In this post I will state my overall (negative) experience with Akko Europe and its store akkogear.de, which is still, to this day, unsolved.
Back in April, wanting something more practical than a 60% keyboard, during Easter Sales (or Valentines Day late sales? Can’t remember), I ordered a bundle from akkogear.de containing a 5075S in white and a free 2x 45 switch pack of my choice (see pictures for more details), for a total of about 60€.
Checkout time, first problem occurs. The store prices are without VAT. That brings the total up to 73ish euros and I’m like yeah that sucks but isn’t a dealbreaker at this point.
Fast forward some days, the order is shipped. From China. Expecting a European warehouse from a European store, I’m pretty disappointed but I wait some weeks for the order to get to my house.
A few weeks after, the package is finally there. After building the keyboard with the provided switch in the bundle and a keycaps set of my choice, I encounter the third problem of the bunch.
Remember the title of the product listing of the switches? If not, check the pictures again, especially where there’s the funny word “LUBED”. Exactly, not a single trace of lube is found in those switches, making a supposedly easy keyboard build a nightmare.
Not quite happy, I contact support about it and, after some painful days of waiting, the solution to the problem was “switches were shipped lubed as stated in the box, here’s 5€ back so you can shut up”.
After that, ticket closed. No RMA process, no anything. Just 5€ to make me stop complaining.
Fourth and last problem occurs some days later: after discovering the crappy ass software included with the keyboard, which being the non-QMK version was kinda expected so I’m not mad, a not-so-fun fun fact about the keyboard popped out:
The rotary encoder does two clicks instead of one for every step. Two. Making that thing practically useless for fine adjustments. I tried remapping it to a shortcut like CTRL + and CTRL -, nothing. Two inputs for each step.
Of course I contact support about it aaaaand - radio silence. After the last “incident” I was somewhat blacklisted from their customer support and, still up to this day, haven’t gotten any response from them, leaving me with a keyboard I can barely use since I don’t have 4 hours of free time to lube up the switches that should’ve been factory lubed and with a practically useless rotary encoder since I use an external headphone amp.
I have no idea on where to find the ticket numbers etc since akkogear.de locale is 1/3rd in german, 1/3rd in english and 1/3rd in chinese and I can barely navigate myself to my order list.
TL;DR Akko Europe shipped me a keyboard kit that should’ve been factory lubed, made me shut up with a 5€ refund and ignored all my following inquiries about the rotary encoder not working properly, refusing any kind of return. Keyboard is still to this day unused in a drawer.
This sucks. Companies should care customer satisfaction more than anything.
Are there any good companies to order from at all?
Amazon… I guess
One of the worst companies on the planet.
So what? Who told you that, Greta Thunberg?
It does seem to become a trend to share bad customer experiences online in the hope of getting them resolved that way. I think that’s fair enough, but it’s sad to see for sure - if vendors just reply to questions in a timely fashion, I don’t think we’d so as many of these posts.
I guess it’s good to remember that for every person complaining online, there are (hopefully) dozens who have no issues.
I would suggest there are also dozens wronged who aren’t complaining either. I am in the middle of a bad experience with a vendor, asked for advice in a group buy discord and had no responses even though everyone who purchased throu that vendor would be going through the same thing. Its just hard to fare for the time scale these things drag on for
Yeah, that’s a shame, and it’s why I think if you have to resort to something, going to social media (or filing a claim with your payment provider, which is what most people do) is fair game.
The usual applies (especially for group buys): be mindful of the claim deadline, and if you don’t trust the vendor to deliver a good product, be on time to request a refund of your order, and if you don’t get it, claim before the deadline.
If a preorder or group buy takes longer than the claim deadline from the onset, then think twice how badly you really want it.
I had similar problems and wanted to return my keyboard. after a about 2 months long analysis period with mailing forth and back they told me I needed to ship it to asia, pay for this myself and that it probably won’t arrive, things usually don’t, but that I only recieve my money back when it somehow still makes it there. So yeah… they gave me 15€ for a keyboard that I haven‘t used outside of all the tests THEY made me do and record for them…
Dang, that sucks… the 5€ is prolly because the normals are usually 5€ cheaper.
