Avoid RainBot3d

Advising of a bad filament supplier. They have a website and sell on eBay. Purchased thru ebay, emailed me that my selection was out of stock, gave me the option of another choice, or to wait a week for re-stock. I said I could wait the week. Would not have purchased from if stock levels were indicated.

The next week my purchase was marked as shipped, so began my 2 week wait thinking it was being sent USPS without a tracking number. Upon my contact to the seller, my purchase was shipped. In emailing back and forth the guy tried to tell me that my order was shipped as soon as his stock came in. No, no my purchase was shipped when I informed them that I had not received it. Most likely would not have got it at all if I did not inform the seller.

On top of all that, he said he was waiting for stock from Germany, but upon arrival, it is the EXACT SAME filament that repraper.com supplies from China.

So I just spent about 3 dollars more than repraper.com to get the exact same filament in 3 1/2 weeks instead of 1. It's not the 3 dollars, it's the blatant lies from this seller that's the ticker.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 06:46PM by Dirty Steve.

Seller here, I made the mistake of marking this buyers ebay purchase shipped and we did not have the color he had in stock. Yes, we are a supplier of filament and purchase filament from multiple manufacturers, do we order filament from China? Yes, do we order from Germany, Yes. If you thought I was being dishonest I was not and I'm sorry you left with that impression.

I have tried my best to make it right with this buyer and have learned from the mistakes I made with eBay. We offer our filament for $30 with $5 shipping from our website to anywhere in the continental United States and our filament is good (I use Rainbot3d filament with my Replicator 2 and Metalbot). If anyone has any questions about my filament I am an open book, so please don't write us off because we made mistakes on shipment and communication! We raised our prices on eBay to encourage buyers to use our website as our website indicates stock and generates invoices with exactly what you order! Then we have an email address to update each individual buyer with the status of their order.

We offer excellent prices on filament and basically pay for the shipping. We are trying our best to ship fast and keep customers informed about their order but we're human and make mistakes! We're so so sorry you had a bad experience with us LET US MAKE IT UP TO YOU!!!

Kindly,


Evan

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2019 02:47PM by VDX.

It is very clear that I would have not got my order at all if I did not inform you of not receiving it. Different excuse or lie with every email.

If you would have doubled my order at no cost I may have let this slide, but it's past that point. Was only offered free shipping on next order, that's trying your best? Like there isn't any place else to get filament.

I very much doubt that if you really are shipping 100s of rolls a week that you are hand writing the shipping labels.

Similar name as someone else? That's a new lie. I can point out ALL of them if you like......waiting on stock from Germany to send me Chinese filament?

Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2013 11:29AM by Dirty Steve.

and a shameless marketing plug in response.........

"If you would have doubled my order at no cost I may have let this slide" - sorry to interject here. but is that even reasonable?

dirty steve, you have made your point.

Evan (rainbot3d.com) - people do make mistakes, and dirty steve is pointing out his frustration. just try to not let this kind of thing happen again if possible. at the very least realize that his frustration was with the communication and hook tactics used , in a day or two, just a little longer, for example.

Also why not take this oportunity to join the reprap community, i see you used your email addy to make a post. that does not have much credibility here, and the best way to gain that is to join and contribute to this forum. i would rather make a purchase from someone that is using reprap and this forum, rather than a 3rd party that only knows about making a quick buck.

just my opinion.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2019 03:41PM by VDX.

the resolution of free shipping, if I can profit from you again....not cool. If you have a high volume product flow, one unit would be nothing to maintain customer satisfaction, or just offer to reimburse the purchase price, or if you lie about it, at least stick to ONE lie.

It's not the error or dropping the ball on my order, it is the multiple lies and different excuses in each email.

Turning a buck on reselling the cheapest filament available, that's all I see. And dropping a blatant marketing plug in response to a customer complaint....weak....

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2013 09:18PM by Dirty Steve.

Hey guys, sorry for taking so long to respond! I don't know much about online forums and stuff but I'd happily join if it would increase my credibility at all!

Steve, I asked you what I needed to do to make it up to you, and you didn't say a free roll would have made it up to you. I'll gladly send you a free roll of filament as an apology just so you believe that I'm not trying to just take your money and run with it. I founded Rainbot3D in January and have not ironed out all of the kinks in owning a supply company.

I don't know how you'd like me to prove this but I don't make a large profit on filament, it costs roughly $25 per unit to have the filament imported (usually from Hong Kong, repraper.com is literally the manufacturer I use the most) I used to sell it for $28+$5 shipping per roll which equals out to about $3 a roll and that's when I don't make mistakes.... From my experience there are better ways to make a quick buck. This company is run by my brother and I and we want to do everything right but sometimes we/ I make mistakes and I'll gladly answer to those mistakes. I don't mean to shamelessly self promote, I am just trying to protect what I've been working so hard on this year. We raised our prices so we could justify importing the products and spend our profit on re ordering product. I hope this comes across as extremely transparent. Some weeks we sell 100 units other weeks we sell 2, but we've only been operating for maybe 10 weeks (rough estimate).

