My friend Kim Hua placed an order for our new marine tank.
Here are the facts :
He placed an order for a 220v Alpha Cone 200 with Luke Plank on 28 April, paid in full inclusive of shipping charges in advance via paypal.
Throughout this 5 months, he constantly chase for updates via emails while I do so in this thread but always the same answer of don't know when the skimmer will come, all at the mercy of Royal Exclusiv. Each shipment from Royal Exclusiv seem to be a surprise, noone knows what is in each shipment till the last minute. There was an earlier shipment of 220v skimmer but only the 170 and 300 models were delivered. Problem is Luke only knew about it at the last minute.
Recently Luke gave a contact, Shane from Proline. Again, reply is have to check with Royal Exclusiv. The fact that the order is 5 months ago does not seem to bother anyone nor give any urgency to the matter.
Here is how we feel :
We thought Premium Aquatics, Proline and Royal Exclusiv would have some order processing system to track orders. Yet the impression given each time is I don't know what is happening for your order. No definite answer at all.
We honoured the transaction by paying in full inclusive of shipping charges in advance. We thought at least there should be periodic updates from your end and a definite timeline for delivery. Yet the impression given is don't know when Royal Exclusiv will made the skimmer
If you can't meet the demand, then don't take orders as if you can fulfill them and even demanded payment in advance.
We were the first few customers to preorder with full payment as we heard much about the good customer service from Premium Aquatics. We must be mistaken. Although we are from Asia, we will also expect some decent customer service as well.
Shane had no better answer other than he is at the mercy of Royal Exclusiv. I would have thought when Proline contracted Royal Exclusiv to made these skimmers, there would be a contract stating certain expectation on delivery and fulfilling orders within a certain time frame.
Each time we checked with Premium Aquatics or Proline, it is from ground zero, got to check but yet not a single time a definite delivery date can be given.
Obviously we are upset. If you are going to post back here with sorry and same old story, pls save it. Either do some real customer service and get a definite ETA for a brand new Alpha Cone 200 or have the decency to give a full refund taking into account the exchange rate loss now vs then and the additional charges by paypal. In short, at least made sure we are not worse off in monetary term. Not withstanding that, it is still a waste of 5 months of our time.
