Telescope Planet - a Review

[Keithp]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, appologies if it's the wrong place.

Is anyone else having problems with telescopeplanet? Luckily I've only ordered an eyepeice adapter worth about £8 but that was back on the 10th March 2009 and its now 23rd March 2009.

I remember a similar delay for a barlow lens before this. I've an email reply from a Simon Heard, that was on the 18th saying it was in the post and would be with me next day....Some hope!

Tried ringing them and was on hold no matter which department I went through to. I think this will be the last time I order anything from them!

Thanks heavens its only a small order and not for a couple of hundred or more!

Regards

All

P.S. do we have a forum for rating suppliers, both good and bad?

[Astro_Baby]

I bought my first scope from them and it arrived quite quick - ever since everytime I have called I am in an endless hold queue that goes on and on - they never return my calls if I leave a message so I just dont even bother calling them these days.

[barkis]

I know sometimes suppliers do have problems, it is only natural.

As long as they are upfront with what the problem is, I don't think it is too bad, at least you know where you stand.

But when they tell you a bare faced lie, that is unforgivable, And in a case that bad, they only get one shot at getting my brass.

Any Company that lead you up the Garden Path should be kicked into touch. There is never any justification for it.

I don't know if SGL would wish to be involved in any disputes between members and suppliers. I suppose the best that might happen is, members be alerted to the fact that a certain supplier is less than reliable when it comes to delivering the service one would expect. I know it is very aggravating when you are treated like a non entity. I often wonder if the Owners know all there is to know about their staffs customer relationships.

Ron.

[Ant]

We do not wish to be involved in any dispute.

We are happy for you to post about your experiences providing that the details you post are factual (good or bad).

Other members can then find information about the experiences they have had with retailers and make up their own mind if they wish to deal with that retailer or not.

We do not have a retailer rating system.

Good luck in getting your purchase sorted. If you paid by credit card then you can get your money back from the CC company.

Cheers Ant

[scarr1]

i bought my 130pm from telescope planet as they were the chapest(!) and to be honest i found their service first class. i ordered the scope online on a sunday night and received it on the tuesday. there was a problem with the battery pack for the motor drive and contacted telescope planet to explain the problem of it working intermittently, and they arranged for a replacement to be sent out. i received this 2 days later from optical vision ltd (skywatcher distributors, i think), however it was a 12volt battery pack rather than the 6volt required for the 130pm. i contacted telescope planet questioning whether 12 volts could overload the motor and was advised not to use it and a 6volt replacement would be sent out. i got this the next day, again from optical vision ltd. the initial problem was a manufacturing problem and the replacements came from another company, yet i still received a call from a member of telescope planet staff to apologise for the inconvenience i had, and even sent me a free book (philips deep sky observers guide).

it does seem that not everyone has had the same customer service from telescope planet, but i can only comment on my experience. would i use them again....yes, but if i could find the same product cheaper elsewhere, thats where i would go.

P.S. anybody want a BRAND NEW 12volt battery pack?

[Keithp]

This gets so funny it's unbelieveable.

I actually managed to get through to the customer care on on the phone on Tuesday 24th , a very helpfull lady took the details of the problem, refused to take the order number I wanted to give her but used my name to pull the order from their database. Then said she would ring me back. She did, about 15 mins later and said it was despatched but they didn't use recorded delivery so there were no details. I told her I had not received the item.

No problem she would re-order it and it would be with me before the weekend. Okay away you go then.

A package arrived today 27th March.

The last one in the 3 pics is what I ordered.

My orginal order was for the Opticstar Eyepiece Projection Kit priced £8.80.... What I got was some adjustable camera adapter that looks nothing like what I ordered... I give up..

I've hopefully attached the pictures of what I ordered and what I received, note the packaging and the 'address label', very professional. This is the last time I use them!

[Psychobilly]

I went down to Telescope planets new showroom today . They have been moving premies from the center of Swnasea where you couldn't park and they had limited space to a new unit in Crosshands (few miles of the end of the M4) they have alot more space now and have a huge range of Binos on dispaly as well as a good selection of scopes... I must remeber to leave the cards at home next time I visit...

Made to fell welcome as usual and spent some time and money with them ... lots of shinny new toys - especially if your a Meade or Skywatcher fan.. and an absolutley stunning red mount on display - anybody want to buy a few kidneys...

They are still in the process of settling in and getting the telephone and computer systems up and running...

