Completely Fed Up With Yuneec Customer Service

[m20b_pilot]

Did you book a job contingent on a new product you didn't have yet? While you have found CS to be an issue, discerning that after you have placed your rep on the line is not a good course of action, what with Murphy and all.

The possibility of hardware issues, replacements/repair issues, shipping issues, those were all possibilities, and you encountered all at once without enough background on this particular combination of product and producer to hope to forecast or mitigate it.

No, I didn't book the job solely off having the H. I did take a job though knowing it would be much easier to shoot with the H and I really wanted to shoot something great to show off to this company who has the potential to be a source of a lot of work for me. I had my H in hand when I set up this job and got the deadline, which was 2 weeks from the time I got the drone in hand. I was hoping to be able to get used to flying it for a few days and then take it on the job. Didn't work out as planned. I'm just glad it did the swirling where it did and not in the middle of a bunch of buildings while I was at a property shooting. Sure wouldn't want to call the insurance company because I smacked into something or somebody!

You are just finding out who the shiils are.

I was told a different story each time I called, and still haven't heard back after sending logs two different times.

Apparently nobody has noticed Yuneec reps have mysteriously vanished from forums and YT videos assuring customers all will be well.

I am in the same boat as you. I even sent an email to one of the reps explaining how everything went down and sent in the telemetry file and didn't hear back.

I want to believe that Yuneec is working on beefing up their support given the apparent high demand for the H. Maybe they didn't anticipate the kind of demand for the H they've received and like someone mentioned earlier, they are in over their heads. I really hate that you had this kind of experience. 1 bad experience travels 100 times further than 1 good experience. It's understandable to have a certain degree of brand loyalty if you're flying as a hobby, but If you're flying for profit you have to cut your losses with a company if they aren't contributing to the bottom line and move to something that works. If DJI gets the job done then you should consider them. At the end of the day it's about the results, not the brand of machine that gets the results. Best of luck and hopefully Yuneec will step up and do something to smooth things over.

It seems like the company bit off more than it could chew. With quite a few problems surfacing, it looks like they're completely overwhelmed. With the issues with not having batteries in stock to discontinuing the backpack, I think that you're right in that they didn't anticipate so much demand.

So many guys who do commercial work at the level I do use DJI products and hate and bash everything else. I just never cared much for the idea of needing to attach a tablet to my controller to use their products. Plus, I liked the idea of being an outlier and going with a different company and making it work. I still think that the TH is an amazing piece of equipment (when it works right) and I want to give it a shot. If they can't fix these problems though, you're right... I might need to think about going another route.

 

[m20b_pilot]

All I know is I purchased my H at the beginning of June and had only flown it once before having to send it back in due to the unstableness and "toilet bowling". So, Yes. I don't believe someone should be able to call in and get prioritized repairs just because he thinks his time or his finances are more important than mine. I'm sorry you are having this problem. We're all being lied to and yanked around by Yuneec, but we should still wait our turn. I'm sure they're repairing them as they come in.

Sorry you're having the same problems. It sucks, for sure! Sure hope they can get caught up very soon.

 

[Dragonflyerthom]

Did you vote on my thread "Is Yuneec manipulating H owners". Sounds like it to me.

 

[m20b_pilot]

Did you vote on my thread "Is Yuneec manipulating H owners". Sounds like it to me.

Yes, I sure did vote on it.

 

[glider]

No, I didn't book the job solely off having the H. I did take a job though knowing it would be much easier to shoot with the H and I really wanted to shoot something great to show off to this company who has the potential to be a source of a lot of work for me. I had my H in hand when I set up this job and got the deadline, which was 2 weeks from the time I got the drone in hand. I was hoping to be able to get used to flying it for a few days and then take it on the job. Didn't work out as planned. I'm just glad it did the swirling where it did and not in the middle of a bunch of buildings while I was at a property shooting. Sure wouldn't want to call the insurance company because I smacked into something or somebody!



I am in the same boat as you. I even sent an email to one of the reps explaining how everything went down and sent in the telemetry file and didn't hear back.



It seems like the company bit off more than it could chew. With quite a few problems surfacing, it looks like they're completely overwhelmed. With the issues with not having batteries in stock to discontinuing the backpack, I think that you're right in that they didn't anticipate so much demand.

So many guys who do commercial work at the level I do use DJI products and hate and bash everything else. I just never cared much for the idea of needing to attach a tablet to my controller to use their products. Plus, I liked the idea of being an outlier and going with a different company and making it work. I still think that the TH is an amazing piece of equipment (when it works right) and I want to give it a shot. If they can't fix these problems though, you're right... I might need to think about going another route.

