Europe Audio - dreadful experience

[lost eden]

I don't usually use forums to badmouth companies, but I've had such a dreadful experience with Europe Audio that I feel it is my duty to warn the lovely people of diyAudio to stay away from them.

I ordered a pair of Tangband W3-871 fullrange drivers from them, as they were one of the only places I could find them in Europe & they had slightly cheaper shipping than the others. The webpage clearly showed & described W3-871 drivers, with their nice aluminium phase plugs, but also mentioned a 3-5 day lead time. I was fine with that, I was in no great rush to receive them.

I sent them an email to their sales@ email address on the 8th just to ask if they had an updated estimate of when they would be getting the stock. No response.

I sent them another email on the 11th, this time to all 3 of the email addresses on their site, again asking for an update on the order. Again no response.

By the 21st (17 days after making the order) I was getting a bit annoyed, so I sent them another email, again to all of their addresses, telling them that I would open a PayPal dispute if they didn't contact me within 2 days. No response, but the following day I got an automated despatch notification by email. Whether this was coincidence, or whether they read my email & actually did something about it, I can't tell.

I hoped that would be the last of the headaches, but the drivers arrived today & they aren't even the right ones. They've sent me W3-871C which don't have the nice aluminium phase plugs & instead have cheap silver-painted paper dust caps. They've even put a sticker saying "W3-871" over the W3-871C label on the box.

Normally I would demand a refund & return them, but considering they have never responded to my emails I doubt they would respond to a request for a refund. In addition, I very much doubt they would cover the cost of me sending the incorrect drivers back to them (I live in the UK, so the cost of shipping them back to NL wouldn't be inconsequential).

As I said, I don't like using forums to badmouth companies, but I don't want anybody else to suffer such bad service as I have. I should've searched these forums before I made the order as I have now found at least one other horror story about Europe Audio. Hopefully my story will add to the others & help establish a wider boycott of them amongst people on this forum as well as Googlers who come across this thread.

[pinkmouse]

Originally Posted by lost eden

I hoped that would be the last of the headaches, but the drivers arrived today & they aren't even the right ones. They've sent me W3-871C which don't have the nice aluminium phase plugs & instead have cheap silver-painted paper dust caps. They've even put a sticker saying "W3-871" over the W3-871C label on the box.

I doubt they did that, most distributors won't even look in the boxes, opening and resealing costs time and money. Do they have a phone number on the website? I'd give them a call.

[Johnny2Bad]

Obviously we understand your frustration, and the lack of response is troubling.

I would like to suggest, however, that you do contact them and give them a chance to resolve the problem. If they do respond favourably, you're ahead of the game. If they don't, then your criticism is fair and reasonable.

The thing is, in cases where the company really is substandard, if you don't attempt to resolve it you give them the opportunity to blame you for the issue (basically, along the lines of "yes, well with regard to this particular order, we always give awesome service when there's an issue but the customer didn't even give us a chance to fix it").

[lost eden]

Originally Posted by pinkmouse

I doubt they did that, most distributors won't even look in the boxes, opening and resealing costs time and money.

I'm talking about the outside of the box. They've applied their own sticker/label (with 'Europe Audio' branding on it) that reads W3-871, directly over the end of the box where Tangband applied the original sticker that says W3-871C. I can still see & feel the original W3-871C sticker underneath the Europe Audio W3-871 sticker.

Do they have a phone number on the website? I'd give them a call.

I don't especially want to waste any more money on them by making an international phone call & probably ending up in a queue.

I would like to suggest, however, that you do contact them and give them a chance to resolve the problem.

I have already emailed all 3 of their email addresses again since receiving the wrong product. But considering they didn't respond to any of my previous emails I am not holding out hope that they will respond to this one.

[tuing2]

lucky me ,,
i did once buy from them ,,
some capasitor and inductor for my passive xover project, a couple month a go
it went smooth with no trouble , with a delay on shipping only.
i forgot whom i place my order ,, but this guy very good in therm of responding
i think you must try to contact your sales person whom you order with..
hope you end in good result

cheers ,,