Gearbest Review: The Perfect Gadget Store or A Scam?

Count yourself lucky if you’ve never lost money online. Unfortunately that hasn’t been the case for many people. So it’s important that you do your research. But I’m probably preaching to the choir here and I’m assuming that’s why you were checking out Gearbest reviews online when you landed here.

Well, we scoured the web to find out what’s what with the store, and some of it is shocking. I don’t want to scare you but as a warning, you may want to read this Gearbest review carefully.

 

What is Gearbest?

Gearbest is a online gadgets and fashion ecommerce website. The China-based company was founded by Alina Zhang and has been around since early 2013.

 

Gearbest Prices

Gearbest claims it’s the go-to store for affordable electronic gadgets and fashion apparel. But is it really? Let’s take a look at some of these prices.

Men’s and women’s clothing start at $1 going all the way to $500, same with shoes and accessories. Beauty and skincare enthusiasts can get makeup, lotions and hair products for $40 or less. Electronics, gizmos, hobby toys and their accessories all within the $5-$200 price range, while smartphones and wearable gadgets sell for anywhere between $1 and $300. You can find home appliances, gardening and decor items for as little as $10 and as much as $1000.

 

Gearbest Payment Options

You can pay with any Visa or Mastercard, Paypal, Qiwi or WebMoney, among several other options.

Gearbest Shipping

Gearbest claims they ship to almost any country in the world. They say shipping cost depends on the weight of the product, destination and the shipping method you choose. You’ll be able to see how much it costs to ship while browsing. All you have to do is select the country of destination before you start shopping.

In any case, standard shipping to most countries takes a minimum 20 days, while express shipping takes a minimum 8 days. But it looks like you won’t get free shipping if your item weighs anything above 0.3lbs. You can read more on that here.

But why go through all that and you can simply shop for similar items on Amazon.com and get them faster with the FREE Guaranteed 1-2 Day Amazon Prime Delivery? You can also find great deals on sites like Rakuten.com. But the choice remains yours in the end.

 

Gearbest Refund & Return Policy

Gearbest has a 45-day money-back guarantee policy where they claim you’ll get a full refund if the item was dead on arrival, broken, or you received a wrong order. For any other return, the item must be unopened and unused to qualify for a refund.

So once you get your order and you don’t like what you see, they say you should first file a return request with customer service here. They’ll then ask you to explain your issue with the item, with photos as backup. The customer service will then tell you how and where to ship the item back. All the same, you’ll have to pay or return shipping. You can read all about returns here.

 

Gearbest Customer Service

Well you probably thought a simple phone number or email address would do, eer wrong! Apparently to contact Gearbest customer service, you’ll first have to create an account with your email if you haven’t already. Next, you’ll fill out a web form depending on the reason why you’re contacting them. You’ll then submit the web form as your ticket and apparently they’ll get back to you within 48 hours. They also have live chat and messenger for presale services.

 

Gearbest Coupons or Promo Codes

There are tons of places on the internet where you can get the ever popular coupons and promo codes, including the Gearbest website itself.

But for the best deals you may want to try sites like Rakuten.com which can provide you cashback, rebates, coupons or discounts on similar items you would find on Gearbest. You can also check out Swagbucks.com that helps you earn cash for things you already do online. Again, you can also earn cashback for shopping through their site.

Ultimately, trusted online retailers like Amazon.com can help you save the most on purchases and also offer benefits like FREE Guaranteed 1-2 Day Amazon Prime Delivery. All these deals will allow you to shop affordably online.

 

Gearbest Complaints

This is the part of the review where we lay everything on the table so you can decide for yourself whether the company is legit or a scam. So, here goes!

“Where’s my $hit?”

Several customers say they’ve never received what they ordered from Gearbest, months into making the order. Others say the company rarely delivered goods within the promised date of delivery.

Good luck getting a refund

Some customers say they were offered store credit instead of real cash, for wrong items delivered. It seems there’s a pattern whereby even if you did everything right and you still don’t get what you ordered, you may either end up losing your money or settle for store credit.

Awful customer service

Several customers who happened to confront customer service about lost goods were allegedly given invalid tracking numbers, once they followed up with the courier service they used. It seems FedEx and USPS are the most affected with this complaint based on numerous reports we came by. Other customers say Gearbest went on further to delete the order information from their records, as they found some items they had previously ordered mysteriously missing from the order details in their Gearbest user account. Aw hell nah!

Negative BBB

I know some of ya’ll rely on the Better Business Bureau as the final stamp of approval against shady online companies. Well Gearbest has an F rating at the time of this review.

 

Gearbest Alternatives

After reading some of the complaints above, I wouldn’t blame you if you decided you wanted to look at other alternatives to Gearbest.com. Fortunately there is always safe shopping and reliable shipping at Amazon.com. It is a great place to get quality items at an affordable price. You can also find great deals including cashback, discounts and rebates on a site like Rakuten.com. Again, if you’re all about earning free cash and gift cards, you can check out SwagBucks.com where you earn money doing the things you do online.

 

Is Gearbest Legit or a Scam?

Gearbest has some shady stuff going on. And the BBB rating seems to highlight all these nasty problems. So I would probably avoid GearBest.com if i were you. Several customers have lost money. And it sounds like dismissing customer complaints is a normal day in the office for this company.

Fortunately there are safer and more reliable options out there. You can score amazing deals on the same things you would find on Gearbest at sites like Rakuten.com and Amazon.com that offers you FREE Guaranteed 1-2 Day Amazon Prime Delivery. If you’re looking for another way to save money while shopping, you can earn free cash and gift cards doing what you already do online at a site like SwagBucks.com. You can then spend the gift cards and cash anywhere you like, but maybe not Gearbest, lol.

Anyway, that’s my opinion on Gearbest. Do you have yours on this or any other company? Feel free to let us know on the comments section below. If you still have questions about the store, you can check out their FAQs section.

Until next time

Eddy “with a Y”