Apos customer service?

[frogmeat69]

They were a great place to order from when they started, and I had no problems with the Topping L30 issues getting an updated unit, or when I had to have a warranty replacement on my A90, it just took about 3 weeks from request to new unit.
Saying all that, I haven't done much business with them in the last year or two, since I haven't wanted or needed anything, but hearing all of this makes me worry if I do want something in the future.
I do remember the last thing I bought from them did come direct from China, and took about 1 1/2 weeks. Most other earlier purchases were shipped fast from California, from what I remember.

 

[sejarzo]

Most other earlier purchases were shipped fast from California, from what I remember.

Same thing I recall reading from some other customers a few years ago.

That's why when I bought an A300 from them when the site showed "In Stock", I assumed it would ship from their California stock...then the tracking info showed up with origination in China.

 

[Serg]

I'd like to add my 2 Cents here... last week, I received a D.O.A. SMSL SU-10 from APOS. Shipping to me was very fast from China. Within hours of receiving the dac, I notified them through chat about the dac not working. One week has gone by; I've tried their chat every day and I've sent numerous emails... no answer. I've ordered from them before and have had zero issues. This will be the last time I do business with them.

 

[MAB]

I had a Topping A30 Pro from Apos that had one channel go bad 9 months after purchase. I contacted Apos, they did respond, but asked me to go through a lengthy diagnostic, including videos of the 'broken' device. I got the impression this was a stalling game. I asked them to stop stalling and fix my gear, at that point the asked me to send it back to them at my own expense, and mark the item with $20 value and say it is an 'earphone' for customs. So I sent an extremely nasty email to Apos, and posted about it on the Defective Topping PA5 thread where I was getting even worse treatment from ShenzhenAudio on my defective PA5... At the time, John Yang and Topping customer service had joined the thread, and I got lucky since I think the person at Apos got nervous and PayPal'ed me a full refund, didn't even ask for the A30 back. I repaired the A30 Pro (cold solder joints - poor manufacturing) and still use it. Working with Topping resellers is like talking to paranoid teenagers after they smoked a joint. Looking inside the A30 Pro made me think the same stoners did the soldering.

edit: Gamerpaddy did a teardown of the PA5 and found poor solder manufacturing, although perhaps different than my A30 issue.

I bought three Toppings, two of them broke. One thing that was consistent was the horrible customer service from the resellers. They don't acknowledge any responsibility for the gear they sell and the money they make off it. I don't think they act in good faith, they tried to rip me off.

 

[Entropy]

I had a Topping A30 Pro from Apos that had one channel go bad 9 months after purchase. I contacted Apos, they did respond, but asked me to go through a lengthy diagnostic, including videos of the 'broken' device. I got the impression this was a stalling game. I asked them to stop stalling and fix my gear, at that point the asked me to send it back to them at my own expense, and mark the item with $20 value and say it is an 'earphone' for customs. So I sent an extremely nasty email to Apos, and posted about it on the Defective Topping PA5 thread where I was getting even worse treatment from ShenzhenAudio on my defective PA5... At the time, John Yang and Topping customer service had joined the thread, and I got lucky since I think the person at Apos got nervous and PayPal'ed me a full refund, didn't even ask for the A30 back. I repaired the A30 Pro (cold solder joints - poor manufacturing) and still use it. Working with Topping resellers is like talking to paranoid teenagers after they smoked a joint. Looking inside the A30 Pro made me think the same stoners did the soldering.

edit: Gamerpaddy did a teardown of the PA5 and found poor solder manufacturing, although perhaps different than my A30 issue.

I bought three Toppings, two of them broke. One thing that was consistent was the horrible customer service from the resellers. They don't acknowledge any responsibility for the gear they sell and the money they make off it. I don't think they act in good faith, they tried to rip me off.

Quite unfortunate. This just proves to me that they are scumbags, and that consumers aren't equipped to deal with companies like them. The most they were willing to do for my warranty case for the Discontinued Pa5 was a $300 In-store credit (85% of value), even with months of pestering and waiting. What are you going to do about them? Government consumer protection agencies won't do squat from what I've seen, and the only other action you can take is suing them. Like... maybe if you bought 5k+ worth of stuff It might be worth pursuing...

I find it interesting that the offical topping support account jumped ship so suddenly, the date of when they did (Perhaps because of the volume of complaints?), and even more interesting that John Yang was last seen in these forums promptly before the Pa5 went out of production, and according to Topping, became discontinued.

__________

Switching gears to a quick update to my situation. After a few more days, Apos's support team finally got back to me. Annd? They said the same thing. It took them nearly six weeks just to reply to my email. . I ended up accepting the 85% after reviewing what effective action I could take against them (not much). Whatever, I'll settle for bringing as much attention to their shadiness as possible.

