I’ve really only been at the hobby for half a year, but I feel like 50% of the time when I place an order something is missing, or broken, etc. and the correspondence on these issues has been very disappointing. Is this normal? I have only bought from vendors I that this forum or the mk Reddit wiki list.
3 Likes
never for me.
4 Likes
Almost never.
I’ve had a few instances where an item didn’t arrive, arrived with issues or arrived ‘not as described’. Most of those have been with vintage keyboards where sellers are less likely to know what they’re selling.
Otherwise, I’ve not had any major issues at all.
4 Likes
I’ve been in the hobby for many years now & sure I’ve had some orders go bad or items arrive not as described or messed up in some way. Honestly though that has been the small minority of my experiences. For the most part it’s been smooth sailing on whatever I have bought. If I had to rate it I’d say literally 99% of my purchases have been just as they should be. Also I’ve been lucky enough that I never got involved in any GBs that did not deliver. Then any of the issues I have had those vendors made sure the issues got fixed.
The worst experiences I’ve had buying keeb stuff would be a few times I took shots on boards from ebay that I knew could be possibly be bad buys & ended up being just that. Plus one time a dude sent me a batch of SKCL green ALPS that had bad water damage to more than half of the actuation leaves, but claimed they were in 6.5 to 7 out 10 condition in the listing. IME if you just use common sense & follow your gut feeling about GBs/vendors/private sellers, you’ll end up not having to many issues buying stuff. Don’t get me wrong, shit happens & you will have some bad buys, but like I said above being careful can drastically minimize them.
6 Likes
Not yet for me, mostly up to luck though.
4 Likes
I’ve had one small order from Keyclack that just was never filled and I waited past the PayPal dispute window sadly. Thankfully only a small order.
I ordered a case from KPrepublic that had more defects on it than should have been allowed. I sold it at a loss to recoup some money.
I’ve had great luck with vendors otherwise.
3 Likes
Knock on wood, I don’t think I’ve had one go thoroughly bad yet.
I’ve had plenty of items from Dorp come in iffy condition, either to be replaced or refunded, but thankfully nothing yet without recourse.
4 Likes
While most of my orders never had an issue, the only bad/worst experience I had was with 2 orders. One was when I was a beginner and wanted a GK61 to try out switches and the keyboard arrived with broken LEDs on the shift, caps lock and maybe on the enter key. And because I bought it from a chinese seller, the communication was very rough and confusing. In the end, I turned off the lighting and stopped caring.
Second was when I saw JTK Bred on sale from Originative Co., I was curious to try JTK and it arrived in a week. It was packed in a small bag and a few keys were scratched and I couldn’t wipe it off at all. The font on “5” key was damaged and the C key is thicker than the rest of the alphas. Worst part, some of the keys had loose stems, especially the spacebar. So I contacted Originative, paid shipping to return the keycaps back to them, and let them know that it arrived at their post office. I didn’t get any updates for a week until I emailed them again. Got my refund, lost some money because of conversion and paypal fees. The communication kinda feels like I was a ghost lol.
So after that experience, I learn to be more cautious of vendors and understand what to avoid buying. It’s also using your judgement. Like I don’t mind buying switches and stabilizers from KPrepublic but keyboard kits is what I would avoid because of the chances of defects. My JTK set may have been the worst experience, but I know these are old molds and with their new molds currently being made, I wanted to give them another chance by joining their GB.
2 Likes