If I cared to mess with gimbals/camera more than I have (Tiny2 and GoPro), I would have used one of my home built copters running on Arducopter if going commercial. It requires a learning curve and you must know what you're doing, but there it no better flight control system. However, I'm not a commercial flyer at the moment. P107 may change that.

See my thread here Crash- major malfunction

Some salient points:
1) I really like the H
2) My H is not a lemon
3) The 360 camera, retracts, GCS and limited mission features was perfect for my purposes.
4) It is not perfect (none are)
5) There are minor bugs in the firmware that allow or cause the copter to become unstable or crash.
6) Smart mode is supposedly for beginners, but it seems to cause more problems than it prevents. If inside the "safety" circle, it should not arm for example.
7) True pilot full control means no GPS. That is not possible once in the air unless the GPS fails. Glitching as far as I can tell is not considered "fail". That
is not good.
8) Despite comments to the contrary, the instructions leave a lot to be desired.

The damage to my H is minimal as long as when I reattach the camera to the gimbal it works properly. One arm is broke, not a big deal. My concern is whenever something as complex with delicate components (motor shafts/bearings/electronics) take a hit, the results may not be seen immediately. A slightly bent motor shaft may have vibration not obvious that will eventually cause the motor to fail.

The three phone calls and emails made to Yuneec concerning my crash were a total waste of my time. They were not interested in any away what caused the crash, only that I should have exited. The fact is there are bugs that Yuneec needs to address. I can fix the copter (with current information on the extent of the damage). My beef was with Yuneec's attitude that nothing is wrong in their code. That quite frankly is hubris.

 

[David Wilson]

While I can feel your pain, you were expecting an awful lot, especially from a company that just launched a brand new, highly in demand product. And you were only giving them a few days to make you happy. Yuneec has been more than fair with me, when I am fair with them. I hope it all works out and you reconsider because the H is a great machine.

 

[luna]

Yeah, it's my fault that my brand new H started swirling and crashed and my fault I kept getting the run around. Right...

Did you not read my posts? I do have a spare. I have 2 in fact and I used my Q500 4K to finish the project.

You use a q500 for a commercial job..... really?
But very good flying for a job with a drone that's brandnew and everything can happen. When i got a new drone i must fly a lot of times before i even think for taking a job with the drone. Yeah you know what you are doing.

 

[m20b_pilot]

You use a q500 for a commercial job..... really?
But very good flying for a job with a drone that's brandnew and everything can happen. When i got a new drone i must fly a lot of times before i even think for taking a job with the drone. Yeah you know what you are doing.

Why don't you learn to speak English and use proper grammar become you come on here trying to insult me.

And yes, I use a Q500 4K for jobs. (Gasp!) It's made me quite a bit of money, in fact.

 

[luna]

Why don't you learn to speak English and use proper grammar become you come on here trying to insult me.

And yes, I use a Q500 4K for jobs. (Gasp!) It's made me quite a bit of money, in fact.

why don't you learn dutch so it's for me easier to wright it down.
But you know what i mean because you replay to my answer and it's not so bad then

 

[m20b_pilot]

why don't you learn dutch so it's for me easier to wright it down.
But you know what i mean because you replay to my answer and it's not so bad then

I actually wish I could speak Dutch. I'm probably not smart enough to learn it though!

I just don't understand why there have to be insults and snide remarks. We're all here because we like drones and because we have a particular model. No need to sling mud on others.

 

[humboldt 707]

Well, I'm pretty much over the H and Yuneec. It has been an incredibly frustrating few weeks. I have been getting nothing but a run around from Yuneec and I think I'm done.

I bought the H on June 7th. Got it a few days later and decided to take it to a family reunion to fly it for the first time. Long story short, after about 10min, the H starting swirling and it was all I could do to keep it from hitting anything. Finally got it stable enough to land and at about 6 inches about the ground, it jerked back and crashed. Broke 2 props and the plastic rail for the camera mount.

