can’t get anything out of FedEx because they claim their still investigating a missing $80 package...

So pretty much the first claim I’ve made in my life, I get screwed. Beware of Hobbyking and their service guarantee, they’ll just pass the ball in a never ending circle instead of making it right, and tell PayPal that the package was received outside of limitation for the police department.

Shop somewhere else guys. Paying a little bit more is better than dealing with ccw motors when you ordered Cw, not receiving what you paid for, and being jerked around for a month and a half.

Rant over


4s mini mustang
Sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with hobbyking. I have shopped with hobbyking a few times and I have never had an issue. It might not be anybody’s fault that you didn’t get your package though, maybe a package theif took it.


Knower of useless information
I've had issues with them before, but not with claims. My issues have been actually getting them to ship me something that I ordered. They charged me, took my money, and I had to wait for 6 weeks before I finally got them to ship the item from their Hong Kong warehouse because the US warehouse only had 1 of the item in stock and they couldn't tell me how long it would be before the US warehouse would have it in stock.

They may be one of the largest RC hobby stores out there, but I'd rather do business with places here in the US like GetFPV, or ReadyMadeRC, or Amain, than do business with HobbyKing, if I can help it. Sometimes it's worth paying a little more for a product if I know I can get it in a reasonable amount of time.


Well-known member
Sorry to hear about your experience @xunedeinx . I wish there was something that could be done to make it better but I honestly can't think of anything. Unless with enough pushing perhaps HK could offer you a credit or something. And it truly sucks too when you get more than 1 person involved (Paypal, Fedex, and HK) as it seems one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. I wish you luck in this if you are still going to pursue it.

The only issue I ever had with HK was refusing to accept a prepaid-Visa card that I was going to use one time. It worked for other sites, just not HK. But in terms of shipments, I've always got em whether it was US shipping or China. I think it's good to judge by what you are ordering and how much it is...if it's a pretty expensive order, get the quickest shipping possible from a reliable source. If it's cheap accessory/small parts orders that are not super high priority use places like HK or banggood.


Well-known member
I work for a large shipping company. Not FedEx, but similar. My truck is browner.

Hobbyking in your scenario is the shipper. You are the receiver or consignee. If the consignee files a claim and says they never got their package, the burden lies with the shipper to file a claim for lost property. You may have paid for the package, but technically speaking, it still belongs to the shipper until it's successfully delivered.

I'm not sure how it works with FedEx, but any of our ground packages are shipped with $100 worth of insurance (called declared value) included in the shipping price. That means HK should have been refunded for the shipment by FedEx once they determined that it was not delivered. HK should have then sent you a replacement on FedEx's dime.

The wrench here is that FedEx's "investigation" concluded with them saying that your package was delivered. Our (brown) delivery computers record a GPS fix whenever we mark a package as delivered. If there is any discrepancy with a customer, we are able to pull up that GPS tag in our records and plot exactly where the driver was when he marked that package as delivered. I'm sure FedEx has a similar system.

If their investigation showed that the driver was indeed at your address when your HK shipment was delivered, than unfortunately you may have been the victim of a porch pirate. This is most likely what happened, otherwise their investigation would have showed that your shipment was misdelivered, and you would have been issued a refund. At least that's how it works with us. Most of the time if there is an issue like this they will send the driver back to do what's called a follow up, where he tries to make contact with the customer and see what happened.

The only other possibility is that the driver was at your house, marked the package as delivered, and then walked it across the street by mistake. It happens. People are people, and they mess up sometimes. Have you talked to your neighbors?


Active member
Speaking from the perspective of a very very very small business that mails things out... If the package is marked delivered, then it's really the responsibility of the receiving/purchasing person at that point. If someone poaches the package off your porch, that really sucks, but at that point the item was in your custody and the shipping and delivery company has done everything right.

If you paid with a credit card (even through paypal) you may have a last ditch option of filing a dispute with your credit card company. Speaking from the perspective of a small shipper, if I can't prove delivery, any dispute is going to come down in favor of the buyer. I've had my funds pulled back out of my account because a buyer filed a credit card dispute. (They refused to talk to me directly, and refused my pleas to reship the item or refund their money directly ... go figure ... I assumed they wanted their cake and to eat it to.) There is a reason amazon snaps an actual picture of the package sitting on your porch.

Anyway, if you still feel you have a legitimate complaint and neither fedex or hk will help you out, definitely take it up with your credit card company.

Personally, when I had an issue with hobby king shipping me an airplane with two bad servos ... they took care of me and were totally fair. Sounds you just got caught in an unlucky situation. Hope it eventually works out fairly for you.


Active member
Actually Hk needs to, but, have you requested a copy of the fedex delivery ticket showing signature and time of delivery? Before I retired, I had difficulties with all the delivery services saying stuff was delivered (but not to me) . [ we were receiving a million $ a month in product] The signature or lack therein indicated a driver error to the wrong place. For example, a certian Jose signed for it, but we don't have a Jose working there so obviously it wasn't delivered to us.


Active member
No signature was required. They just dropped it off, I didn’t get home till 5 hrs later. Haven’t paid for it yet, it’s on paypal credit. I don’t even think I have an active acct linked to it. I usually pay it off with whatever debt card I have at the time. It’s only $80 bucks, but it’s more of a make it right to me. I must have spent over $500 with solely HK over the years, and I have never filed a claim with anybody before. PayPal wants a police report, but the local police say too much time has past.


Well-known member
Just for comparison, for my holiday gift this past year, my wife ordered an EDF jet from a domestic vendor. The tracking showed it reaching Phoenix via the Brown Truck guys, but nothing after that for several days. Usually, Phoenix means it'll be here in Tucson the next day. When it didn't show, and no further tracking was posted, she contacted the Brown Truck guys, and they informed her the inquiry needed to be initiated by the shipper. She called the vendor, who started the inquiry, and also said that, if it didn't show up in a few more days, to let them know and they would get a replacement shipment on the way.

The Brown Truck guys located the package (apparently, it had mistakenly been placed on a truck heading to California), and it arrived just in time for us to call the vendor back and let them know they didn't need to ship out a replacement.

That's how good customer service should work, from both the vendor and the shipping company. While the detour was inconvenient, both parties handled their end of the resolution properly, and I received my holiday gift, albeit a little bit late. (When it didn't arrive on time, she just wrapped up a photo of the item, with the note that it was on its way)


Well-known member
(And do not get me started on the red, white, and blue truck guys with the eagle logo. My wife works for a small company, and they have more horror stories of shipping with them than you can shake a stick at. They delivered a package to the wrong address, marked it as "Delivered," and then refused to pay the insurance, because they delivered it, even though they acknowledged they didn't deliver it to the right address. When I have any choice, for any package of any value, I choose another method of shipment besides the red, white, and blue truck guys.)