BongoUS? My Experiences, Good and the Ugly...
Just a short introduction first of all, I am a business owner. My company is based in Asia and I have many suppliers around the world. Most of which, located in the United States. I first encountered BongoUS about 2 years ago and back then made the decision to go with BongoUS as it seemed to me, at the time, like they were the best all rounders in their field and industry. Slightly higher price point, but makes up for it in speed and customer service. Something which I required should any of my clients have serious time constraints and needed urgent deliveries.
Everything was fine and dandy for most of the 2 years with, of course, several hiccups. These were easily resolved at the time and did not cause much problems for me. Recently however, things have taken a turn for the worse.
The whole situation unfolded as follows. About 3-4 weeks ago, we placed an order from a store in the USA for several items (I shall name this Store A). These items were scheduled to be shipped into BongoUS under my name to be later forwarded back into Asia. However as it turns out, a day before the items left Store A for BongoUS, our client changed his mind about the order and wanted something else. Thus we promptly cancelled our order from Store A and ordered the new request from Store B. However Store A made an error and sent the package out to BongoUS anyway even after a refund was issued to us. This was fine as we assumed the Store A would call FedEx and have the items redirected back to the Store as was done before on past cancellations.
The problem started escalating when, Store A, didn't recall the items with FedEx but rather allowed the package to arrive at BongoUS. Both packages from Store A and Store B arrived, I assume, on the same day at BongoUS. However by this time Store A had already called BongoUS and requested for the items to be returned to the store. This is where my first gripe at how BongoUS handled the whole situation begins.
1) BongoUS did not bother to inform me that they were contacted by Store A requesting for the items to be returned, and had already made plans to have the items returned (they did not inform me of this either). Instead they had the items listed in my inventory. (I found out much later that the items listed in my inventory had already been returned)
When I instructed BongoUS to ship the items from Store B out to me later that day, my Inventory showed that 1 item was missing from the list of items originating from Store B. On questioning of BongoUS, they decided to take their own sweet time to figure out what happened to the item. A total of 5 days passed before I found out what happened to all my items. During these 5 days, I made daily calls to their US head office from Asia, this costs me alot of money, daily emails and even the use of their live chat. Spoke to multiple "customer service" staff, with little to no result. All I got were empty promises.
2) Staff WP tells me that items are missing and that they are trying to find it. I tell WP to tell me exactly what item is missing and he cannot tell me because he doesn't know exactly what he's looking at. He knows generally what the item is but I can't get specific details as they're not proficient enough to identify exactly. To solve this problem I ask WP to send me pictures of all the items (I'm talking about like 4 items so thats 4 pictures). This is so that I can identify exactly what is missing. He says yes yes yes he'll do it. After a day passes, 2 days, weekend, still nothing. -> Empty Promises
3) On a fresh Monday I call again and look for WP, however WP is busy so I speak to a different staff named GG. On talking to GG and explaining the situation AGAIN. I get told that management has labeled the item as lost/missing. As such I was give a choice. Either accept a refund or the management will purchase the same item as replacement. Seeing as I needed the item urgently, I accepted the refund. However before they actually issued the refund I went ahead and reordered a replacement and had the item express shipped to BongoUS. I seriously needed the items urgently so had to do it this way as I did not know how long BongoUS would take to repurchase a new set. I also managed to finally, FINALLY, get 1 miserable picture of 2 items, which I then got them to proceed to ship out. This was supposed to be the shipment from below point 1 above. Yes they held my shipment this whole time and already took payment. On my end I expected the items to arrive on Friday and it is already past the weekend the items haven't even left their warehouse yet.
Constant reminders that the items were required urgently over and over again over the phone and emails and live chats fell on deaf ears.
4) The next day, I get an email saying that they found out the item was really missing but was returned to the wrong store, so now BongoUS will not be refunding the item as it is no longer missing. They also decided to hold my shipment for several more days while the item is returned BACK to BongoUS so that the items can be shipped out together. -> Not sticking to their words. This comes after I have already made my urgent reorder of the missing item and assumed that the refund was on the way.
After another angry call, I managed to get them to ship the package with whatever is available in my inventory out that same day.
Also rather than arguing with them some more I decided to handle the refund myself and get them to return the item back to Store B where I reordered the supposed missing item. So does this mean problem resolved? Think again...
5) 2 days later the reordered item arrived at BongoUS, unfortunately so did the item that was mistakenly sent to the wrong store. Doesn't matter though I expected something like this to happen so I just issued a request for 1 out of the 2 items to be sent to Asia and the other one I left untouched in my inventory.
