Fanatec Has Lied To Me Repeatedly. Have You Dealt With This?
I’m honestly trying to see if anyone is in the same boat as me so please let me know below if you have experienced this as well. I am located in the US. Fair warning, this is going to be a very long post. I placed an order on May 4th for the CSL Elite bundle and loadcell pedal. The original date of shipping was May 15th. I ordered the loadcell and pedals when they were in stock but the wheel base and rim were a preorder for May 15th. But because they don’t pull orders when they are placed, it got pushed to July 12th due to the loadcell going out of stock a few days after I placed the order. Because this is absolutely horrible business practice to not pull items when they are placed, I wasn’t very pleased with that and sent them an email requesting to send the items separately to which they agreed to do. This is the email I received:
“Dear Amanda,
Thank you for your patience while we deal with the increased number of customer support inquiries during the global pandemic.
I’m happy to inform you that your order has been split and your bundle will be shipping soon. The CSL Elite Pedals Loadcell Kit will be sent to you as soon as it is back in stock.
Please let us know if you have any additional questions.
Thanks and stay safe!
Best regards / Freundliche Grüße,
Madeleine Falke”
UPDATE TO THIS EMAIL: Well, I got a shipping notification shortly after that stating that the pedals were being shipped. But from what I understood, the bundle was supposed to be shipped together and the loadcell would ship when it comes back in stock. I was concerned that the bundle would not be coming and only the pedals would come. Turns out, I was right. The pedals came a few days later but no wheelbase and rim. So I emailed them again asking what happened. Here’s the email I received:
“Dear Amanda,
Thank you for contacting us with your concerns again.
You are right - something about your order is off. We are presently working on solving glitches with our webshop which have led to inconsistent availability dates. This matter also affected your delivery. Although I had marked your bundle for split delivery as promised, our warehouse will only have the second item in stock tomorrow. I'm very sorry about this.
As a gesture of goodwill, I have upgraded your FedEx Ground shipping to FedEx Two-Day free of charge. Please accept our sincere apology for the inconvenience and know we are presently taking steps to improve our service to all customers.
Best regards / Freundliche Grüße
Madeleine Falke”
UPDATE TO THIS EMAIL: That email was sent to me on 5/14/2020. May 15th came and went, and yet again, I received no information about the second item(the wheelbase and rim) being shipped. So, I contacted them again. Also, my order page still says “open” on all of my items...even the pedals I received. Here’s the next email I received from them on 5/19/2020:
“Dear Amanda,
Thank you again for your email - I'm very sorry to see the issue has not yet been resolved to your satisfaction. I explained the situation to my supervisor and it seems there was a discrepancy in our database that led to our system not "seeing" your order was marked as ready to ship. This is an issue we are working on improving. In your case, my supervisor has offered to make sure your missing item is shipped as soon as possible - ideally today.
Please note that our customer support center is located in Germany and we have a long weekend coming up. We hope your matter is now resolved, but ask for your understanding if a reply to your email is delayed by a few days due to our office being closed. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause. The warehouse shipping your item is located in California, so the German holiday will not impact your shipment.
Thank you and take care!
Best regards / Freundliche Grüße
Madeleine Falke”
UPDATE TO THIS EMAIL: several days came and went. Still no email saying my item is shipped like it said in their last email, so of course, contacted them again. At this point, I was pretty upset. I sent a complaint to the BBB to which Fanatec responded with this same email to my complaint on monday, May 25th(Memorial Day) here’s what the email said:
“Hello Amanda,
Thanks for your message.
Our sincerest apologies for the delay and inconvenience caused.
I can totally understand that you´re upset. The Loadcell Kit will be shipped on Tuesday as today our warehouse is closed because of national holiday.
The CSL Elite Racing Wheel for PS4 will be shipped as soon as it´s back in stock. The availability date is 06/12/2020.
As compensation we would like to offer you to refund you the shipping cost.
We truely apologize for this inconvenience regarding several items being out of stock due to production delay caused by Covid-19.
We are doing our best to resolve this asap and satisfying for the customers.
You can still return your items within 14 days according to our return policy and cancel the remaining items if you choose not to wait until the product is back in stock.
Looking forward to your reply and again our apologies.
Stay safe.
Best regards / Freundliche GrüßeJulia Glasl
UPDATE TO THIS EMAIL: Today is Thursday, I have received no proof or email that the Loadcell has been shipped like they stated it would ship on Tuesday. Also, I never received a refund for my shipping. At this point, I contacted Dominic Brennan on here. And he told me that the Loadcell indeed did NOT ship on Tuesday and that it would be added manually to today’s shipment. I asked for concrete proof of that, and he could not give it to me. And that’s where we are at today.