 

[MAB]

Quite unfortunate. This just proves to me that they are scumbags, and that consumers aren't equipped to deal with companies like them. The most they were willing to do for my warranty case for the Discontinued Pa5 was a $300 In-store credit (85% of value), even with months of pestering and waiting. What are you going to do about them? Government consumer protection agencies won't do squat from what I've seen, and the only other action you can take is suing them. Like... maybe if you bought 5k+ worth of stuff It might be worth pursuing...

I find it interesting that the offical topping support account jumped ship so suddenly, the date of when they did (Perhaps because of the volume of complaints?), and even more interesting that John Yang was last seen in these forums promptly before the Pa5 went out of production, and according to Topping, became discontinued.

__________

Switching gears to a quick update to my situation. After a few more days, Apos's support team finally got back to me. Annd? They said the same thing. It took them nearly six weeks just to reply to my email. . I ended up accepting the 85% after reviewing what effective action I could take against them (not much). Whatever, I'll settle for bringing as much attention to their shadiness as possible.

Yeah, sounds familiar. I want to believe this is growing pains, but I may be optimistic... The cascade of new slightly different gear from them certainly doesn't stop. Other manufacturers are offering flexible DSP, multiple I/O, and support software. Some have great community with user forums, application notes on room correction, sub optimization, advanced DSP concepts, interfacing with other vendor's hardware and software... And offer reasonable after-sales support. Topping just churns out inscrutably different gadgets of dubious reliability and narrow functionality. As bad as the rel may be, the after-sales service was the most problematic. Great SINAD though...

 

[kemmler3D]

Sharing my recent experience:

Ordered a DX5 Lite on March 10. No indication of backordered or anything like that.

On March 13 they emailed to let me know it was out of stock. It was now slated to ship on March 23. They offered upgraded shipping and a $10 store credit as compensation for the delay.

On March 28, nothing had happened yet, so I emailed to ask about it. Sent a couple emails. Got a reply on March 31, no ETA.

On April 3, they let me know the new ETA was April 20.

I told them that was too long, and could they just send a E70 instead? (same price).

They didn't respond to that right away, but the DX5 shipped out from China shortly after that message via DHL express, received it on Apr. 10.

I then accidentally bricked it by flashing the DX5 MQA firmware by accident. Wrote Apos about it, no response after 24h but wrote Topping at the same time and they sent the correct FW.

Anyway, overall Apos was reasonably responsive to emails, but I have to subtract some points for having the thing out of stock in the first place. Overall not a horrible experience, but you should realize that you're basically just ordering a dropshipped item from China in many instances, and you can expect reasonable email support for your order in English from Apos.

 

[Entropy]

Hm. The saga continues. After I used my $300 in-store credit to order the moondrop blessing 2s, I waited a few weeks and was slated to have my package delivered by USPS (Ie. par for the course). I then received a notice that USPS was returning the package to the sender due to a fault on my end. I got into touch with Apos, and they pretty swiftly got back to me about the situation and asked for me to provide the correct details to remedy the situation. After I did that, I was told that they'd handle it. They never brought up the prospect of charging me for shipping, which was uncharacteristic and earned them quite a few cookie points. Annnnd then three weeks passed, they've said nothing. So, they either didn't receive or re-dispatch the package, are just that slow, are just shipping me a new one from China for some reason... Or USPS might've lost the package, which also seems realistic.

Their sudden lack of communication is a little troubling. I'll see how it goes, I guess.

 

[solid12345]

I ordered a topping a90d along with their dac from Apos. I got them a month ago and worked great for a few hour test run, second day the amp dies giving me a -7 message.

I sent a support email to submit an RMA and got a semi-quick reply with the typical fluff of “have you tried unplugging everything, trying no cables attached, yadayada”. Even though I already did all that. I fired off another email and it’s been a month now, sent a new reminder email every week, no response.

Honestly it’s frustrating as I’ve ordered quite a few cables from Apos in the past and a headphone or two & this is how they treat a good customer. I don’t know whether to keep waiting it out or try and salvage at least some money back if anyone buys dead amps and wants a go at trying to fix it themselves.

 

[Dean]

They are abysmal. I had a pa5 fail and they responded initially with an offer to provide a pa5ll. But the original pa5 had a 4amp power supply like the pa5ll +. I’m running KEF LS50 metas and the pa5ll is much less power. After I pointed this out to them they have ghosted me. Over 5 weeks and still counting!

 

[antcollinet]

Hang on - isn't APOS in the USA? Why are people having to send stuff back to China? Surely the whole point of a local office is that isn't necessary.

 

[JSmith]

Hang on - isn't APOS in the USA? Why are people having to send stuff back to China? Surely the whole point of a local office is that isn't necessary.

There was an interesting discussion about this actually on Reddit earlier in the year;

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/10b0lww

The general consensus there seems to be that they have an office in the US to appear to be US based, but everything ships from overseas. Unsure of the validity of that though...