I called Yuneec the very next day and explained the situation. They said to send it in for inspection and repair and sent me a pre-paid label. I told them that I do commercial videography work with my drones and that I had a big project coming up that I needed and wanted to use the H on. I asked if it would be possible for them to cross ship me a replacement unit once they saw that I shipped my unit. Was told that they didn't "do that kind of thing" and that I would have to wait for repair. OK... So, I called back the next morning and spoke with someone else saying that I couldn't afford to wait weeks for a repair and that I needed a replacement sent out ASAP. Again, was told they couldn't do that. I even asked to speak to a supervisor (none were available). A supervisor called me back a few hours later and I explained my situation. She said she would make sure that my case was handled quickly and that she would call me and give me regular updates on how it was going. This was June 17th. She never called me back even once. I call back (AGAIN) on the 20th and asked to speak to another supervisor. I ended up getting a guy (whose name I won't mention) who said that he was the highest person I could speak with. I explained the situation and told him that I wanted a unit cross shipped. I told him that I had a shoot coming up on the 23rd in midtown for a large commercial real estate company and I really needed to have my H for that shoot. He said they couldn't do that since they had people sending empty boxes back to them, full of magazines for weight and they just weren't able to send anything out until they got mine in. I then asked if they would send me a replacement if I would give them a credit card and they could put a hold on the card and release the hold once they got my H and ST16 back. He said he would have to ask someone if that was possible. He comes back on the phone and says that they can do that and that I can pay the difference for expedited shipping so that I could get the unit on time. At this point I'm super happy! He transfers me to order processing and I paid the shipping cost for expedited shipping. They told me that the order would ship around 2pm Pacific time. Again, I'm super happy thinking that I'll have a replacement unit! Next day around lunch time I still hadn't received a tracking number, even though I got an order confirmation email from Yuneec. I email CS and ask for the tracking number. The girl responds and says that they don't have any shipping info yet, but they will send it as soon as they ship it. WHAT?!?! I call CS back and ask about the status of the order. She says the H is currently backordered and they don't know when more will be shipped. I tell her that I spoke with (name removed) and that it was supposed to ship yesterday. Said she'd call me back. I finally get a call at 8pm that night from somebody who said the system messed up and released my unit to another order. She said they were currently testing 500 units and she would keep an eye on things and update me daily with how it was looking. That was a week ago and she hasn't called me back once.

I call Yuneec yet again and ask to speak with (name removed). Ask him what the **** is going on and he says the same thing. The system is fulfilling previous orders and they won't fulfill mine until the orders ahead of me are shipped. I complain to him again, told him that I was supposed to have the thingy now. He said he would try to pull some strings, but that he couldn't promise anything. Days later and still nothing. No call back, no email updates, no replacement.

To sum it up, I have called Yuneec around 12 times total and have gotten nothing but run arounds and empty promises. I mailed my H back to them 20 days ago, was promised a replacement and here I sit, empty handed. I really think I'm done with Yuneec. They came close to costing me a big job since. I agreed to shoot that property having in my that I would use my H. Because of this fiasco, I had to use my Q500 4K in an environment where the H would have been much better. Also, my brother is working on getting his sUAS license under part 107 and we were going to order another TH for him to use and start working with me once he gets his license at the end of August. I guess we'll have to look for something else. I don't know what though, because I don't want to use DJI stuff.

It's apparent by my experience and from what I've read from others on here that Yuneec is completely in over their heads right now. It's disappointing to see a company not take care of it's current customers. This is completely and totally unacceptable![/Q. They are swamped dealing with newbie mistakes and such, your reasons for quick. Replacement mean nothing to them so many guys. Are getting free replacement s for pilot error, next time Callabrate before you fly, Yuneec recommends that.

 

[Dragonflyerthom]

Patience is a virtue developed not born with.

 

[Bill Pepper]

I am having the same problem with YUNEEC customer service. I have been in the technology business for 35 years. And yes, we cross shipped daily, our company attorney will file a lawsuit July 20, 2016 for loss of income, defective design, failure to honor warranty and more. My problems started June 20th. Since then we have done everything possible to resolve this issue to no avail. It's time for the legal department to decide who is right. I do not need feedback from the peanut gallery or YUNEEC employees on this broad. I love this site and it's administration. It lets us all express us. I still would recommend you have multiple drones if your in business. I will be taking off YUNEEC from my websites until they improve. Good luck and have fun my fellow flyers.

 

[Jay]

HAHA! Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I'm just spoiled and want instant gratification. You don't know me at all and that's not what I was getting at.

I don't expect to get ahead of anybody. But, when I call up a company and ask them for priority handling and am told one thing, but get something totally different, I get upset. You're saying you wouldn't be upset if you paid for expedited shipping and was told you would have a replacement unit by a certain day and a couple of weeks later you still don't have it?? On top of that, not all situations are the same. I do think a company should treat certain situations differently. Yeah, little Timmy crashes his drone because he doesn't know how to fly it might have to wait a little bit to get repaired as opposed to a commercial 333 operator who need something fixed as quickly as possible. There's a definite difference.

My little 'photo shoot' was filming a large property and building in the midtown of my large city. I took the job only because I knew I would have my H and that it would be a much better drone to use than a smaller quad. On top of that, it was my first project with a large, national commercial real estate company. I blow it with them and I could lose a lot of business.