Has anyone been in a similar situation with this? It’s been an absolute nightmare. I’m worried that even if I ask for a refund, I won’t get it. I just don’t understand the constant “We will ship your item today!” And it doesn’t. Then they blame it on technical glitches “that they are working on fixing” but it is never fixed. Today, my order page still says “open” on all my items. I see that both items are not in stock on the product pages but why lie to me and say they are ready to ship? I’m so confused. Let me know if there is anyone out there in the same boat.
Comments
I ordered the same but like a week later, and was told they would not split the shipments. Since I thought the CSL Elite PS4 kit would be available well before the loadcell, I cancelled the order and placed another order for only the CSL Elite PS4 kit. There have been no updates on this in a while.
Dom has replied to my message yesterday and said that the sales team would be sending out a message regarding orders affected by this change in availability date. But I haven't received anything yet.
I'm quite surprised you got so many replies at all.
Hey Amanda, seems like a lot of us have been dealing with this.
My April 13th order was for a CSW 2.5 bundle and a loadcell upgrade which had an April 30 availability date. I got notification on April 21 that my order was prepping for shipment and on the 23rd I was told that the steering rim was out of stock so they would be shipping it from the EU warehouse at no extra charge. This would result in me getting delivery in two weeks, or May 7 roughly.
Cue May 7th, order back in "processing" and nothing shipped. Reached out, didn't hear back for a week and when they got back to me I was simply told that my order was waiting on the wheelbase to come in stock on June 12.
But wait, wasn't my order already pulled? How did a wheelbase that was prepping for shipment go out of stock?
Here is the major issue at Fanatec right now... They are selling out current inventory to new buyers without honoring the pre-orders. This stock they have listed belongs to those of us that have pre-ordered and I'm sure they know this. Whether it's an accident or not only they know, but it's definitely misleading and is now causing us with pre-orders to go into a vicious cycle of items going out of stock before the entire order can be serviced.
The loadcell pedal that I ordered on April 13th, and was in stock on April 21st, is now showing me an availability date of July 10th. They are selling my equipment off to more recent purchasers and it's honestly infuriating. Not sure why I should get hit with a 2 to 3 month delay for the sake of sending some loadcell pedals to others.
In all of this frustration, Dom is the only reliable method of communication for me and I'm very grateful to have that. He has looked into my order and we have discussed what's happening as we move forward. Fanatec is lucky to have him as the US customers have absolutely no other way to have reliable and efficient contact.
As of now, I don't really know where my order stands and when I can expect anything to come my way. Hands down the worst customer experience I've ever had and one of the largest online purchases I've made. I'm treading the line of being patient without allowing them to railroad me. I understand that manufacturing and shipping, etc. has all been haywire lately. That doesn't excuse mismanaging current inventory though, and pre-orders need to be dealt with immediately before they send anything else out.
Amanda
I ordered the exact same items as you did on April 29th. Pedals were in stock but not the wheel. Wheel was on preorder for May 15. Lol....Not your fault, but looks like you have my pedals. What Fanatec is doing is fraud! I’ve mentioned it here and Josh just mentioned it. Fanatec is selling their inventory twice. Again, not blaming you Amanda, but I ordered the pedals when they were in stock but have not received anything, you order a week later and they send you the pedals. Something ain’t right!
Dom sent me another message this morning confirming my full order will be shipping on June 12. We’ll wait and see.
I ordered the CSL PS4 on May 4th and still haven’t heard anything. Sent a message Tuesday of last week and no reply.
"Fanatec Has Lied To Me Repeatedly"
Really? It sounds like incompetence to me, and to be fair to them, they admitted they had made numerous mistakes. And they have offered to try to put things right by splitting the order and speeding up the shipping - even if it seems they messed that up too!
Do you think they didn't make these mistakes and simply chose not to send your items deliberately? If you are honestly trying to establish if others had similar experiences, then state the facts and don't embellish your story with groundless claims of deceit.
You will find many people are in a similar situation due to Fanatec's problems with order fulfilment - they are never great at the logistics side and they have been affected by the current global crisis like everyone else. Your experience has been poor - I'd be disappointed and angry too. But it is incompetence, not deceit that is to blame.
I stated the facts exactly as they are. In fact, I laid out my entire experience with Fanatec so far, emails and all. My biggest issue with all of this is that they are telling me they are going to do one thing and they don’t check to make sure that they can ACTUALLY do that thing before sending me an email saying they can. This whole issue could have been solved with one truthful email of what can be actually be done. Thats what my understanding of what customer service is supposed to do. It sounds like they didn’t bother to even see if anything was possible to fix my issue but sent an email saying they could anyway. So if it makes you feel better, sure, I think incompetence is an issue. But I also feel like I have been lied to. And from the looks of it, so have others.
But it does seem that older orders are not being honoured. I ordered 3 items. Items A and B were out of stock. Item C was in stock. Item C should have been held until Items A and B were in stock mid May. Now Item C is out of stock until July (which is proof the item was not held). If July comes along maybe Items A and B will be out of stock again.......It just seems to be going round and round and round....