I just have to get to grips with my new toy... which will be used for another attempt at lunar and planetary imaging ....

Peter....

[ollypenrice]

There are UK suppiers who do astronomy themselves, who are real experts, who give honest advice when asked and who are as honest as the day is long. Most of us know who they are. Lets give them our support.

Olly.

[Astro_Baby]

I tend to buy not from the cheapest but from the peeps who will give me some support and advice even when I am not buying stuff immediately.

My experience with the SW-200 kind of told me that the support is more important than saving a few quid. The few quid saved rapidly loses its charm if there are problems and the supplier just doesnt want to help.

As Henry Rolls ( I think ) once said "The quality will be remembered long after the price has been forgooten"

[haitch]

One blessing they've sent you an Opticstar ADJUSTABLE Eyepiece projection Kit - it sells for £29.99 on their site

[Psychobilly]

One blessing they've sent you an Opticstar ADJUSTABLE Eyepiece projection Kit - it sells for £29.99 on their site

So thats not too bad then if they supplied you with a "superior" and much more expensive part than the one you ordered... I'll buy it off you for £8.80 if you dont want it

Peter....

[arad85]

Another here who will never order from them again. Phoned and ordered a Celestron 6SE, together with a free eyepiece (10mm plossl), power supply, a 32mm plossl, barlow and dew shield.

Telescope arrived next day with the power source - fantastic. No sign of the 10mm, 32mm, barlow or dew shield. Phoned a number of times - only to be put through to the meaasge taker. Must have left half a dozen messages - no joy. Ended up getting the showroom phone number (01269 843888 in case anyone is interested ) and got to Simon, who apologised and said he'd put the package in that day for special delivery for next day (before 1pm), although they were out of the dew shield. Great I thought - they've redeemed themselves. rearranged the next day to be at home for the special delivery... only for it not to arrive. Phoned and was told it may have been delayed - hmm - it was supposed to be special delivery.. but agreed to wait. If I remember, it turned up 2 days later - posted normal post. Not too happy, but at least I had my bits..

Waitied a couple of days and pinged a mail to Simon to ask whether the dew shield would follow automatically. Got nothing back, so phoned and spoke to Natalie who said they'd just arrived and picked and packed one whilst I was on the phone and sdaid she'd send it out that day. Waited for a week (knowing that they just used standard parcels for the low value items) only to recieve nothing. Another phone call (must have been my 10th...) and Simon said he'd send a dew shield out that day. And it arrived 2 days later... with the dew shield that Natalie had "posted" banded to it by the post office. Both had been sent the same day - the one Natalie had put in the post was actually put in the post a week later... and it was open and missing the foam attachment. Would have called to tell them but....

Still.. after only spending £800 odd, what do you expect... (and I'm still waiting for my invoice too...).

[proflight2000]

aa

[Mikea]

Thanks for the warnings guys. It's such a shame when suppliers let you down like this. They cannot always be that bad (can they?), but there's a saying: "you are only as good as your last [insert something here]", and this is obviously what you, as the customer, will remember - and share with us! Doesn't really matter how much you have spent, but I guess it's even more galling when you have spent a large amount. Hope you got it sorted proflight. (Nice scope btw!)

[johninderby]

Re: D Hinds customer service

Had a problem with an ASGT mount last week (it was a bad power socket) that I had bought from D Hinds. So I called them in the afternoon to report the problem and they said someone would get back to me right away and about ten minutes later someone called me back to sort out the problem and arranged to send a replacement part out right away. The next morning the new circuit board that had the power socket on it dropped through the letter box and a few minutes later the mount was fixed.

They did offer to have the mount collected for them to fit the new circuit board and also update the firmware to the latest version at the same time, but it was more convenient for me to just to have them send the part to me as it was only a few minutes job to replace the old one.

John

[Adam Hinds2]

Proflight2000: I'm sorry to hear that you feel you got a raw deal from our company.

As I recall Chris, our techncal advisor, was not available to speak to you immediately, and because of you being unavailable during the daytime we were unable to call you back the following day as we would usually.

I would just like to add that in these circumstances we always try to work with the customer first to see if the issues they are experiencing can be resolved or are down to new user error. In the vast majority of cases we manage to resolve the issues in this way rather than get the product back. This is why you were asked to try a number of things and call us back if the problem persisited.

We have heard nothing further from you so I assume you are up and running Ok now and I hope you enjoy your new telescope very much. If not, and you do continue to experience difficulties please do contact us again.

