"Pros: I have placed several orders with Futurlec and have never been charged wrong. I have found their employees polite in email and phone. Their prices are very good.
Cons: Be aware it can take up to 5 weeks to get your stuff. They will hold up an order because something is not in stock. I follow up by email to verify what I ordered they have. I have removed swapped the missing part before. Maybe I shouldn't have to do this but their prices are good and shipping $ is good also.
Bob"
"I have made several orders recently, and on each one the amount charged to my card is different(usually more) from the amount in the confirmation email, then on the same day another charge for $.50 or so shows up. These people are scamming. It may only be nickles and dimes, but how much do they steal in a year doing this to every customer? Shipping often very slow or delayed with no notice or explanation, contrary to applicable laws. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!"
"Order placed 4/18, shipped 4/20, and arrived on 4/29. All items were individually bagged, placed in a larger bag, and bubble wrapped. Everything appears in good condition. Only problem was a single item (worth $0.04) was missing. Not a big deal, and I will definitely order again.
Edit: second order placed 5/2, shipped 5/3, and arrived 5/13. All items accounted for, and packaged just like last time (individually wrapped, placed in larger bag, bubble wrapped). No complaints with Futurlec so far!"
"I actually placed 2 orders with Futurlec, paid by credit card, and received the order today. I did contact them once to combine the orders for shipment, and they explained they were having a little trouble getting several of the parts I wanted. I asked them to refund the money on the unavailable parts, and send the remaining, which they did. I was in contact with Amp who was very helpful and the response to my inquiries were handled just fine. The package did travel from Singapore via regular mail. Slow yes, but I expected that it regularly takes 3-5 days to travel across the US add a boat ride across the ocean and expect to wait a little more for your stuff. The products were well packaged, and the quality was fine for the cost."
"I have ordered 9 times from futurlec during the last year, total order amount is over 400$, I have always got the parts without any problems, and their shipping cycle is very predictable,they ship via Hongkong post, even the cheapest shipping method has a tracking number attached to it that tracks the shipment inside china, Shipments take exactly 10 days to arrive to where I live (Sri Lanka), They will hold your order without notice if there are parts on back-order, so always send them a e-mail explaining that they should omit the missing parts and send you the rest (if you don't want to wait). don't expect fast shipping service like from digikey for 5$, they do offer Courier services for very reasonable prices, if you use a Courier, shipment arrives within a couple of days. very good Seller, Unbeatable price and a large catalog of components (I always order a lot of metal film resistors from them, price is unbeatable), I will shop from them for a long time to come.
* on a side note, Stay away from their power transistors, there are so many fake ones, even digi key some times have fakes, futurlec is no exception, always buy these devices from the Maker or order samples, their low power general purpose transistors are fine tho, all the parts I have ordered worked so far without any problem."
"well,,purchased some transistors from futurlec (c2078)
well, they where cheap and... wait for it...
when I tried them..... wait for it FAKE! quelle surprise!
caveat emptor! you get what you pay for....
"
"I ordered a board on December 28, 2010 from FuturLec. they kept telling me next shipping 2 - 5 days. I finally a got a track number that it was in Singapore on February 2, 2011, but NO additional information. If I do not receive it the next 5 business days, I will have no choice but chargeback the CC. *** {By the way, I once ordered components from Seoul, South Korea. I was shocked that after making a payment on Friday, I received the items on the following Monday! That was faster than I could have received the same items from New Jersey to Seattle}*** Unless FuturLec changes the way it deals with its customers, I don't see how I would order from them again."
"The test order has arrived today, nicely packed, almost 3 weeks from the order date. The prices and shipping cost are excellent, the delivery time is quite slow, but this is expected for this type of shipment. It appears that this is a legitimate online store."
"Well... now it became my turn to witness futurlec.
Over the last 2 years, I have spent over 1000$ at their site, and except for slow shipment, I have been ok.
Luckily I am redoing my project, so it will feature onboard ethernet, however, I needed 5 more boards, before I could finally do without them.
So I ordered 5pcs on the 4th of January 2011, and wrote them a friendly email, as always, that I did not need the normally included CDs.
