“Really poor service, had to jump through a million hoops including a 10 minute phone interrogation as to what I was planning to do with the kit we were hoping to hire. Really invasive questioning, felt like I was being investigated by the Police. I understand the need to be thorough, but this went to a whole different level and it's not ok.”
“Untrustworthy, insincere and slow response time in relation to Customer Service. I'm awaiting an item to be returned from a 'borrower' and the consistent negligence from the Fat Llama team is taking its strain. You'll know who I am as I've emailed you 3 times this week and yet again, vacant responses! Check all your inboxes and attend to the matter urgently. Also suspicious regarding many of these '5 Star' reviews - it wouldn't surprise me if the majority are fabricated; somebody else I know had a similar experience earlier on this year and advised me against this. I wish I'd have listened.”
“Untrustworthy, insincere and slow response time in relation to Customer Service. I'm awaiting an item to be returned from a 'borrower' and the consistent negligence from the Fat Llama team is taking its strain. You'll know who I am as I've emailed you 3 times this week and yet again, vacant responses! Check all your inboxes and attend to the matter urgently. Also suspicious regarding many of these '5 Star' reviews - it wouldn't surprise me if the majority are fabricated; somebody else I know had a similar experience earlier on this year and advised me against this. I wish I'd have listened.”
“Untrustworthy, insincere and slow response time in relation to Customer Service. I'm awaiting an item to be returned from a 'borrower' and the consistent negligence from the Fat Llama team is taking its strain. You'll know who I am as I've emailed you 3 times this week and yet again, vacant responses! Check all your inboxes and attend to the matter urgently. Also suspicious regarding many of these '5 Star' reviews - it wouldn't surprise me if the majority are fabricated; somebody else I know had a similar experience earlier on this year and advised me against this. I wish I'd have listened.”
“They have the absolute worst customer service of any website I've ever used. I am trying to deal with their customer support, but they've been extremely unhelpful. Do not recommend.”
“So this is how it Works. You rent an item you have chosen from a photo, but in actual fact the lender posts an item of ‘ similar’ appearance which is also broken.
The recipient informs Fat Llama it is the wrong item and broken. But they state that can’t be the case as the lender has a photo. ARE YOU GETTING THE PICTURE?
Fat Llama obviously believe their unscrupulous lender and demand payment for an item never received based on the fact they have a picture!
Fat Llama opens the doors to invite immoral, unethical scammers in and not only condone these SCAMs but supports them.
If you like a bit of dodgy dealing this is the place to be. If you rent from here be ready for false accusations because apparently all lenders are honest people and they have a photo, so why wouldn’t they be?
Be prepared, that nice shiny camera you think you are renting might turn out to be a battered old iron in the box, but the photo shows the camera you always wanted to play with. So be prepared to pay up!
Please avoid this scam and don’t believe the lender reviews.
* Be careful with your precious ID”
“So this is how it Works. You rent an item you have chosen from a photo, but in actual fact the lender posts an item of ‘ similar’ appearance which is also broken.
The recipient informs Fat Llama it is the wrong item and broken. But they state that can’t be the case as the lender has a photo. ARE YOU GETTING THE PICTURE?
Fat Llama obviously believe their unscrupulous lender and demand payment for an item never received based on the fact they have a picture!
Fat Llama opens the doors to invite immoral, unethical scammers in and not only condone these SCAMs but supports them.
If you like a bit of dodgy dealing this is the place to be. If you rent from here be ready for false accusations because apparently all lenders are honest people and they have a photo, so why wouldn’t they be?
Be prepared, that nice shiny camera you think you are renting might turn out to be a battered old iron in the box, but the photo shows the camera you always wanted to play with. So be prepared to pay up!
Please avoid this scam and don’t believe the lender reviews.”
“Absolutely rubbish, after giving them all my personal details (some even twice) they tell me it couldn't be verified !
I can even get loan or credit card with not providing so many details !
Customer service is pointless no
Point to even try to get help there .”
“Recently I had to ask for help from Fat Llama Resolutions Centre. It was a minor issue, but I had troubles with resolving the matter with the borrower directly. My case manager has connected with me via email and guided through the process. As on outcome, I have received the funds to repair my electric scooter. Painless, quick and efficient. I felt that I have received service on a personal level and feel secure that should anything like this happen again ( small or big) I am covered and Fat Llama has my back.
Thank you.”
“After agreeing a rental term and price with a kind renter, I was asked to verify my ID by Fat Llama. Which is completely fair, as it's expensive kit and I'm a first time renter.
I was prompted to do a full KYC check, where I uploaded my ID, proof of employment, proof of address, video selfie verification, access to my private instagram AND bank statement. Despite feeling slightly violated, I assured myself, this was all to prove I was a legit customer and I wasn't going to steal the kit. So I uploaded all this sensitive info. Bear in mind this is enough info to open bank accounts, conduct credit checks and rent anything from a car to whole house, so surely a couple of cameras is no big deal...
I then had a message from support saying that my request had been denied, as the kit was too expensive and I'd need to rent cheaper equipment. Obviously, the whole reason I'd come to Fat Llama in the first place was to rent that specific kit, so telling me to rent something else is not an option and also just a massive failure in understanding your customer.
I messaged support querying their decision, and explained that we were only interested renting that specific bit of kit. To which I had various conflicting responses from different support staff. Despite all this I was assured that they'd give me a call tomorrow to confirm a couple of things and all would be ok.