[kniclander]

I know this isnt a telescope planet vendor as such, but I just purchased my CPC 800 from Hinds, I used them basically as I wanted the finance offer rather than spend all that cash in one go. The scope arrived all ok on the day they said, fine with that, however, what made my blood boil was when I needed help they were in short hopeless. I appreciate they may not be like this all the time, but as a customer who has spent a small fortune with them, to then be fobbed off that I would be contacted back in 5 mins, then no one calls wrecks my ability to ever trust them again as such.

I phoned another number the next day and spoke to the technical department, as when I spoke to the boss man he had no clue whatsoever, anyways the guy I spoke to asked me the issue, i explained it, he then told me to go out again that night and do exactly what I have been doing for the past 14 hours. If the problem still existed (well magic does not happen) to phone them back as he was about to go home. I am very serious when I say that if something else pops its head up, I will personally drive to their property with the scope myself and wait until they sort it. I work in the service industry and if I treated customers as such I would be sacked. I have never used Hinds before, after this I wont ever bother again, I am one of these people who takes being treated like a pleb very personally.

hang on, why should a retailer "help" you? if there's something wrong with the scope a retailer should exchange it (but you don't say that there was anything wrong with it). Are we a bit spoilt in the astro field just because most retailers are so helpful? To slate someone for not calling you back straight away to give you free advice seems a bit harsh.

i thought the post was a tad harsh myself - in my experince, Hinds is one of the good guys and one doesn't like to see them slated when it's not even obvious they got anything wrong?

[Psychobilly]

I have found D Hinds to be very helpful as well...

I tend to fix most "problems" myself...

Peter...

[proflight2000]

aa

[Rossco72]

I bought my first kit from telescope planet, i won't be buying anything else!

They charged extra for saturday delivery and delivered on Thursday, no refund.

They sent some of the wrong kit, no replacement.

No customer care, no customers......

I'll stick to Green-Witch for the moment, at least Lee is very helpfull.

[terryf]

Well, my experience of Telescope Planet is a bit mixed. I ordered a Baader MPCC from them two weeks ago, and on the Tuesday (the Monday was a Bank Holiday), I was informed that it was out of stock due to high demand over the weekend, but I would have one by Wednesday - I did not expect it to be Wednesday as I received the email on Tuesday, but was expecting it later in the week. When it hadn't arrived by the following Monday, I thought about the various posts on SL, so rang them up on the Tuesday. I was told that the backlog had been cleared and that they were all in the post, and sure enough, it arrived the following day (or maybe it was the day after that). So a bit of a frustrating wait, but not bad in the overall scheme of things. IMO it is maybe just a case of the admin side of things not matching the ambitions of the organisation, but that does matter as they don't compare well to some other suppliers, notably FLO.

Terry

[sxinias]

I purchased a Celestron C6S from Telescope Planet last winter when they were on sale (the discontinued model with the manual CG5 mount). The first glitch was that I did it over the internet and the shipping costs were not correctly calculated for shipping to Greece. Fixing the problem took a couple of telephone calls but I soon had my new scope and am enjoying it very much.

I have also contacted their technical advisor on several occasions and always have received a prompt response to my questions.

Would I buy from them again. Yes

Joe

Meade 2045LX3/DS2000 Mount

Celestron C6S/CG5 Mount with iOptron GOTO

[joselin]

Just bought from Green-Witch Skywatcher 250xp and eq6 pro. Fantasic service very helpful and thoughful.

[MrEd]

well i put a post with my problems with

Telescope planet.

Needless to say since i asked for my money

back in mid march they have not done a thing.

All i got was excuse after excuse so i let my credit card company

persue the claim.

My advice steer well clear.....

Ed Sampson

[buddyarrows]

My first buy from them was a baader IR filter, not in stock after paying through there web site after several phone calls and emails it arrived two weeks later. I ordered a SW Crayford focuser for a refractor through ebay/paypal. A few days later I e-mailed them to see if it had been shipped. The reply said they did not have any in stock but would have in a few weeks, they offered a refund but I said two weeks would be fine. I managed to contact Simon to confirm over landline and he sent me a 32mm EP for my trouble. Three days later a packaged arrived with a Crayford for a Newtonian! After several emails and phone calls to Simon he apologised for the mistake and said send it back via signed for at my convinence and they would refund the costs. I'm still waiting some weeks later for the postage costs but they did eventually send the right focuser. Needless to say never again.