If you want to salvage it, I can attest lubing does not take 4h. you learn pretty quick how to effortlessly breeze thru them
Thanks, I’ve already lubed some gateron yellows so I kinda know the process already. I will probably reuse some of those yellows and just lube the remaining CS Blacks. I’m still looking for a fix for the rotary encoder though; as somebody here pointed out there should be a way to flash QMK but I can’t seem to identify the board’s microcontroller
Surprised anyone buys Chinese goods from anywhere but a site like AliExpress
anywhere but a site like AliExpress
Even so there is like a 50/50 chance a seller will try to con you out of your money if there is a claim. Aliexpress’s system is 100% rigged to side with the seller if there is a dispute.
Can attest to that, aliexpress delivered my package to the wrong address and are refusing to refund or replace. Been at it with them for 4 weeks. They’re requesting a stamped letter from USPS showing exact address it was misdelivered to and date of delivery along with a list of silly requests
Filed a claim with PayPal as a last resort, hopefully they’ll be able to do something
Yeah even as an American I bought my akko board off of Amazon instead of their own website.
I feel like I have to point out that .de domain it is not an indication of stock source and shipping info on the website clearly indicates longer shipping from abroad. Pretty same for VAT that is added after you declare destination country. Actually it is a big positive for the seller to handle import VAT saving you from surprise customs invoice on delivery (with added VAT collection fee) no to mention additional delay.
Obviously not debating miss-sold switches and not intending to debate expectation for encoder quality.
Well, the first 2 points on your list are not really true and more like your fault for thinking that…
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Taxes: Its pretty normal for many international shops. Its also clearly written many times on their website.
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.de Domain =/= German or Europe Shop
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The Website is pretty much anywhere on german or english (but more like german). Especially the checkout area.
Yeah on the other 2 points, i will say you are right. Thats an terrible behaviour of Akko there. Sending you the wrong product and than tell you “oh i’m sorry, but yeah not our problem, have a nice day” is not okay. Sadly customer support is often dissapointing as a european, ordering by chinese shops…
In your case, say, you want 10€ or something instead of 5€ and lube the switches on your own. Its not worth it, sending those 25€ switch-pack to China.
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The VAT should be already in the price if you are in EU country and their shop is in EU country. That’s the whole idea of being inside the EEA.
I’ve ordered some stuff from keygem.com who are based in Germany and on the checkout I had VAT too tho I’m in an other EU country. Not sure if they haven’t setup properly their Shopify tax stuff or it’s a way to get 20% on top of.
Don’t overthink it, just don’t shop at akkogear again
Irrc the non qmk can be ported to qmk. Lookup sonixqmk
Thanks - it seems like only a certain kind of microcontrollers are supported. With QMK I suppose fixing the rotary encoder issue would be way easier, however I can’t find any information about the microcontroller of the 5075S as it only says “Akko” on top of it :/
Idk if Akko Europe is in any way involved with Akko NA, but I recently purchased a keyboard 8 days ago, and received it today even though the estimated shipping was 15-30 business days. So my experience has been pretty good so far.
Windows by default goes by 2% whenever you hit the volume up and volume down key. The rotary encoder just sends that keycode. If you want to change the percentage you have to use autohotkey
I’m aware of that, in fact one step of the encoder changes the volume by 4.
I have the ANSI version of Akko’s 5075S and a Monsgeek M1. Both rotary encoders change the volume in steps of 2. Using the keyboard combo to increase or decrease the volume works exactly the same way, in steps of 2.
I also ordered my 5075S from akkogear.de and i have no complaints. Yes, it was shipped from China, but i knew this prior to placing my order. Took approx 10 or 12 days to arrive and was delivered to my doorstep. Packaging was perfect, product exactly as advertised. Too bad you had a bad experience but i can’t relate.
I see. Haven’t used Akko software before. If it lets you change the encoder resolution I would try that