The next day I had to chase up support to get a call. When someone did eventually call, I was interrogated about how the kit would be used, where it would be stored, business information and even asked for the talent we'd be shooting's contact information. I obliged to all, despite the latter as this is a violation of GDPR.
2 mins after the call get another email from Fat Llama saying I had failed verification. You can imagine, after wasting a couple of days getting verified jumping through hoops and chasing ever changing support, this was incredibly frustrating.
In the end all I got was an email saying the kit was too expensive to rent out, and that I should use their rental partner (and tried directing me to camera rental company.) Pretty laughable considering the whole point of Fat Llama is to rent gear from other people. Considering Fat Llama shouts about "Convenient access to any item" I can wholly say this has been FAR from what I experienced.
I risked using Fat Llama for a cheaper price, got messed about, and ended up having to scrabble around last min to find an alternative.
I learnt my lesson. I'll never touch the platform again for any rental.
Anyone who's interested in using this on a professional level, stay clear, go to a traditional kit shop, who won't mess you about and ask for your first born son to get verified...”
“Awful experience with this platform. Beware any one renting or lending camera equipment should avoid Fat Llama at all costs! They ruined my plans and cost me in excess of £3000 in model fees and I will be suing them for amongst other things, breach of contract and a number of other. All parties involved both borrower and lenders were inconvenienced and incurred financial loses. Fat Llama representatives are completely unprofessional and dishonest in my honest experience.”
“Unfortunately, my recent dealings with Fat Llama have been anything but good service. I had a lot of items that were not returned by the borrower. Despite providing the evidence they requested and CCTV footage of the person in question, they have denied my claim.
They told me they sent my personal information to the thief and when I raised my concern about that I was told to 'change my phone number'. For my personal safety, fearing the thief can easily discover me online if/when the police catch him, I now feel compelled to change my number.
In the past, Fat Llama has been a great way to make money for a platform that promotes trust in others. But when it comes down to it, they do not practice what they preach. It's a very sad moment for me to lose trust the way I have through dealing with this company.”
“Great platform for making money of your equipment when you're not using it.
I lent my camera for a first time recently to a person living in my area and everything went well; easy pick up point, got paid within 3days and nothing bad happened to my camera.
Use my link for 20off when you rent:
fatllama.com /r/jago-2c9b8”
“Such a great idea, but really let down by dreadful arrogant customer services. On a number of occasions they haven’t replied to issues raised. I’ve now stopped lending items on Fat Llama as my items are expensive and if there was an issue, I don’t have confidence (based on my previous lending experience) that Fat Llama would even reply, let alone sort the issue out.”
“Fat Llama are clearly the cheapest option for purchasing a GoPro 7 Black camera but the automatic payment system refuses to accept either of my debit cards from two different banks. The online chat assistant told me to contact my bank. What, both of them? So, I bought the camera from Amazon instead and was happy to pay the extra £20 for the piece of mind.”
“I've been using Fat llama since May, 2019. Two of my friends recommended me this. I then started recoommended to friends to use it. one of my friends came up with loads of negative feedback about fat llama and advised me not to use it as this is not reliable platform to lend someone your expensive equipment in case borrower refuse to return, fat llama will not take responsibility. He even said, its a dodgy company they just make commission but do not take responsibility of lenders expensive equipment. I immediatly emailed to fat llama and they replied me and posted links to read terms ans conditions and policies of rental.
Well, I kept on renting my equipment. In August, one borrower who rented my camera and lens did not return couple of accessories (battery, data cable and lens cap). I communcated and managed to retrieve battery and data cable but he failed to return lens cap. I waited couple of days for his reply when he stopped responding I reported him to Fat llama. After sending a duly filled fat llama form I received an email from Resolution Manager, Samiya Mosdiq where she said Fat llama can not take any action apparently I have reported late, needed to be report within 24 hours of missing item. I explained them that borrower was communicating with me and there was no need to report him unnecesarliy. Reporting borrower means no business with borrower in future because borrower gonna remember you and will not rent in future. But she came up with same excuse of company's policy and even declined to look into case because I reported it late and she told me that Im not priority for fat llama as there is high volume of cases already in que.
During my communcation with resolution manager, I received an email from Product Manager, Ziv Reichert askkng me to book a slot to talk on telephone about my recent rental experience and in returm as thanks I would get £25. I thought, it sounds great, its ok, if they do not accept my claim of £21.99. I never received a call from product manager
I got very annoyed I dropped an email: info@fatllma.com and right after that i received a reply from resolution manager but her reply was same i.e. NO. I got another email from customer service team member, Zayne, apologising me about situation and informed me that Product Manager is away for holidays its better to book another slot once he comes back. it means clients/ customers are not important for fat llama. Seriously ? I booked slot and they were not even bother to update me.
I was more surprised when I got another email from Georgio telling me not to disrespect fat llama team members when I post reviews online.
Email from Georgio: "I am very sorry to hear that Khurram. But please do keep in mind when making your review if you mention names these are real people so please do be respectful. We have many cases our resolutions team deal with everyday, they follow a tried and tested process to come to a fair result for both sides."
So they care about care about their employees but they do not care about their clients.
I'm thinking, they have treated me pretty unfair on a claim of £21.99 what if claim was of big value.
My reviews are not going resolve my case. However, I think, its good to share my experince with fat llama which is not great so far.”