6) Next day, my item left the US and was on its way to Asia. However the remaining item disappeared from my inventory. Sent BongoUS an email asking where it was, they promptly said that they would be returning it to Store B on my behalf. -> I found this just plain rude. After so many problems and issues you'd think they'd learn their lesson and at least ask first right? Nope they decided to just do it anyway.
So in an effort to halt the return before more problems occurred, I had to call them again. Quarrel with the customer service staff GG to have the item relisted in my inventory. GG being quite rude over the phone threatening to hang up etc etc. Granted I raised my voice abit but after holding it in and controlling myself for over 3 weeks, you seriously can't blame me for raising my voice. And she had the cheek to tell me to not raise my voice. She keeps trying to explain the same thing over and over again when I'm talking about a whole other issue. Worst part of all, she tells me I'm wrong about the whole sitiuation. Like WHAT!? If I was so wrong about the situation, I wouldn't have to keep calling to explain. A simple email would have sufficed. But since that didn't fix it... Well you decide for yourselves.
I was getting so mad at that point I wanted to speak to the manager in charge. Hopefully I can finally talk to someone who can set the whole thing right and recover my faith in this company. But nope. From the horses mouth: Manager not around, no manager today and finally last but not least the icing on the cake... "Sir, it doesn't matter if you talk to the manager, she won't be able to fix anything for you today..." FAIL! EPIC FAIL!
To sum it all up. I have since given up my account in this company and am trying out several others. Hopefully you all will make the right choice in deciding which company to go for and that you can learn from my experience.
Cheers!
PS. During my experience with BongoUS multiple attempts to speak with a manager or someone with higher authority came up zero. If you decide to file a written complaint because talking to their CS Staff doesn't work, don't bother because all you will be asked to do is write a message to your account support log or send them an email to the support email address. This will be replied by a CS staff and it takes a full day for a reply. So don't bother.
**A warning to BongoUS, when you start assuming that your customers are all frauds and decide to protect the vendors so much more than your customers, even those that have been loyal to you for so many years, you are just shooting yourselves in the foot. This is not the way to run a business. Let the vendors worry about their own customers defrauding them. You should worry about how to do your job, and getting it right.**
Just a short introduction first of all, I am a business owner. My company is based in Asia and I have many suppliers around the world. Most of which, located in the United States. I first encountered BongoUS about 2 years ago and back then made the decision to go with BongoUS as it seemed to me, at the time, like they were the best all rounders in their field and industry. Slightly higher price point, but makes up for it in speed and customer service. Something which I required should any of my clients have serious time constraints and needed urgent deliveries.
Everything was fine and dandy for most of the 2 years with, of course, several hiccups. These were easily resolved at the time and did not cause much problems for me. Recently however, things have taken a turn for the worse.
The whole situation unfolded as follows. About 3-4 weeks ago, we placed an order from a store in the USA for several items (I shall name this Store A). These items were scheduled to be shipped into BongoUS under my name to be later forwarded back into Asia. However as it turns out, a day before the items left Store A for BongoUS, our client changed his mind about the order and wanted something else. Thus we promptly cancelled our order from Store A and ordered the new request from Store B. However Store A made an error and sent the package out to BongoUS anyway even after a refund was issued to us. This was fine as we assumed the Store A would call FedEx and have the items redirected back to the Store as was done before on past cancellations.
The problem started escalating when, Store A, didn't recall the items with FedEx but rather allowed the package to arrive at BongoUS. Both packages from Store A and Store B arrived, I assume, on the same day at BongoUS. However by this time Store A had already called BongoUS and requested for the items to be returned to the store. This is where my first gripe at how BongoUS handled the whole situation begins.
1) BongoUS did not bother to inform me that they were contacted by Store A requesting for the items to be returned, and had already made plans to have the items returned (they did not inform me of this either). Instead they had the items listed in my inventory. (I found out much later that the items listed in my inventory had already been returned)
When I instructed BongoUS to ship the items from Store B out to me later that day, my Inventory showed that 1 item was missing from the list of items originating from Store B. On questioning of BongoUS, they decided to take their own sweet time to figure out what happened to the item. A total of 5 days passed before I found out what happened to all my items. During these 5 days, I made daily calls to their US head office from Asia, this costs me alot of money, daily emails and even the use of their live chat. Spoke to multiple "customer service" staff, with little to no result. All I got were empty promises.