When we offer free shipping, we lose money as shipping a single unit with a Fedex business account (depending on where in the US) which offers us an %8 discount still comes to between $6-$10 and that's for a 2.6 lb package.

Steve, send me an e-mail or simply post what type of filament you'd like as an apology and I'll send it to you today (free shipping) if that will make up for my mistakes.


-ET

Okay, I just registered and I will do my best to frequent this forum James, thank you for the advice! I look forward to hearing from you Steve.

-ET

Like I said, it's past that point. I'm not here for you to learn how to run a business. If I want to contribute to the down fall of American manufacturing and economy to the Chinese, I can do that all by myself. I don't need a middle man to profit from it.

I do not appreciate the lies I have been told by you, go take a course at your local college in BUSINESS ETHICS.

I'm not for sale, and I cannot be bought.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2013 11:47AM by Dirty Steve.

Hi guys,

I'd like to offer another opinion on Rainbot3D. I ordered a bunch of filament from them to get started. They were out of a couple of the colors that I ordered but I knew this from their website which displays qty on hand.

Evan contacted me without any prompting and offered to ship in separate batches so I could at least get the other filament that was in stock sooner. I thought that was nice since I was getting their free shipping deal on orders over $199. Now, having owned a retail store in the past, I know that when they offer free shipping on larger orders and then have to ship separate shipments, their margins are significantly reduced.

The filament (that I received promptly) looks great to me and the prices and transparent communication were great.
Evan is providing a service and deserves to make some money for that service. If someone wants to take the risk of sending thousands of dollars to China (or wherever) then they can probably get wholesale pricing too but that's not the point.

All of the companies in this industry by definition are new so mistakes will happen. As I wrote Evan, mistakes happen in all business models, how you handle it is what matters most. For me, Evan provided clear timely communication and I look forward to future orders.

-Rob

Thank you Rob, and I'm sorry I couldn't make it up to you Steve.


Seeing how adamant Steve is about my dishonesty,I offer free samples of my filament (a few inches of whatever color) that I can stick in an envelope and ship anywhere for the cost of a stamp. If those of you reading this thread would like to sample my filament before you purchase, by all means let me know. Shoot me an email with your address and the colors you would like to sample and I'll send it out as long as we have it in stock.

Disclaimer: Samples will be very small, a few inches, just enough to run through your extruder on your machine to test consistency and color of filament. If this takes off and 1000s of people start requesting samples I will likely have to charge maybe $1 to cover the price of stamps and stuff (by no means am I trying to profit off of free samples). If that happens I'll throw it up on the website but for right now, free samples to anyone in the world.


Thanks everyone, I hope to do business with you!!

Kindly,

Evan

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2019 02:49PM by VDX.

registered today........registered today.........transparent.....

you LIED thru your teeth more lies than I care to count, wouldn't be surprized if you and Rob have the same I.P. address.

Save a couple of bucks, buy from reprapper.com and get it in a week with NO lies.

#jumponthe3dprintingbandwagontoearnabuck

#don'tquityourdayjob

#DO NOT BUY FROM RAINBOT3D

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2013 01:43PM by Dirty Steve.

Wow. Really?
I don't even know what city he is in and we have never met. I'm in NM and I'm not aware of any filament suppliers out here.

Nope, I just placed my first order as I mentioned and I felt bad for a guy who seems to be trying to make things right after a mistake but keeps getting blasted by you. Forums have a way of hiding the hundreds of happy customers and glorifying the few upset customers. I just wanted to state that they did well by me and that your situation is not necessarily the norm.

I'm still waiting on my TAM Series 1. Once it's in I'd be happy to post pictures of the prints using Rainbot3D's filament.

-Rob

it's NOT Rainbot3d filament, it's reprapper.com filament.

>As I wrote Evan, mistakes happen in all business models, how you handle it is what matters most.

Customer problem due to your error: OWN it, don't make excuses and lie. If that would have happened, I would have never posted a word here, I just wouldn't buy from again.

>Seeing how adamant Steve is about my dishonesty,

at least the lies aren't being denied.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2013 05:45PM by Dirty Steve.

Dirty Steve Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Save a couple of bucks, buy from reprapper.com and
> get it in a week with NO lies.

you clearly haven't ordered much directly from reprapper.com, i wouldn't recommend this to anyone as there are now so many resellers out there that the resellers get the "good stuff" and the individual buyers get the bad stuff, buying through a reseller especially a local one gives you a few safe guards against things like broken spools lumpy/oily/bubbly/ben/kinked filament and will in most cases send you a replacement spool, all you'll ever get directly from reprapper.com is "20% off on next order..."

>#jumponthe3dprintingbandwagontoearnabuck

Ha, LOL , ....... yeah right

---

-=( blog )=- -=( thingiverse )=- -=( 3Dindustries )=- -=( Aluhotend - mostly metal hotend)=--=( Facebook )=-

but lies and excuses are fine.........apparently no one is getting the point of this post.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2013 06:39PM by Dirty Steve.

