When good customer service goes bad
update on what i thought was good customer service from fanatec but it turns out to be terrible, original post for context here https://forum.fanatec.com/discussion/28930/good-customer-service#latest
But long story short, they sent a duplicate order out to me as a result of a long delay to original order. i emailed them saying what do you want me to do with the duplicate order.
they asked me to reject the delivery which i did, if i wanted to keep the items i could have simply done that but i prefer to be honest.
The duplicate order was sent to me due to a long delay of my original order. At the time there were these amazing BF deals, so i asked if they could refund the difference for the club shifter where i had paid full price, as i could now see it was considerably cheaper, i was happy that they agreed to this.
Now this morning i've just received an email saying they are not going to honor the refund. This is pretty lousy , i almost feel tricked into returning the goods so they get what they want, and then when it comes time for them to stick to their side of the bargain they simply refuse.
its like they are favoring short term gain over long-term customer loyalty.
Over last few months i've bought the following but sadly i won't be buying anything else.
-McClaren GT3 wheel
-WRC wheel
-BMW club sport wheel
-CSL DD
-CSL DD table clamp
-CSL pedals with load cell kit
-Club shifter
-handbrake
-x2 club sport clamps
-x2 QR2 lite wheel side
-QR2 wheel side
-QR2 base side
-button caps
Its really annoying as i love my products, but owning fanatec products feels like being with a beautiful woman who treats you badly. I'm a new customer, and i've got a fairly basic desk setup, but when it eventually comes to buying a proper rig, sadly i think i'll look into SimCube as i don't like feeling i've been taken for a ride.
Comments
Build your own rig with Aluminium Profiles 40x80 and 40x40. It‘s cheaper if you plan to extend in future because it‘s much more modular.
I just did it for myself. ~400€ for a FIA approved seat and ~400 for the rest of the rig - and this one is extremely rigid and offers more than an average sim racer needed.
There are plenty of great tutorials on YouTube.
Just my recommendation.
In most cases buying a complete rig from a company is a step into their ecosystem
Can you share the message where they have renege on the agreement? If it's like you say, then I'd be sending both messages back to them asking for a supervisor/manager to deal with your complaint.
This is the email where they agreed to the refund
And this is the comment where they went back on their promise.
If you don't mind me asking, how much was the price difference?
cant remember exactly, but it was something like €125 euro.
it’s pretty shameful tbh. There is a culture of lies that runs from top to bottom with this company.
I pray that I never have to go through RMA
I had a DOA (within a day) power supply with my CSL-DD. I submitted a support case along with the troubleshooting steps I'd taken - trying a known working cable and multimeter on the output. They responded that they accepted the RMA and sent out a new PSU within a day or two.
I can see why they didn't give you the refund (because that lower price was for a bundle, not just on the shifter) but don't agree with them offering then withdrawing. They really shouldn't have offered to begin with. I'm guessing you would be less annoyed if they had just said no to begin with?
Exactly. I’d prefer if they were honest. Legally they could have done nothing if I decided to keep the items and sell them on eBay. Items totalled around €500, whilst it wouldn’t bankrupt them it would have been annoying for them to lose for nothing.
their promise of a refund was underhand, it wouldn’t surprise me if they knew from the offset that they wouldn’t be parting with a partial refund.
I was just trying to do the right thing, but if I’m honest, I’m more annoyed at myself for trusting them. I wish I had sold it and when they emailed me, written back with something like “response time to respond to your email is currently 2 weeks blah blah blah”
apart from this I’ve had relatively good experiences with fanatec and enjoy their gear, but I’ll never buy anything from them again. In 3 or 4 years when I go to upgrade my setup I’ll go with simagic. Fanatec business practices are wild, crazy how disorganised and chaotic their company is run.