"I bought 2 RC Helicopter 9104. One came with bad rotor blade motor etc. Only spin rotor blades for about 1/2 to 1 seconds then off. Reset switch on-off but only spin 1/2-1 seconds.
Keep emails them for a whole week. No response from them Banana Hobby. Please don't buy from them if you need supports.
Spend the extra $ to a Reputation seller.
"

"Just a quick note. I ordered a P51 RTF (38 inch wingspan) on April 20th (Friday) and received it on April 26th Thursday in excellent condition. Opened the box and peeped in, no time to assemble and test fly yet, but everything looked normal.

So far, my experience with BH has been pleasant and satisfactory. I didn't see the Free Shipping offer upon ordering, but a quick call to their CS netted me a ho-hassle refund of the $18.00 shipping.

I hope the plane goes together uneventfully and the electrics/electronics work properly just like my HobbyZone HBZ7400 Super Cub did. If it does, I'll be totally ecstatic as I avoided the BH syndrome:-) and I will continue to buy from them. Pete seems such a nice guy in the videos. He's the reason I bought the P51. Always wanted this warbird since I was a kid and seeing the model perform under Pete's control was a treat."

"I ordered 2 airplanes and 2 propellers from Banana Hobby March 5 and paid by paypal, taking advantage of a "Free Shipping " Offer. There props were out of stock so they held the whole order up for 4 weeks. By the time the props ($4 item) were back in stock one of the airplanes was out of stock. They then shipped me 2 Helicopters I didn't order. They refused to ship the planes until the helicopters were returned and processed, another 2 weeks. By this time one airplane was still out of stock. Finally after 8 weeks I agreed to change the airplane out of stock to another one and paid them another $10 for the difference. They then said they really only had one airplane, I said ship that one and cancel and refund the other. Since this brought the order under $100 they tacked on a $30 shipping charge ! THese guys are a chinese fire drill. Kept my money 8 weeks and jacked me around to avoid the free shipping they offered. AVOID THEm LIKE THE PLAGUE !"

"I've read all reviews on Banana Hobby and still ordered my heli parts. I'm going to buy another helicopter and I WILL continue to order from Banana Hobby. Great packaging and timely delivery.
I can't wait till I order more. :) btw I'm a 44 year
old Navy veteran and wanted to make my own determination, regardless of all the negative reviews. I'm very pleased. KM"

"I was thinking of buying the FA-18 Hornet, after reading the reviews I think that I will order something different from another hobby store. Someone with a good reputation."

"Complete waste of time. Awful business who does not care about customer satisfaction. DO NOT PURCHASE OR SUPPORT THIS BUSINESS AT ALL."

"I ordered 2 items, both "in stock" at the time. NOT TRUE! They sent an email stating one was NOT! I called to say send a replacement item #... for my son's Birthday. They said "no problem, I will cancel the first order and just re-order online what you want" I did, they charged my card twice, I returned the first WRONG order and I am still fighting with them for my $150 back. THEY SUCK! F#@KING AWFUL CUSTOMER SERVICE! I will pay a little extra next time and order my son's R/C items through my Hobby shop locally. That way at least I can deal with them in person.

SENT 4/3/2012

Dear MARK *********,
We have received and inspected your package. We see here that you have requested for a refund. Please allow 1-3 Business Days for the refund to appear on your account. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.

Thank You,
Jimmy

Banana Hobby Customer Support Center
15751 Tapia St.
Irwindale, CA 91706
Tel. ***-***-**** Fax ***-***-****



"

"After reading these reviews, I wonder how they stay in business. The plane was a piece of junk and didn't work, the emails and phone to customer service take forever, they won't consider refunding our money, they blame us for the product failure. How I wish I read the reviews before purchase. Thanks for the tip on going through the credit card company "

"I bought a F16 64mm 5 channel trust victoring. Put it together and taxied it down the runway and the freaking edf fan blew up. Plane never left runway. New fan installed and still wont fly. What junk it is. Very disattified with my buy. I have learned my lesson from buying from banana Hobby. Shame on this company for providing good customers with such junk. ANd its not worth the shipping Id have to pay to have it fixed. Not worth it. Its how yall get your customers. What crappy customer service you have. Decided to take it to our local hobby shop and they said where did you buy it from we said banana Hobby and they said well thats your problem. They are right. We came on the site and see the reviews are terrible. I just hate this was my husbands anniversary gift and its junk. now i feel like a well you know what im saying for getting him this crappy gift."

"O.K. New review. Guess what? I finally got an answer from Banana Hobby. and they made everything right! They took back the two helicopters I didn't want, and I have been having a great buying relationship with them ever since. They just needed some time. I have had other orders with them and if I have any questions they email me back within a couple of days. they must be really busy. Great!! I REALLY LIKE THEIR STORE, and being a Californian, even like it more. I am going up for a tour soon. WAY TO GO Kiana at Banana Hobby!!!!!!!There 11.1v helicopters are the best."