(delete)......point taken

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2013 03:44PM by Dirty Steve.

Seems to me like the supplier is doing he's best to make it up to you. We all make misstakes, it's now they are handled that matters.
Regarding repraper.com..I placed an order with them a while back. Not a huge order, just 5 or 6 kilos or something like that. Turns out they shipped me 1.7mm filament instead of 3mm filament. So, i mailed them. got no answer..mailed again..no answer. Ohhh crap..just my luck; was the first thing that came to mind. However, repraper finally responded, told me(honestly i belive) that they had been very busy, missed my mails and so on.

How did they solve this? Well, they asked me to take pictures of the filament to show that it's the wrong kind. I did, mailed them, and got a repsone in the mail. The response was a tracking number of the new shippment with the correct sized filament. No "you have to pay this amount of money to get the replacement" , no "you have to mail the wrong items back, on your expense", no "you'll get a discount on the next order" or anything of that kind.
They shipped the wrong item, was told that they did so, and promtly shipped the RIGHT item, no questions asked.

Will i buy from repraper again? Hell yeah!! I'll buy all my filaments from them from now on. That's how you handle a mistake!

Back to this topic, so to speak. I see a guy that's starting up a business(hell knows why he wants to make 3 bucks a roll of filament). He made a misstake; he's trying to correct it, and is just flamed for doing so.
Give the man a break. Send your email/contact info. Let him send whatever is missing/wrong to you. After that, move on to the next supplyer, and just get on with the thing you want to do, hopefully printing new amazing, revoultionary, ingenous stuff from your printer

I thought I was getting the point, but the more you attack them the less credability you have. Might want to back off a bit IMHO.

IMHO, you care way too much about being wronged, especially as the item was only $30. Agree it is suspicious this backer/supporter posts here at the same day with as the merchant new account, but really, this is small small time conversation for reprap.org to be having.

Please help make reprap a place of wondrous invention and innovation both in projects and in general spirit. If you don't like the service you got and feel that it helps reprap to post about it, just say it in one sentence and that will be that. The damage to the merchant is already substantial from that, but after all the posting now people will think you a problem customer in addition to being served less than perfect. IF you don't like the business model, make a better one, and you'll see how hard it is to get every order right and just give away free rolls when your margins are $3.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2013 06:54PM by Simba.

I'll be placing my third order with RainBot3D today or tomorrow. I don't know who Dirty Steve is, but he needs to learn when to let it go.

@propellerscience

Obvious sockpuppet is obvious.

ROFL! Thanks crispy1! Personally it is a dead issue. I.E. a month old post.

Hahaha. I ordered from them because I wanted to see and got my filament quick, I had the product and website didn't even show shipped.

As promised I am attaching a picture of two prints using the rainbot filament.
The budda head was printed at .15 layer height and the owl was printed at .25. Both were printed on the Type A Machines Series 1.

The glow in the dark blue prints nicely too. I haven't bought any of the color changing filament yet but I'm looking forward to experimenting. (hah, I don't know if it's temp sensitive or just always multi colored and the site doesn't say but it looks like fun either way.)

Hi,

I want to purchase 5 Taulmann 618 1.75 mm Filaments for a shipment to Germany. How much will it take and what is the shipment price.

Thank you.
Amiro

I bought the color changing ABS and it works great. It is based on heat, so for instance the case I made for my phone when I hold it changes where my hands are. Of coarse when it gets hot out it changes color too.


brdog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As promised I am attaching a picture of two prints
> using the rainbot filament.
> The budda head was printed at .15 layer height and
> the owl was printed at .25. Both were printed on
> the Type A Machines Series 1.
>
> The glow in the dark blue prints nicely too. I
> haven't bought any of the color changing filament
> yet but I'm looking forward to experimenting.
> (hah, I don't know if it's temp sensitive or just
> always multi colored and the site doesn't say but
> it looks like fun either way.)

I know this is an old thread but I want to make sure you know that Rainbot3D should still be avoided. I placed my order on 3/17. Never received a notice that it shipped. Contacted Evan last Friday about my order as it still stated in process. Here is his responce:

We've had quite a few back ups lately. I will look into this and see what the hold up is. You ordered on March 17th. It should have come in a few days later. I'll get back to you shortly!!

Kindly,

Evan

Never got a reply back. Sent an email Monday night and that has gone unanswered.

Evan, this is unacceptable. If it is on backorder that understandable but both items were listed in stock on your website. Too many other vendors that ship the same day to put up with this BS.

Jason

Odd to see this old post re-visited, but kinda not surprised.

I ordered filament from Rainbot a few months ago and due to it being substantially larger It would not work with my 3D printer. It would start to feed then get stuck and the prints that it did get were bubbly and crappy. I contacted them about a refund or some advice and never heard back from them period. I tried emailing them again a few weeks ago just to see if I could talk to someone and still no reply? It has been over a month and nobody has even bothered replying to my emails. This is not good customer service. I would call them but they dont have a number on their website. I will never buy from them again or recommend anyone else to buy from them.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2014 10:43AM by Evan Leftwick.