Several previous shipments have gone well even with this comment, since the software is already developed, I have no need for 5 more CDs, and we only have one planet, so ...
After a few days, I sent an email asking for an ETA, since I kinda needed the items soon, and payed extra for fast shipment, it would only take a few more days, because the items was in production.
They have told me that before, and it usually works out.
A few days past, and no shipment or mail, so I asked again, and again, and again, and ....
No more replies from futurlec, CC is charged, its been 14days from order, and items is not even shipped now.
I am looking for other supplier, or I will just have to scrap the last 5 boards.
Will chargeback if I dont hear from them within this week.
In any case, that was my last order with them.
[UPDATE]
After sending a mail with carbon-copy to sales, and informing them that I would chargeback unless I heard from them, they replied.
24hours later the items was shipped.
They said their production is running behind after the hollidays.
Total time from order to shipment sent 16days, which is ok, but ignoreing your customers just because you dont have a new date is not ok."
"Please, don´t buy at futurlec.com. They announce things that are not true. I have bougth some parts for a robot ( pic, buffer and other stuff) and at the moment of doing the purchase the web page show : "IN STOCK" but after writting to them, they told me that they don´t have some parts and I must wait for a month. If you want to buy something try serius portals like mouser or digikey."
"I've ordered from Futurlec about once a year for the last 4-5 years. I've never had any problems. Shipping is a bit slow but what the heck, it's from Taiwan by snail mail. They often have parts that are hard to find, impossible to find, or hard to find in small quantities. Prices are really good. Shipping costs are very reasonable. Some of the complaints appear to be unrealistic expectations. (I said SOME of them) I'll continue to order from them. "
"They don't seem to ship your package out until you prod them with an inquiry email a few weeks later. The actual quality of the goods received is good though."
"I have ordered from this company a few times and have not had any issues to date. They do take a little getting used to as the communications is not to good, but it is cheap. Just be patient. If something is out of stock, they will just wait till they can get it and then ship the whole thing at once.
Do note: I have not had to return anything so I can't comment on that part."
"I have shopped with Futurlec for over 3 years and have never had any trouble with them.
Their prices are good ,the service is adequate,
the shipping is given a choice pf speed(and prices)
this order is the penultimate one,There was an item missing it it and after being told they emailed back to me (with apologies)that the missing item was on its way."
"The prices (really) do make you wish this company would live up to its potential, and lead you to discount the reports of others.
I didn't really intend to make my $30 order when I hit the "Submit" button, but was surprised to see "Order Accepted," meaning as I came to learn, futurlec.com stores CC#s.
I ultimately canceled the order because:
1. links on the webpage to "Your Account" and "Click Here" for "more help" are broken
2. reports of same got no response
3. there is no 800# (or even toll number) to call to ask them to remove my CC#.
I did get a response ("extremely lethargic" seems to be the typical characterization of customer service, rather than "aloof") with a working URL for "Your Account":
www.futurlec.com/YourAccount.html
(note that the button in the footer always points
to the current page).
Links to "Click Here" often get "page not found."
Taken all-in-all, I think they're probably sincere and profoundly under-staffed--and in severe need of a web programmer. If you order from the, relax, you'll get your stuff--if you keep reminding them you're still alive. I don't know how you relax knowing they're keeping your CC info with the same "care" they show their website. :^)
Caveat emptor!
BTW, I was able to edit my CC info at the link:
Name: "I do not want my cc# kept"
CC#: 4710000000000000
Exp:
Luckily they don't validate entries. (Or should I now be even more scared of the hackability?)
[Update: 4/14/2010 I got 3 emails from a sales mgr in 2 days which were helpful in canceling the order and deleting the account. He provided the somewhat confusing advice to "create an account w/o entering a password" to order w/o having the CC# memorized. Why again would I want an account with no password? I suspect no permanent new account is created, so I'll get to re-enter all shipping info, etc. but that's a guess. Instead, I've ordered a new low-limit cc to use with futurlec. What could it hoit?]
--
groost"