"I was going to buy a rogue 500 from these clowns but i could not get through to order. I decided to go ahead and spend the extra $120 on a blade 450. After all the reviews i've read i'm glad i purchased a quality helicopter with great customer service!"

"ordered the big skyraider form them.. got it in less than a week.. awsome plane!! thanks bananas.. rock on!"

"Thanks Banana Hobby. I purchased a DH 9116. When I received the box the transmitter was not working properly. I called you repeatedly and sent messages. After days of trying I finally got someone. I had to send pics to prove the helo was not damaged. Prior to sending the product back I realized that I had to pay for shipping and a 25% restocking fee. Again the transmitter does not work. After reading some to the complaints I chose to keep the helicopter because it was better to have something broken than nothing at all. Now I have a pretty helicopter sitting on my desk. (The lights still flash) By the way I have 120 months of enlisted aircrew experience in rotary and fixed winged aircraft with the United States Air Force. The second helo I purchased was a Xedia 9958 that was doing well until it burned up after installing the battery. With this experience I have chosen to go to another dealer. "

"DO NOT purchase from banana hobby.

I purchased an airsoft RC Tiger Tank for my son.
Right out of the box we noticed that the antenna that mounts on the tank was missing.
I tried to contact banana hobby by phone, could not, on line support, "not available".
When I did finally get through to them a day later, and a very lengthy description of which antenna, exactly, I was missing they said that they would ship the antenna out....
Fair enough, these things happen.
4 days after the tank arrived, my son was driving the tank, with out the antenna, across our hard wood floor... straight, no fancy turns, and the front drive gear just falls off. I saw it happen myself, not related through my son.
I have filled every support form they have on their site at least twice. No one will answer the phone and the last time I looked, their live support was off line.
In the meantime, the replacement antenna arrived, and of course, it’s the wrong antenna.
I will never purchase from banana hobby again, and I hope that this review will save at least 1 person the aggravation of having to deal with them.

3-23-12

Well... BH finally sent me an RMA...
I had to pay the return shipping though...
So... I paid $28 for them to ship it to me, then paid another $25 to ship it back to them...
BH did refund the cost of the tank though...
50+ dollar education...
Again... hope this review keeps some one else from making the same mistake...

"

"I wish I would have read all the reviews on Banana Hobby before spending my hard earned money buying my very first RC airplane. I got interested in the hobby through a friend of mine whos been in the hobby for some 10+ years now. I finally settled on a J-3 Cub with a wing span of 40.5 inches and was listed as RTF (ready to fly). Needless to say when the plane arrived the box was marked as PNP (plug n' play). I took it as an honest human mistake by someone so I didn't think anything of it. I opened the box and everything was there to make it an RTF but I had to install quit a bit of stuff. Had to install all the controll rods, had to install the tail wheel, rudder, and fix all the jumbled up wiring they had already installed. Long story short there they say approximately 1 hour to assymble no it's more like 5 hours to assymble this plane. When I met up with my friend he looked the plane over for me before I even attempted to power up the plane for the first time. He liked what he seen so we proceeded with putting the batteries in the transmitter and installing the supplied battery that was fully charged into the airplane. Plane taxied around on the ground just fine. Needed minimal adjustments. My friend put the plane in the air for the first time and noticed the plane was VERY trail heavy. He tried triming it out but no matter what the plane was just way to tail heavy. After a very smooth and normal landing the motor would not respond but everything else would work just fine. Long story short here too, my friend took my airplane home and found that the wiring was all messed up and needed to be replace, which he was kind enough to do for me at no cost. After that the plane would respond but still no motor. My friend spent more of his time looking it over and found that the ESC went bad. Long story short there too, me and him went to a local hobby store and bought a new transmitter and receiver for my airplane at a cost of $210.00, more than I paid for the airplane to begin with. Now the plane flies beautifully and no issues at all. All totaled the plane and spare parts which I did not receive all the spate parts has come to a total of $375.00.

You are probablly asking yourself why didn't I just contact Banana Hobby about all this. Well I did and tried to. I placed a good half dozen phone calls and NEVER got a represenative. I got disconnected everytime. I sent more or less about a dozen emails and got repsonses to about 3. I know Banana Hobby is busy but with this kind of customer service how on earth are they still in business.

At this point I'm seriously considering getting out of the hobby all together because this has been a very stressful and disapointing start.

I have asked Banana Hobby to refund only a part of my order price to help off set the cost of the replacement transmitter and receiver but all they've told me is my shipping charges have been credited, I never paid for shipping in the first place as they had a spring special where at check out you put the promotion code of "SpringFlyer" and it would take off the shipping charges and I was also told that the airplane seems to working just fine now so it was ok. This was out of my last email. I WILL NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER DO BUSINESS WITH BANANA HOBBY AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This shaddy company needs to be shut down and in a hurry.

On another side note it took almost a month to get my airplane after my original order was cancelled due to the other plane I had ordered went out of stock and was not informed of this for almost a week."