DOF Reality Motion Simulators

[CanopyCrack]

Hello all,  For what it's worth to anyone, I want to take a moment to share and experience I had in trying to purchase the H3 motion sim from DOF Reality

On 18 December 2024, I placed an online purchase for the H3 on the DOF Reality website, paying $4,377.00 USD for the H3 with some additional upgrades. With tax the final price was $4,420.77. The money was gone from my account the same day.. Their website advertised that orders would ship 5-10 days after purchase.

Then about two weeks later, 04 JAN 2025,  I received an email from DOF Reality stating, "We are sorry for the delay in shipping.
Due to a huge holiday rush delays with FedEx and DHL,It will take is 1-2 weeks more to get your platfrom to you.
Please check the order status link that you got for all updates on the planned shipping dates
Thank you for your understanding and Happy New Year!"

However, I understood it was the busy Christmas season and that it may take a bit longer but I could see the status of my order on their website, that my order hadn't actually even been prepared to ship yet, so this so-called delay due top the shipping company seemed to be an excuse to me, so I called them out on this and I said they shouldn't blame the shipping company if my order hadn't yet been prepared to ship..

I then received the following reply, "Yes, you are right, this holiday was really messy with the shipping. We are so sorry for this delay, this is an exceptional situation, that we have only a few times over 10 years in business If you are willing to wait two weeks extra, we can add some complementary options such as an extra year of warranty"

I then asked what the actual status of my order was. Their response was, "We are sorry for the delay in shipping.
Due to a huge holiday rush delays with FedEx and DHL,It will take is 1-2 weeks more to get your platfrom to you.
Please check the order status link that you got for all updates on the planned shipping dates
Thank you for your understanding and Happy New Year!"

Then fast forward to 14 January 2025, I sent an email asking about the status of my order, asking when did they expect to be able to ship my order.

They then replies from various representatives from DOF reality, "Unfortunately I can't tell you an exact date, however it is in our queue and waiting for shipment. As soon as we have a specific date for shipment, your order status page will reflect it."

We once again apologize for the delay, please let us know if you want to have any modifications. Due to the pre-holiday rush, an additional delay of 1-2 weeks may occur. We truly appreciate your understanding during this busy time. At the same time, we recognize that your patience is not unlimited, and we deeply regret this situation."

"Sorry for the wait, we had an incident in the warehouse and the batch got delayed.
Thank you for understanding, this is an exceptional situation for us as well."

I then replied to DOF Reality.  I would really like to have the H3 that I ordered. I'm willing to post a good review of the product, if you can expedite  my order and ship it to me ...I've already been waiting 27 days.  If your not at least able to tell me when my order will for sure ship, what else can I do but request my money back. This was an expensive purchase. Please respond as soon as possible."

Their response was the following, "We once again apologize for the delay , if you are willing to reconsider, it will be shipped on the 28th of January."

During all of this process I learned that DOF reality is located in the Ukraine and they ship from Warsaw Poland, nearly 300 miles away from their facility. Being that they are currently at war with Russia, and their new excuse that they had an "INCIDENT at there warehouse. I became worried that I may never actually see the product that I ordered. So I attempted to request a refund. I tried calling, left several voicemails that were ignored. So I tried to message them on their website and as soon as I mentioned refund, the chat session was ended by them....Finally after several more back and forth emails and a lot of push back from DOF reality, they gave me a refund of $4,377.00.  Mind you this was $43.77 short of what I paid them. I was happy to get a majority of my money back.

But the it didn't end there... You see, I've been really wanting to take flight sim to the next level by adding motion and began thinking about it more; so yesterday, 27 JAN 24, I foolishly decided to try one more time. I emailed DOF reality and said, if and when their production schedule was back to normal, I would like to reconsider purchasing the H3 motion simulator from them.  This is what they responded:, "We should be back on track and have standard times soon, but unfortunately if you decide to reorder we will also need to add $162.25 USD as we lost it in refund commissions."

Are you kidding me.. After multiple delays and excuse, getting caught in a lie about the shipping company, giving me an extreme hard time to get my money back, then NOT giving me a full refund...They have the audacity to tell me that if I place a new order with them it will cost me an additional $162.00.  This is the most ridiculous business deal I've heard of.

Imagine for a moment this deal worked differently, that on 18 December 2024, DOF reality first sent me the  H3 motion sim, valued at $4,377; with the agreement that 5-10 days after I receive the H3 from shipping, I would then send them the payment of $4,377.00 that I owed.  

Then two weeks later, instead of me sending them the payment as agreed, I instead sent an excuse saying, "I have problems with my bank..It will be another one or two weeks before I can send you the $4,377 that I agreed to pay for the product you already sent me.

Then after an additional one or two weeks of waiting for the $4,377 that I previously I agreed to pay to them, I again tell them to "wait another one or two weeks before I send you the money"...Then at the end of waiting another two weeks... they lost faith that I will pay as agreed, because of my multiple failures and excuses.  So they request that I return the H3 motion sim back to them after several failures to pay as I agreed, but instead of immediately agreeing to send it back I make additional excuses, push back, and make it difficult for them in their request that I send back the H3...

 

You can't make this up.

 

 

 

 

[jskibo]

Why would you post this in the For Sale area?  Weird place for a rant.....

[Nightdare]

23 hours ago, CanopyCrack said:

You can't make this up.

 

It's not made up

What chapter of "Pay first / receive later" did you skip in Life's lessons 101?

[Aapje]

 

[Panzerlang]

13 minutes ago, Aapje said:

 

Lol. The usual corporate BS.

However, after reading so many accounts of gear breaking down and dire customer support on the facebook groups I'm genuinely glad they cancelled my $9k order. I dodged a very big bullet.

[MAThrasher]

@CanopyCrack, thanks for sharing your experience.  I was on the fence regarding getting the H3.  After reading about your experience, I've decided to not purchase one.