You say that I should just return it to where I bought it. Did you not read the paper that came with your H that had a big red stop sign that said to NOT return it to where you bought it from you're having problems? It's not the guy's fault who I bought it from.

At any rate, I'm not coming on here to argue with you.

I can understand your frustration completely! With that being said..I have but 1 question. Why would you commit to a commercial shoot of a large building in the middle of town with an unproven aerial platform? Especially one that you can see on these forums has had a lot of problems that need to be worked out. I have a Q500+ and a P3P as well, and I would use one of those before the H or the P4 on a very important commercial shoot! I'm not passing judgement by any means..just don't understand your decision to use a unproven platform!

 

[John Pirrone]

I'm sorry I have to ask, but, Who is your dealer? Did you ask them for help at all? I realize the drone says on the box not to work with the dealer but many dealers will help any way. It was worth a try after all the hassle you went through. I truly believe that Drones + or one of the other prominent dealers would have helped if you purchased from them.

 

[Danny Baur]

Well, I'm pretty much over the H and Yuneec. It has been an incredibly frustrating few weeks. I have been getting nothing but a run around from Yuneec and I think I'm done.

I bought the H on June 7th. Got it a few days later and decided to take it to a family reunion to fly it for the first time. Long story short, after about 10min, the H starting swirling and it was all I could do to keep it from hitting anything. Finally got it stable enough to land and at about 6 inches about the ground, it jerked back and crashed. Broke 2 props and the plastic rail for the camera mount.

I called Yuneec the very next day and explained the situation. They said to send it in for inspection and repair and sent me a pre-paid label. I told them that I do commercial videography work with my drones and that I had a big project coming up that I needed and wanted to use the H on. I asked if it would be possible for them to cross ship me a replacement unit once they saw that I shipped my unit. Was told that they didn't "do that kind of thing" and that I would have to wait for repair. OK... So, I called back the next morning and spoke with someone else saying that I couldn't afford to wait weeks for a repair and that I needed a replacement sent out ASAP. Again, was told they couldn't do that. I even asked to speak to a supervisor (none were available). A supervisor called me back a few hours later and I explained my situation. She said she would make sure that my case was handled quickly and that she would call me and give me regular updates on how it was going. This was June 17th. She never called me back even once. I call back (AGAIN) on the 20th and asked to speak to another supervisor. I ended up getting a guy (whose name I won't mention) who said that he was the highest person I could speak with. I explained the situation and told him that I wanted a unit cross shipped. I told him that I had a shoot coming up on the 23rd in midtown for a large commercial real estate company and I really needed to have my H for that shoot. He said they couldn't do that since they had people sending empty boxes back to them, full of magazines for weight and they just weren't able to send anything out until they got mine in. I then asked if they would send me a replacement if I would give them a credit card and they could put a hold on the card and release the hold once they got my H and ST16 back. He said he would have to ask someone if that was possible. He comes back on the phone and says that they can do that and that I can pay the difference for expedited shipping so that I could get the unit on time. At this point I'm super happy! He transfers me to order processing and I paid the shipping cost for expedited shipping. They told me that the order would ship around 2pm Pacific time. Again, I'm super happy thinking that I'll have a replacement unit! Next day around lunch time I still hadn't received a tracking number, even though I got an order confirmation email from Yuneec. I email CS and ask for the tracking number. The girl responds and says that they don't have any shipping info yet, but they will send it as soon as they ship it. WHAT?!?! I call CS back and ask about the status of the order. She says the H is currently backordered and they don't know when more will be shipped. I tell her that I spoke with (name removed) and that it was supposed to ship yesterday. Said she'd call me back. I finally get a call at 8pm that night from somebody who said the system messed up and released my unit to another order. She said they were currently testing 500 units and she would keep an eye on things and update me daily with how it was looking. That was a week ago and she hasn't called me back once.

I call Yuneec yet again and ask to speak with (name removed). Ask him what the **** is going on and he says the same thing. The system is fulfilling previous orders and they won't fulfill mine until the orders ahead of me are shipped. I complain to him again, told him that I was supposed to have the thingy now. He said he would try to pull some strings, but that he couldn't promise anything. Days later and still nothing. No call back, no email updates, no replacement.

To sum it up, I have called Yuneec around 12 times total and have gotten nothing but run arounds and empty promises. I mailed my H back to them 20 days ago, was promised a replacement and here I sit, empty handed. I really think I'm done with Yuneec. They came close to costing me a big job since. I agreed to shoot that property having in my that I would use my H. Because of this fiasco, I had to use my Q500 4K in an environment where the H would have been much better. Also, my brother is working on getting his sUAS license under part 107 and we were going to order another TH for him to use and start working with me once he gets his license at the end of August. I guess we'll have to look for something else. I don't know what though, because I don't want to use DJI stuff.