Edit : Item C now showing In stock. On my order Items A and B showing May 22nd. Item C showing available July 3rd. The whole process is a confusing mess. It seems that orders are not queued.
That’s exactly what is happening. It can cause indefinite delays. Let’s say you order 5 things. 4 of those things are in stock ready to ship when you placed the order, but item 5 is a preorder. Preorder date approaches, but item 3 is now out of stock pushing your order a month or even longer. So then you approach your new date months later, and then item 2 goes out of stock, pushing your order another several months. It’s never ending. But they have your money though. The items you rightfully paid for are going to a different customer. I stated this on my first email and I think they know they are in the wrong which is why I think they agreed to separate the order for me.
It definitely feels like that doesn't it. I can't think of any other reason. If someone hits lightning in a bottle and happens to order stuff that's already being held by multiple separate orders, they get their stuff and the other people's orders are pushed into a re-order cycle again. It's false customer service. Keep one person blissfully happy while aggravating 3 others. The thing is people are reporting orders being processed in a few days while others have a 2 month wait. So something dodgy is definitely happening. It doesn't make any sense. I sincerely hope they are not fulfilling orders by grabbing from unfinished ones.
I made my order on April 17th for a CSW v2.5, V3's, BPK and Damper Kit, and a Formula V2 Rim. Everything was in stock minus the pedals which were on pre-order for May 15th.
May 15th rolls around and now V3's show availability date of May 22nd.
May 22nd rolls around and now the CSW and V2 are out of stock, availability date pushed back to June 12th.
I have a feeling once June 12th comes something will be out of stock and my order will be pushed back even farther. Not a single email other than the generic one we get a day or two ago.
This is how inventory works globally not only by Fantec.
If you order a,b,c,d,e and one of them is not in stock (and in the sales terms it states that all will be shipped together) company doesn'tt pull out the stock and keep it on the side. The circulate the stock and the products.
So far it was working not only for FANATEC but for ALL the companies working this way.
Because of the PANDEMIC and delays in manufacturing (don't forget is made in China), shipping from China to Europe and then reach to other depots such as USA created ALL these problems.
In all the lock-downs from Governments (within a night in most countries) and how this "shit" has affected globally ALL kind of companies, Fanatec didn't foresee or think that they should change the order/logistic thingies and pull out on the side as you mention, or not sell stuff, or ship at least what is in stock by asking on a pop up window if customer wants to pay extra shipping whenever an item is coming back to stock.
Since everybody is using the "They have my money free loan" etc etc, then do what others did. Cancel your orders, get refund and re-order whatever is in bloody stock.
That is absolutely not the way to sell items if the items have been paid for. They should make it loud and clear that bundled items will appear in and out of stock indefinitely until the supply line is back to normal. They should not allow punters to pay for items that are being sent elsewhere. I paid and I expect my item to be held for the limited supply window and then shipped to me. That is why I pay first. This delivery delay will go on indefinitely until stock is replenished which could be months for some people. Meanwhile, your order has seen 30 wheelbases, 40 pedal sets and 25 wheels go out the door to other buyers all during different stock times. Also if perchance one day you do receive the order and something doesn't work, you gotta go through the process all over again. Also, if an item is out of stock on Amazon, you can't order it. Simple. But on the fanatec site it shows in stock but delivery time is 2 months.
Sorry to bust the bubble but it is unfortunately. As already explained to you 99.9% of the companies do it world wide, or else they wouldn't have had space to store the products, etc etc plus other stuff that we don't know. And it is done from the smallest stuff even to the biggest and most expensive thing you might think to buy. Air plane tickets? They are always overbooked. Commodities? Always the papper is more that the physical. It is done everywhere mate.
Nothing would have happened if the "shit" hasn't hit the fan (call me pandemic and government lock-downs) in addition with the sim community raise. As previously said, "Fanatec didn't foresee or think that they should change the order/logistic thingies and pull out on the side as you mention, or not sell stuff, or ship at least what is in stock by asking on a pop up window if customer wants to pay extra shipping whenever an item is coming back to stock.", but that is only my opinion.
They didn't repeatedly lie to you. They repeatedly messed up. They made repeated mistakes. This is reason enough to be annoyed. But they told you what they told you in good faith. Being lied to is when someone tells you something they know to be untrue. You can see the difference?
Wanted to give an update to this. After posting this and speaking to Dominic, I did receive a tracking number for the loadcell pedal. Dominic did manage to add it manually to the shipping list. He has been very helpful. He manages to get things actually done when customer service couldn’t. Still waiting for the wheelbase and rim and I will keep you guys updated.
How did you get in contact with Dominic? I want to make sure my order does not suffer from these same issues. I have already had my availability date pushed back when a sales rep told me it would be sent out by a certain date. Thanks in advance for the information.
Dominic Brennan is the community manager here on the forum. I think you can look up his name I’m not quite sure