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 A Rant/Warning About KEH | |
So I know KEH is supposed to be a reputable used gear reseller, and I've bought from and sold to them in the past without issue, but man I've had such an absurd ordeal over the last ~3 weeks that I absolutely cannot recommend them and I feel like I need to rant/warn people about dealing with them, especially when selling gear.
Backstory: I liquidated a bunch of gear to them about 3 weeks ago, and their total qoute amount was mostly fair market value for each piece of equipment comparable to what I paid originally, and factoring in the time saved in trying to sell privately whether here, or on eBay or Facebook Marketplace and dealing with scammers on the latter. So I wrapped my gear in bubble wrap and boxed it up all nice and neat, took pictures of everything to cover my own ass in the unlikely event something went sideways and KEH tried to tell me I packed my gear improperly and it therefore wasn't covered under their "self-insurance" when using their provided shipping label, and I drop it off on November 8th. They receive it on the 17th and I get an automated email that they got my gear and it would be about 2 business days before they inspect it, check it all in, and send me a final quote. Great, no problem, that's normal.
A full 5 days go by and I hear nothing from them, so I send them an email and just over 24 hours later I get an email from someone named Cheyenne who tells me "there was an issue with your delivery and we're investigating with FedEx". That's it, no details about the "issue" that was supposedly discovered what was now 6 days earlier and nobody bothered to tell me, so I reply asking if my gear had somehow been damaged in shipping - highly unlikely because I know how well I packed it - and she replies telling me that KEH "received an empty box" 6 days prior and nobody thought I needed to know that my gear had been, allegedly, stolen in transit sometime between the Saturday that I dropped it off and the Wednesday they received it.
Naturally I'm furious and I get hot on the phone with these people trying to find out why the hell nobody told me and what happens next, because I certainly am not eating the cost of thousands of dollars worth of gear and my own insurance policy doesn't cover theft in the custody of a courier. A full week goes by and this same Cheyenne tells me FedEx declared the gearr lost in transit and they're going to compensate me to the tune of the original quote amount "within 2 business days". Fine, great, pay me. NOPE!
Two business days go by, no payment, no communication. Finally, I get sick of being jerked around and this morning I email KEH threatening legal action for the full retail replacement value, the amount covered by my insurance for a theft occuring from my possession, and wouldn't you know that I get an email from PayPal within the hour telling me they've paid me the full quote amount. Except they haven't, because they sent the payment Goods and Services and I was hit with a fee of close to $210 after I was specifically told there was no fee for a PayPal payment. So I get Cheyenne on the phone and she tells me she'll get it taken care of, and then I get a second payment for the amount of the fee. Great, I thought, I can be done with this entire disaster. WRONG AGAIN, I got hit with ANOTHER fee because they sent me a G&S payment a second time without adding the extra 3% to account for the fee. Now I'm absolutely furious, and I don't really care that the fee was $6, I feel like I'm getting nickled and dimed by a company that has done nothing but give me excuses for a full three weeks at this point, so I send yet another email this time telling them I'm going to hit the "issue refund" button on both transactions, contact my attorney, the Georgia AG's office, Consumer Affairs, and Division of Licensing.
Then I get a third payment for the remaining fee amount, with the 3% added in, and I'm finally made whole. After three full weeks, three separate payments, and two angry emails threatening to sue KEH into oblivion and have their business license revoked. The entire process, start to finish, being a complete joke of a disaster and absolutely poorly handled by them.
TL;DR: I shipped KEH a bunch of gear that was stolen in transit, nobody told me for a week and only after I inquired about my quote, and I had to threaten to sue them multiple times before they cashed me out even though FedEx paid them a week ago. KEH is great when nothing goes wrong, but absolutely pitiful when something does, and I absolutely cannot stress enough that you should use caution when selling to them because they will not tell you when there's a problem, make excuses, and sit on their hands while you wait for compensation. Sell to MPB instead.
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