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Buyer Beware of accessories4less Scam company with legit dealer license

Ssmokeyy

Member
Joined
May 4, 2023
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So i have been looking for the best spot to put this post. I feel that our community Needs to know this info. My friend ordered 2 def tech dm20 center channel speakers that he was going to use for this front atmos speakers above his 139 inch screen. I opened the boxes they claim were new speakers. Every thing looked correct So I ohms checked the speakers and found zero ohms, I did a 9v battery test no sound, hooked it up to his upstairs living room system that runs off a anthem mrx540 avr that runs all goldenear speakers.
i tested the upstairs system with goldenear center first removed center test dm20 no sound installed goldenear center back sound working fine from center. So now i tell my friend he needs to email accessories4less for a warranty. At this point i know its not normal to have 2 brand new speakers not working but that's what were dealing with at this point. So they email him back saying there's no chance of two speakers not working and that they don't want the speaker back. Also they put in the email u can't ohms check speakers because they have a crossover. I laughed at that one. So i called and told the manager of all the ways we tested them, He still did not want to warranty the speakers out. After talking on the phone for 20 mins he changed his mind about the warranty. He sent one label for two speakers so I taped both speakers together and sent them both back. He than tells me def tech is out of stock and they can't send my friend any warranty speakers and that it would be months of waiting. I called def tech and had them check stock levels they said stock levels look good they have some for the website and for dealers. I asked def tech if accessories4less was a legit dealer and they said yes. so i asked if they could help with this problem. They said no because its been less than 30 days and that accessories4less has to take care of this problem for now. So as all this is happening i could see how things were going so i found another dealer of def tech and had them check stock level and they said no problem with stock. So accessories4less got back the speakers and claim there working normal and that there refunding the money less restocking fee , shipping cost both ways. I still do not believe these speakers work, They never said there would be a shipping fee to send them back plus there charging him shipping to him the first time when there website list free shipping all over it.

Funny that there billing him for shipping product to him and to take the product back. Do not trust this company. Def tech Needs to really look at there dealers better. If i wasn't as huge of a fan of def tech I would have put them on blast also. My main goal here is to save other people the trouble and not to get taken like my friend did. Also we have now ordered the same speakers from another dealer. There was no shady crap from my friend here. He ordered some speakers and just wanted them to work. Also accessories4less lost 2 -3 more sales from my friend. He's building his pool house this year and he wants outside sound system plus a pool house sound system.
 
I remembering buying a new white Polk S30 (From Polk Directly). I wasn't too happy about the color not matching but it was new, still I remember sending it back to them. It was a fight but I one although there was return "fees" which was fine honestly for my selfishiness . First purchase was with A4L, it was a brown refurb Polk S20 (That costed a little more then the new S30). Came with all manuals and OG box, never had a problem with it. Heck I even demo'ed the two S30's and they sounded the same. I can't remember the S30 prices but they were cheaper then new still. More then a year A4L later was selling refurb black Polk S20's for $250. I remember when those S20s were ~$200 to $300 brand new everywhere and I don't think I'll seen them again, so I bought them. Almost same story, came with everything like it was new but I never tested them, maybe I should test them. Seeing the Polk ES20 sell new for $400 is just a joke. Nowadays the Elac D2 B62's stomp the ES20, used to be a fair fight back then.

I never knew A4L sold new items, I thought they only sold Refurb. Both items were either barely used or warehouse back specials like Crutchfield used to have (Like the RTIa series).
 
I think companies need a site where they can check reviews of customers. I love this one on the BBB site:
"however, I would like for Accessories4Less to refund my whole purchase price and cover the difference in cost to obtain substitute performance"
So they didn't just want a refund they wanted extra.

And this one:
"It’s a vile little tin-pot company who publish bargain deals but cannot honor them." Following the argument on BBB site the customer wanted the item shipped to a different address than the billing address and offered up a lot of unrequested 'proof' that it was a good address. A lot of companies won't do that anymore due to fraud. Some credit card companies will allow them to put an alternate address on file that can be verified by phone but those that don't there isn't any way for the company to protect themselves.

And more:
"They have great deals on refurbished electronics but if you decide to return a product for any reason other than it being damaged you will be charged shipping fees (the cost to ship it to you plus the cost to ship it back)"
WHAT? If you don't keep the item they don't absorb the 'free' shipping expense? That is crazy.
 
I think companies need a site where they can check reviews of customers. I love this one on the BBB site:
"however, I would like for Accessories4Less to refund my whole purchase price and cover the difference in cost to obtain substitute performance"
So they didn't just want a refund they wanted extra.

And this one:
"It’s a vile little tin-pot company who publish bargain deals but cannot honor them." Following the argument on BBB site the customer wanted the item shipped to a different address than the billing address and offered up a lot of unrequested 'proof' that it was a good address. A lot of companies won't do that anymore due to fraud. Some credit card companies will allow them to put an alternate address on file that can be verified by phone but those that don't there isn't any way for the company to protect themselves.

