I live on Maui and cannot get supplies for models - particular landscaping material - so I have to order online. I found Advantage Hobby via a web search and have placed two orders so far. I'm very, very happy with their service. The communication has been so good that I am actually on first name basis with the person in charge of shipping/billing (Hawaii is always different). My only concern (and why I didn't give the absolute highest rating) is that for some products, there are no photos or descriptions. I was surprised to see that another customer who had the exact opposite experience as I had, and I have no explanation for why this might be. Maybe they made a change in staffing? I don't know but I'm very happy. 12/27/12 update: Placed and received my 3rd order and it's still great. read more

With sales suffering across the board in our hobby, I thought I'd once again, place a large stock up order for some UltraCote......20 rolls in total for future build projects. Advantage Hobby advertises "Free Shipping on $59 order". With $349.86 in my cart, I check out, and the shipping charges were $9.99........(what happened to my free shipping?) I find an exclusion clause that says "Orders over 5 lbs subject to shipping charges".......so I delete items until the shipping charges go away, but still qualify for free shipping by exceeding the $59.00 minimum. I place (4) orders, each consisting of (5) rolls of Ultracote. (Total $349.86) This morning, I receive an email from Advantage Hobby: "We will notify you when your order is ready to ship. And at that time what the Shipping & Handling charges will be. Have a good day." My reply: "These orders qualify for free shipping......otherwise, please cancel all 4 orders. Thank you." From Advantage Hobby: "Your orders will be cancelled and your form of payment refunded as soon as possible. Have a great day! Sandy" My Reply: "Sandy, so, you would rather lose a $300+ sale, than honor your advertised service? Wow." Advantage Hobby: "You speak of honor, you know as well as I do that you placed 4 consecutive orders to avoid Shipping & Handling charges. Sandy" My Reply: "Yes, and there is NOTHING wrong with doing so. I will let the RC community know about this transaction. If you want to honor these orders, group them into one shipment so YOU save on shipping 4 separate orders, I am ok with that. Otherwise, this will not reflect well on your end." 11 minutes later, all (4) of my orders were canceled, payment refunded, and no further messages from Advantage Hobby. What a complete waste of my time. I will take my business elsewhere, where the advertised are honored. read more

The prices are good but only if you don't have to deal with any customer service. By far the worst experience I've ever had dealing with a company. Seems like a one person shop who gives you the runaround, has inaccurate product descriptions that don't match their images, not exactly a user friendly website, and did I mention the customer service is the WORST I've ever dealt with? Not to mention they don't respond to emails, don't answers questions, aren't friendly when calling - I could go on but you get the idea. Sorry, but you get what you pay for and I'd rather pay a bit more and have a better experience than EVER using this company again! I see this company putting themselves out of business considering they are so bad. Good prices will only get you so far ... read more

Well, I received my order....and after 3 more emails and as many phone calls (all ignored) I don't have a lot of positives to report. The model kit was "packaged" in a large bubble wrap envelope. As one might expect, it arrived crushed as the box itself was completely unsupported. I have yet to determine if there's any damage to the kit itself. The fact that I actually received my order gave them an extra star but my confidence is still not with them. read more

Return policy is very rigid/unforgiving. Be sure you have EXACTLY the correct part number before ordering and do NOT open it until you thoroughly inspect every aspect of the part - if you can. Completely unwilling to accept an opened package, even if never used. Even unopened returns incur a 20% restocking fee. Limited technical information on the parts I was looking for. Advantage Hobby support could not answer my questions about the missing information. Referred me to manufacturer for the information. Hard to ensure you are ordering the correct parts, nearly impossible to return them. Good business model if you can get away with it. Order was processed in timely manner, delivered as expected. Simply an order filling house - don't expect any support or willingness to help the customer. I will NOT be placing an future orders with Advantage. My recommendation, pay a few extra bucks and get some customer service. read more

Customer service at Advantage Hobby is a black hole. Immediately after ordering an HO scale building by accident (I wanted O scale), I tried to cancel the order by email and phone. They went ahead and shipped it anyway. After receiving it, I then requested a return authorization. That has yet to arrive after 6 days and multiple email pleas to send me the authorization. Bottom line: DO NOT do business with this company!!! read more

I ordered a number of items from advantagehobby.com. The main reason I ordered from them is they had Willimas Brothers Wheels I needed and for the best price. I ordered a few extra items so I could avoid the shipping cost. Once the order shipped, I received an email saying the wheels were subtracted from my order as they weren't in stock. At the time of order, they were in stock. If the wheels had not been available I would never have placed the order. I called advantagehobby.com and spoke with a pleasant sounding woman. When I explained what happened she said "tough". She would not ship the wheels for no extra shipping charge. I told her the order was no go to me without the wheels. She said I could pay to return the items. She became very rude on the phone. I went to the website to request a return authorization. Whn I went to log into my account, it has been suspended. I told this woman I was going to return the items but now I have no way to request the return authorization. I called back and they aren't answering their phones. I will contact PayPal and dispute the charge. I will never do business with advantagehobby.com ever again! read more

This site carries alot of RC car parts, however customer service is non-existent. I called AND emailed to cancel my order, but they did not return either communication. They just sent it, i guess hoping that i would return it so they could charge their 20% restocking fee. There are many other online retailers that I would use other than this one. read more

After 8 years as a customer and spending almost $4000 with them over that period I never needed to contact their customer service. That changed last week when I had placed an order on their website on July 4th and found a few hours later that I needed to cancel the order. I found information on the site as to how to return an order but not how to cancel so I went to the Contact Us page and requested to cancel the order. The next morning I receive a rather unfriendly sounding response stating I need to call in over the phone to cancel an order. I call in and since all reps are busy I can leave a message along with my phone number for a callback. The next communication I receive is from Paypal indicating a refund from them less a 10% restocking fee. The order had been cancelled while "in process" and had never been shipped yet there is a restocking fee. Fortunately the order was only $60 so only a $6 restocking fee. If it been a $300 order I would have been charged $30 for nothing so I consider myself lucky on this. I followed up with an email to customer service explaining I was no longer going to be a customer of theirs with no response from them which indicates a lack of concern. read more

Not sure where to begin. I purchased a remote control airplane for my 11 year old for Christmas from Santa. It arrived late without notice on December 30th. When we received it, it was just gift wrapped and not placed in a box. After we opened it we noticed that the wings were detached. My son was devistated so my husband tried to fix it and the plane wouldn't fly right. We packaged it up, emailed the company and to this date I still have not received a refund. I have written them 10 times, with some response and when I did receive a response they blamed by son. This plane cost $70 and was cheaply made. Their products do NOT live up to their standards and their customer service is even worse. I had asked them for the name and number of the owner and never received it until today. I STRONGLY recommend that you do NOT purchase products from Advantage Hobby. They failed in every way possible. read more