2) Staff WP tells me that items are missing and that they are trying to find it. I tell WP to tell me exactly what item is missing and he cannot tell me because he doesn't know exactly what he's looking at. He knows generally what the item is but I can't get specific details as they're not proficient enough to identify exactly. To solve this problem I ask WP to send me pictures of all the items (I'm talking about like 4 items so thats 4 pictures). This is so that I can identify exactly what is missing. He says yes yes yes he'll do it. After a day passes, 2 days, weekend, still nothing. -> Empty Promises
3) On a fresh Monday I call again and look for WP, however WP is busy so I speak to a different staff named GG. On talking to GG and explaining the situation AGAIN. I get told that management has labeled the item as lost/missing. As such I was give a choice. Either accept a refund or the management will purchase the same item as replacement. Seeing as I needed the item urgently, I accepted the refund. However before they actually issued the refund I went ahead and reordered a replacement and had the item express shipped to BongoUS. I seriously needed the items urgently so had to do it this way as I did not know how long BongoUS would take to repurchase a new set. I also managed to finally, FINALLY, get 1 miserable picture of 2 items, which I then got them to proceed to ship out. This was supposed to be the shipment from below point 1 above. Yes they held my shipment this whole time and already took payment. On my end I expected the items to arrive on Friday and it is already past the weekend the items haven't even left their warehouse yet.
Constant reminders that the items were required urgently over and over again over the phone and emails and live chats fell on deaf ears.
4) The next day, I get an email saying that they found out the item was really missing but was returned to the wrong store, so now BongoUS will not be refunding the item as it is no longer missing. They also decided to hold my shipment for several more days while the item is returned BACK to BongoUS so that the items can be shipped out together. -> Not sticking to their words. This comes after I have already made my urgent reorder of the missing item and assumed that the refund was on the way.
After another angry call, I managed to get them to ship the package with whatever is available in my inventory out that same day.
Also rather than arguing with them some more I decided to handle the refund myself and get them to return the item back to Store B where I reordered the supposed missing item. So does this mean problem resolved? Think again...
5) 2 days later the reordered item arrived at BongoUS, unfortunately so did the item that was mistakenly sent to the wrong store. Doesn't matter though I expected something like this to happen so I just issued a request for 1 out of the 2 items to be sent to Asia and the other one I left untouched in my inventory.
6) Next day, my item left the US and was on its way to Asia. However the remaining item disappeared from my inventory. Sent BongoUS an email asking where it was, they promptly said that they would be returning it to Store B on my behalf. -> I found this just plain rude. After so many problems and issues you'd think they'd learn their lesson and at least ask first right? Nope they decided to just do it anyway.
So in an effort to halt the return before more problems occurred, I had to call them again. Quarrel with the customer service staff GG to have the item relisted in my inventory. GG being quite rude over the phone threatening to hang up etc etc. Granted I raised my voice abit but after holding it in and controlling myself for over 3 weeks, you seriously can't blame me for raising my voice. And she had the cheek to tell me to not raise my voice. She keeps trying to explain the same thing over and over again when I'm talking about a whole other issue. Worst part of all, she tells me I'm wrong about the whole sitiuation. Like WHAT!? If I was so wrong about the situation, I wouldn't have to keep calling to explain. A simple email would have sufficed. But since that didn't fix it... Well you decide for yourselves.
I was getting so mad at that point I wanted to speak to the manager in charge. Hopefully I can finally talk to someone who can set the whole thing right and recover my faith in this company. But nope. From the horses mouth: Manager not around, no manager today and finally last but not least the icing on the cake... "Sir, it doesn't matter if you talk to the manager, she won't be able to fix anything for you today..." FAIL! EPIC FAIL!
To sum it all up. I have since given up my account in this company and am trying out several others. Hopefully you all will make the right choice in deciding which company to go for and that you can learn from my experience.
Cheers!
PS. During my experience with BongoUS multiple attempts to speak with a manager or someone with higher authority came up zero. If you decide to file a written complaint because talking to their CS Staff doesn't work, don't bother because all you will be asked to do is write a message to your account support log or send them an email to the support email address. This will be replied by a CS staff and it takes a full day for a reply. So don't bother.
**A warning to BongoUS, when you start assuming that your customers are all frauds and decide to protect the vendors so much more than your customers, even those that have been loyal to you for so many years, you are just shooting yourselves in the foot. This is not the way to run a business. Let the vendors worry about their own customers defrauding them. You should worry about how to do your job, and getting it right.**