And more:
"They have great deals on refurbished electronics but if you decide to return a product for any reason other than it being damaged you will be charged shipping fees (the cost to ship it to you plus the cost to ship it back)"
WHAT? If you don't keep the item they don't absorb the 'free' shipping expense? That is crazy.
What is crazy about not offering free returns for functioning merchandise? It's in the terms of sale. BBB is crap for the most part in any case.
 
I had no problems when returning an item with them. No, they did not cover the return shipping but that is an unreasonable expectation wthen the item was not (in my case) defective.
I also purchased a used pair of def tech rear surround speakers which looked almost new and worked fine.
Just my experience
 
Do many people ohm and battery test new speakers? I've always just connected them to either the point I wanted to have them or to an easily accessible L/R channel if I was too impatient to wait.

An inside tip, customer service people aren't usually impressed by unique testing methods or reverse engineering the assembly/installation instructions. Something simple like "I swapped out working speaker(s) and got no sound" and if you want to go above and beyond then "and I tried it in a second system with the same result".

When I worked customer service the three words that we'd always joking say to each other was "I'm an Engineer"; because they like to not follow the instructions and will tell you it can't be right because....
Most of the time once the customer made up their mind it wasn't going to work or wasn't the correct part, they weren't going to get it to work even though it did. Usually the conversation would go "The replacement you sent doesn't work either" and I'd respond with a picture of the first one that was returned working properly and they'd end with "Never mind, it is working now."
 
I guess I forgot to add the sarcastic wink at the end of the sentence. I was mocking the reviewers on all 3.
LOL I see it more now, yes sometimes an emoji can make the difference :)
 
Do many people ohm and battery test new speakers? I've always just connected them to either the point I wanted to have them or to an easily accessible L/R channel if I was too impatient to wait.

An inside tip, customer service people aren't usually impressed by unique testing methods or reverse engineering the assembly/installation instructions. Something simple like "I swapped out working speaker(s) and got no sound" and if you want to go above and beyond then "and I tried it in a second system with the same result".

When I worked customer service the three words that we'd always joking say to each other was "I'm an Engineer"; because they like to not follow the instructions and will tell you it can't be right because....
Most of the time once the customer made up their mind it wasn't going to work or wasn't the correct part, they weren't going to get it to work even though it did. Usually the conversation would go "The replacement you sent doesn't work either" and I'd respond with a picture of the first one that was returned working properly and they'd end with "Never mind, it is working now."
Indeed, worked customer service for audio for a little while also. It felt like 90% of the support I did was helping people figure out their phone's bluetooth settings or clean out the jacks on their phones. If anyone wonders why customer service reps ask you to do brain-dead simple troubleshooting steps, it's because of the innumerable people they've encountered who do not do those things.
 
I remembering buying a new white Polk S30 (From Polk Directly). I wasn't too happy about the color not matching but it was new, still I remember sending it back to them. It was a fight but I one although there was return "fees" which was fine honestly for my selfishiness . First purchase was with A4L, it was a brown refurb Polk S20 (That costed a little more then the new S30). Came with all manuals and OG box, never had a problem with it. Heck I even demo'ed the two S30's and they sounded the same. I can't remember the S30 prices but they were cheaper then new still. More then a year A4L later was selling refurb black Polk S20's for $250. I remember when those S20s were ~$200 to $300 brand new everywhere and I don't think I'll seen them again, so I bought them. Almost same story, came with everything like it was new but I never tested them, maybe I should test them. Seeing the Polk ES20 sell new for $400 is just a joke. Nowadays the Elac D2 B62's stomp the ES20, used to be a fair fight back then.

I never knew A4L sold new items, I thought they only sold Refurb. Both items were either barely used or warehouse back specials like Crutchfield used to have (Like the RTIa series).
New isn't a lot of the inventory, just have to look at each offer. I have used them for both and have no complaints, and thought they were excellent on customer service. YMMV.
 
Do many people ohm and battery test new speakers?
Not just new. I seen plenty of pawn shops not take speakers "Because they don't have a guy to test them". Most of these pawn shops take in dumb shit that nobody wants like Kayaks. Seen plenty of the same pawn shops take in electronics just because it "Turned On" and never check anything else.
 
I did make this post on 3 forums. Installing these as atmos speakers about a 138 inch screen i do not plan to remove them after install. These were tested with a anthem mrx 540 plus ohm tester and battery test to double check not just do one test and call it over... by the way we ordered 2 new ones from a local company and they work amazing. funny part to me is how many people stand up for this crap company even after reading all the bad reviews of problems they have had with customers.
 
Several of the online 'bad reviews' I found were downright ridiculous (as listed above) and I've seen multiple good comments about them before. The one thing the bad reviews all seemed to have in common was anger and dismissiveness on the part of the reviewer. I tend to tune those out.

To me, lines like "If i wasn't as huge of a fan of def tech I would have put them on blast also." seem more like "Feel my wrath!!! You have no idea the power I have on the internet!" rather than "here is a heads up about what I ran into when dealing with their customer service".
That combined with the unique pretests (that we have now heard multiple people say were faulty) and mentioning all the money they lost in future sales, triggers my customer service spidey sense.
 
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