ComplaintsforTower Hobbies

• Initial Complaint

  07/18/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  I tried to place an order with Tower Hobbies using a gift certificate and the order would never go through. I tried off and on all day to no avail.

• Initial Complaint

  03/08/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Delivery Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Canceled 2 of my orders without my consent. Still have my money on hold and won't release it. Contacted them multiple times to release it and they claim they did. However they did not. My bank says they still have it on hold. I trust my bank way more than this company

  Business response

  03/14/2023

  We regret any misunderstanding. The order attempted was for 4 tires, 2 sets, at a special promotion that was limited to 1 set only. Only one set came through on the order due to this promotion limitation. When explained, the response from **. ***** was "what am I supposed to do with just one set of tires?" We errored on the side of caution and cancelled the single pair vs. shipping them. Once that was done, the authorization for the transaction was voided on our end. We can only see it was ******. If it was ******, pay with credit card, we cannot see that and *** ***** needs to contact ****** directly and explain the transaction is a pay with credit card transaction so they understand. It's a new process for them and it's not visible to merchants. 

  Customer response

  03/14/2023

  I am rejecting this response because:

  The response was a lie..  I placed the order 12 hours after I talked to the company about only being able to buy 2 tires. I found some on sale on another site so placed a order for 2 tires on each site. Then 12 hours later the lady decided to take it apon herself and cancel my order. And doing so caused 2weeks of headaches and pending payments . Along with countless hours of emails and sitting on hold.   After being lied to by the company about 5 times saying that they released my payment authorization charges .  I threaded to involve the police. My payments were released within an hour of threatening to involve the police.  So the 4 or 5 different people I talked to lied to me about not having my payments on hold for 2 weeks.

  Business response

  03/15/2023

  We will reach out to the customer via email so we have a record of all correspondence and seek a mutual outcome. 

• Initial Complaint

  02/28/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  I purchased a fairly expensive RC car battery from this company and received it Friday February 24th. The battery that I purchased is the only LIPO battery on the market that requires you to purchase an additional charger that's special only to this brand of lithium battery. Yes, LIPO batteries in general require a special charger and I have three of them but this particular brand of LIPO requires a special charger. I thought it would have been nice if they put a big red notice on the info page letting people know that you need to buy another special charger to use this but I hey no big deal. I will EXCHANGE this (not return it) for one of the piles of LIPO batteries that charge on the normal LIPO charger. After all, I have been a customer of Tower Hobbies for about 25 years at this point I am sure this will not be a problem. Turns out, they offer NO RETURNS AND ALL SALES ARE FINAL on these batteries. No where on the listing it says, "watch out, once we sucker you into buying this battery on sale for $72 from $89 you will be forced to buy the charger when we let you know later that you cant return this battery!" I will be glad to show you the screen shots and the email I exchanged with them. Nowhere on the page is it listed that they will not return these. I expect this from a fly by night internet business but this is Tower Hobbies! It was founded in 1971, over 50 years ago! having to go through this just trying to get a company to exchange a battery that was poorly described is exasperating! It should be clearly written out "WILL NOT WORK WITH ANY LIPO CHARGER OTHER THAN THE SPEKTRUM BRAND CHARGER!"

• Initial Complaint

  12/20/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Delivery Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  My wife gave me a 500 dollar gift card she got from her work so I order my son a rc car for X-mas and they charged the card no problems and then told me they couldn’t ship it to our house cause card didn’t match or something and now I can’t get my 490 dollars back from them and when you call them it’s just a recording that hangs up on you after telling you to email them that takes 2 days for a reply and now they have made it where I can’t get my sons present before Xmas after providing a picture of the transaction and where they took the money away saying they haven’t yet charged it when I have pics of the charge and only 10 dollars left on the card

  Business response

  12/21/2022

  Tower Hobbies has no way of knowing if a card is a Pre-Paid card vs. a credit card. When we void the authorization; which we did, it is up to the issuing bank to credit the card back with the funds we freed up. Our hands are tied on what we can do and we can no longer collect any funds or send any goods. This is a tough place for the customer to be in and a pitfall of pre-paid cards when something doesn't work as planned. We sent a direct email to the customer and wish him luck on working with the issuing bank. 

  Customer response

  12/23/2022

  They resolved it after I sent a pic of me contacting you guys thank you for being there for us!!

• Initial Complaint

  02/07/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I had a return received a return authorization number *******. The package was received by them on 1/27/2022 tracking number **********************. On the web site they say easy returns with in 30 days nothing about a 10-15 business day wait to get a refund or a 20-15 business day wait as customer service has said. Yet they are trying to hold to that. I sent them screenshots of their web site page still trying to say different and are very rude. I would like my refund and if it’s 30 days interest paid also and if the policy is not what is on the web site to change it and stop the false advertising of easy returns

  Business response

  02/20/2022

  Customer was emailed and a receipt was sent to demonstrate the refund had been take care of already. We do regret the delays in mail order returns in January due to the December uptick in purchases for the holidays, seasonal absences and weather delays in our region of the country. Typically we provide more timely returns as we know no one likes to stand in line, virtually or physically. 

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