The purpose of this post isn’t to tell you not to buy Duncan, nor is it an attempt to get anything from Duncan. I simply want to share my experience so you can make an informed decision when buying.
Background:
Towards the end of May, Duncan had a big sale on their website (yo-yo.com). They had a couple of bimetals that were dirt cheap and not even marked as B-grades, so it was a no-brainer - I picked out several and couldn’t wait for them to get here.
Well, they got here. Most of them. This was just the beginning of problems:
1). I didn’t get one of the yoyos I purchased. It turned out it wasn’t in stock, but there was no email or packing slip telling me this.
2). The first bimetal (also the first I’d tried) had heavy vibe. After several throws and basic troubleshooting, I never got it to have less vibe than far cheaper yoyos I own.
3). The Metal Drifter I bought to replace my old one was missing the spacers. This meant an unresponsive yoyo played responsive, and poorly at that.
4). Atrocious customer service.
Even before I bought the yoyos, I needed to get in contact with Duncan due to a discrepancy on their website: this was a terrible process. No one answered the phone during their business hours, and the answering machine was full. I tried emailing, but they kept rejecting my emails. So, after calling multiple times, I finally got ahold of someone to answer my question and fix the discrepancy.
After I received the order, things got worse. For returns or questions about orders, Duncan turns their customer service over to a third party. This agency knows nothing about yoyos, what they’re called, problems they may have, etc. They also seem to only have one employee. It took 3 calls and over 3 weeks to get a refund for the 2 malfunctioning yoyos. That wouldn’t have been so awful if I didn’t wait on hold for a combined 3+ hours to do this (literally). After the last call, someone from a different department was supposed to call me back the same day. They never did, and I didn’t have time over the next several days to wait on hold a 4th time for another hour. Thankfully the refund eventually appeared without that 4th call.
Could most of these issues been avoided if I’d just used a retailer like yoyoexpert.com? Yes. But the issue of QC still remains. Duncan has had a reliable name in the past, but this seems like too much bad quality control in one order to say it’s just a fluke. I’d be more forgiving if these had been labeled B-grades, but that wasn’t the case. I did ultimately receive a refund, but it was 10 business days after my return was received. The refund for the item I never received should have processed even sooner.
Is this all enough to make you turn away from Duncan? That’s for you to determine. There are SO many other companies that have developed good reputations, and at this point I’d be far more willing to give them my business (via a site like this one) than Duncan. Hope this is helpful.
I appreciate the advice, but it does seem unprofessional to expect customers to go on some forum they don’t own to get customer service. It doesn’t seem too much to ask of a business to have a phone number or email address for this.
Honestly I’ve had bad experiences with Duncan in the past. I’ve been ghosted several times or left without an answer for questions or bulk purchases and stuff. I give them all a bunch of leeway when it’s a big sale or anything that increases the amount of sales and packaging considerably. Same for yyf around may. They just kind of get underwater for a bit.
I’ve never been super impressed with Duncan’s support but honestly it’s a yoyo if I want a boutique experience I go to one of the many smaller more sociable and communicative companies but Duncan still sponsors contests and does allot of good for the community. I guess I kind of give them a pass most of the time.
Also all the things I got yoyo day from Duncan where perfect no issues.
Yeah I bought an Orbital GTX and Grasshopper GTX from this sale but the only things wrong with them are very small cosmetic flaws so I just kept them because they play nice. If they had had any vibe or worse flaws I would have complained but for me it wasn’t worth it. I actually gave the Grasshopper to my mom to teach her with since she’s interested in learning. They’re both wonderfully smooth but it seems like I probably got lucky.
I’ve gotten in about 5 Duncan bimetals lately. 2 from the sale. One from the sale had mild vibe and the GTX 2.0 I got has a little more than mild vibe. The other three were smooth. I emailed Duncan about the one from the sale and got no response. The other one I got here and they offered to help any way they can but I just decided to play them as it didn’t effect play. Love the yo-yos but yea seems like QC isn’t as tight as some.
YYE is also an order fulfillment machine unrivaled in reliability or efficiency by any of the dozens of online sellers I have purchased from since the advent of online selling.
I get that. I don’t think that was the case here though, as this was before yoyo day (a pre-sale sale, lol). The lady who finally answered the phone told me they weren’t moving much merchandise at the time when I was worried about losing out while my question was being answered.
I have made something like five orders from Duncan in the last four years and needed to contact them for support twice. There were only two people handling customer service Brian and a lady, I forgot her name, but they were quick to respond to email and called me back to resolve the issues. I would say their order system is not the best but once you actually get through they were quick to resolve the issue and gave me additional discounts.
If you have vibe try changing the bearing to a known good one, most of the time that fixes the issue.
I didn’t purchase from the sale this year, but I bought a Grasshopper GTX in 21. It’s perfect, but took 5 weeks and a few emails to get. In 22 I ordered a Butterfly Al and a Freehand One Al. These came in good time! The FH1 AL has the slightest bit of vibe, but if I’m not mistaken this is common.
Anyway, it’s quit sad that they just don’t seem to be able to get it together. Maybe their parent company, flambeau, isn’t willing to do what’s needed.
I bought several items during Duncan’s National Yo-Yo day sale this year. All were dead smooth except for one. Since I spent quite a bit with them that day, I’d just ask for a replacement for the one - no big deal I thought…
Well, I’ve been trying to contact them for more than a month now with zero luck.
I’ve called numerous times. No one answers the phone.
I’ve left messages. No one calls back.
I’ve emailed over and over. No reply.
At this point, I’m not sure they have anything resembling customer service.