JSmith

 

[antcollinet]

There was an interesting discussion about this actually on Reddit earlier in the year;

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/10b0lww

The general consensus there seems to be that they have an office in the US to appear to be US based, but everything ships from overseas. Unsure of the validity of that though...


JSmith

Even so - if you are ordering from a USA organisation on a USA website stating a USA address, then customer service should be with that local organisation. Returns should be to them - how they get that back to China is their problem.

Otherwise APOS has no reason to exist, and you might as well order direct from China at the cheaper price.

 

[JSmith]

Even so - if you are ordering from a USA organisation on a USA website stating a USA address, then customer service should be with that local organisation. Returns should be to them - how they get that back to China is their problem.

I agree completely... the stories I am reading about them here and elsewhere do no lend well to a positive reputation either.


JSmith

 

[ChrisCables]

As a recently incorporated enterprise I'm already of the opinion that customer service is EVERYTHING. Keep your customers happy and they will always come back. Common sense right?

But here's a quandary for you:
A customer who purchased a pair of my IC's 5 months ago got back in touch with me recently to request that I re-terminate them for him to different connector types at one end due to him changing the equipment used with them.
I politely refused, citing that I do not offer modifications as a service. I offered a 10% discount on a new pair of IC's with the connectors he needed but he just got angry and started making threats.
You may think that swapping connectors is a relatively small, inconsequential undertaking but the fact is that it doesn't fit my business model by virtue of the fact that it would take time away from my order queue which currently stands at at least 2 weeks, as well as the fact that it erodes the modest profit margin I made from those cables by having to spend time reterminating them.
I can't go into details as it may be construed as advertising my products but the complexity as well as the lost time were the main reasons to refuse his request.
In retrospect I suppose I could have relented and supplied what he asked for. After all, I don't get so many of those requests, but his immediately aggressive, entitled and threatening posture really clarified my chosen response.

Thoughts?

 

[antcollinet]

As a recently incorporated enterprise I'm already of the opinion that customer service is EVERYTHING. Keep your customers happy and they will always come back. Common sense right?

But here's a quandary for you:
A customer who purchased a pair of my IC's 5 months ago got back in touch with me recently to request that I re-terminate them for him to different connector types at one end due to him changing the equipment used with them.
I politely refused, citing that I do not offer modifications as a service. I offered a 10% discount on a new pair of IC's with the connectors he needed but he just got angry and started making threats.
You may think that swapping connectors is a relatively small, inconsequential undertaking but the fact is that it doesn't fit my business model by virtue of the fact that it would take time away from my order queue which currently stands at at least 2 weeks, as well as the fact that it erodes the modest profit margin I made from those cables by having to spend time reterminating them.
I can't go into details as it may be construed as advertising my products but the complexity as well as the lost time were the main reasons to refuse his request.
In retrospect I suppose I could have relented and supplied what he asked for. After all, I don't get so many of those requests, but his immediately aggressive, entitled and threatening posture really clarified my chosen response.

Thoughts?

Correct response. And as you say - the reversion to type cements the deal. Probably not a customer you really need to retain.


PS - you should ask @amirm for a manufacturer badge for your account.

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[muslhead]

As a recently incorporated enterprise I'm already of the opinion that customer service is EVERYTHING. Keep your customers happy and they will always come back. Common sense right?

But here's a quandary for you:
A customer who purchased a pair of my IC's 5 months ago got back in touch with me recently to request that I re-terminate them for him to different connector types at one end due to him changing the equipment used with them.
I politely refused, citing that I do not offer modifications as a service. I offered a 10% discount on a new pair of IC's with the connectors he needed but he just got angry and started making threats.
You may think that swapping connectors is a relatively small, inconsequential undertaking but the fact is that it doesn't fit my business model by virtue of the fact that it would take time away from my order queue which currently stands at at least 2 weeks, as well as the fact that it erodes the modest profit margin I made from those cables by having to spend time reterminating them.
I can't go into details as it may be construed as advertising my products but the complexity as well as the lost time were the main reasons to refuse his request.
In retrospect I suppose I could have relented and supplied what he asked for. After all, I don't get so many of those requests, but his immediately aggressive, entitled and threatening posture really clarified my chosen response.

Thoughts?

Lets stick to the thread topic.
Make a new topic and get the proper badge as a manufacturer

 

[TonyJZX]

just reading about this store on google makes me uncomfortable

i havent seen a single positive that wasnt fake and its just a litany of bad business

 

[ChrisCables]

PS - you should ask @amirm for a manufacturer badge for your account.

Good call. Done.

 

[Dean]

They are abysmal. I had a pa5 fail and they responded initially with an offer to provide a pa5ll. But the original pa5 had a 4amp power supply like the pa5ll +. I’m running KEF LS50 metas and the pa5ll is much less power. After I pointed this out to them they have ghosted me. Over 5 weeks and still counting!

By the way. Still no response from them. Stay away from APOS. Heed my warning!