It's apparent by my experience and from what I've read from others on here that Yuneec is completely in over their heads right now. It's disappointing to see a company not take care of it's current customers. This is completely and totally unacceptable!

I had a P3p and while 400 ft in the air, the battery just quit. I originally thought it was a flyaway until about a month later when a man called and said he found my drone about the same place I lost it. I had a "tile" on it which I passed that location several times w/o a reading. Anyway, it took me about 2 weeks just to get thru to CS w/DJI and I was calling several times a day, different times of the day. All I would get is a fast busy signal or a recording saying the lines are too busy. After finally getting a hold of them, they decided to give me 30% off and pay 881 dollars for another.. I was going thru withdrawals so I agreed. I got it but it took 73 days to do so once they rcvd the payment. Conclusion: DJI has great ideas as far as drones go, but CS really sucks. My H hasn't had any problems, but I'm sure if it does, I'll experience a lot of heartache before I am satisfied.
That's why I fly my drones like Elaine used her sponges on Seinfeld... Is it drone worthy..

 

[Zayne Larson]

To those of you who choose to bash m20b_pilot, back-off. His issue is not that he wishes to be treated as a special case, he just wants to get what was promised to him. Had Yuneec been upfront from the beginning, there would have been no need for the numerous emails/phone calls.
I also have a TH in for evaluation/repairs. I received it as an early Father's Day gift on Sat., June 11. I spent the day reading instructions and watching videos, as this is my first non-toy copter and I didn't want to do anything wrong.
Sunday morning, I took it out for the first couple of flights, low level stuff to get used to the controls and copter and a quick trip up to around 200 feet. Landed without incident and proceeded to go through the charging process for the battery, including the cool down. As it takes an average of 2+ hours to recharge,I decided that it would be a good time to charge the controller and the Wizard wand. Charging complete, time to check out more features. I wanted to check out the video capabilities, so I inserted the card and took her up high enough to do a 360 pan of my property. Brought her back down and checked out the video. I was disappointed, as the video was very choppy, so back to the online videos. After learning how to adjust the video settings, back out for another try. I send her up to treetop level and let her hover. Press the video button and nothing, press it again and nothing. I scan the screen and everything appears normal, no warnings, alerts, or attention vibrations. I glance up at the copter and all appears well so I try the video button a few more times and still nothing. All of a sudden the copter goes silent, I look up and helplessly watch as it falls to the ground and smash into many pieces.
Monday, June 13, working with my retailer, I contact CS. They tell me to send the controller so the techs can check the telemetry to determine if it was user error or something that would be covered by the warranty. I mentioned it might be better to send both the copter and controller, since the copter is going to need to be repaired regardless of the cause of the crash, and she (CS) agrees. I spend $40 to send it to Yuneec and it is confirmed as being received on June 24 via email. About a week passes with no further contact from them, I figured they were busy, so I send an email inquiring if anything had been discovered yet. I received a response the same day that stated "We have not yet completed the necessary repairs. Our repair team will be in contact with you if needed. Thank you for your patience. Have a Yuneec day!". I think to myself, "Does this mean they have determined that it was a glitch and they are covering the repairs under the warranty?" June 30, Another email to CS inquiring just that, and a response couple days later (July 2) informing me that it was deemed a "Customer Crash" and was not covered by the warranty and the repair techs would be in contact for payment information. I now inquire (same day) on how to find out the cause of the crash so I know what I did wrong, as to not have a repeat incident. I hear nothing back until yesterday (July 8) and it is a quote for the repairs, so I call CS and leave my contact number. They returned my call this morning wanting payment. I recapped the whole scenario and was told to call back on Monday when the techs would be in. My thoughts are that I should not have to pay for the repairs unless they can prove that it was me who caused the crash. Also, if it is this easy to crash this copter, then their videos are a bunch of (Beep beep beep). We shall see what Monday brings though.

 

[raymond captuo]

i am going thru the same BS now for over 2 months....sent my camera in twice for same issue....this time if not fixed i am just going to sell it for whatever i can get and get a P4

 

[John Pirrone]

Wow. This is really too bad. It appears that after having great customer service for a long time and getting good reviews on it (that is why I bought my Q500 4K) that the company has forgotten how important it is! Yuneec is apparently becoming just like all the other companies, including DJI, with BAD customer service. Very unfortunate.

 

[Zayne Larson]

It does appear that way John, but I hope that Yuneec also seems this happening and nips it in the butt.