Flybubble Reviews

Name: Flybubble
Address: 1 Manor Close, Ringmer, Lewes, East Sussex
Rating: 4.90

4.9 Rating 651 Reviews

98 %

of reviewers recommend Flybubble

4.9

Based on 651 reviews


Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Postal Service, Courier
Average Delivery Time	Next Day
On-time Delivery	96%
Accurate And Undamaged Orders	100%
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Email, Telephone, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Under An Hour
Customer Service	4.9 out of 5

About Flybubble:

Flybubble is a specialist freeflight (paragliding, hang gliding, speed flying and paramotoring) equipment retailer and distributor based in the UK. We aim to give an outstandingly personalised service to our highly valued customers. We offer a select range of the best equipment from the top freeflight manufacturers, and hold far more stock than most. This means we can offer you a great choice of new and used gear, package deals, part exchanges, custom fittings and demo flights.

We are passionate pilots, and between us love all aspects of free flying—from ridge soaring to hike-and-fly, cross country, competitions and acro—so can advise on many different styles of flying and equipment. In particular we are experts at matching pilots to equipment, and equipment to pilots!

Most of all, we care about your safety and progression as a pilot. Apart from keeping all the product information up to date on our website, so you can make better-informed decisions, we review freeflight gear, compile tips, and create articles and videos so you can benefit from our expertise and improve your flying.

For more information about the services we offer visit: https://flybubble.com/about

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Flybubble 5 star review on 23rd April 2024

Alex

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

Filter: Rated 1 None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“As explained already, I had to pay more than 20€ of taxes on a value declared of 30 gbp, even if my order was 60 gbp. For sure this is not the right way to sell things.”

Helpful Report

Thank you so much for reviewing Flybubble, Andrea. We truly appreciate you taking the time to share your experience with us and giving us valuable feedback. We are sorry to hear that you had to pay more taxes on your order than you expected. It currently is not possible for us to include the customs duties in the total order cost since we don't know what these will be. In some instances customs duties may not be charged, however we should assume that they will. For the moment the best way to ensure the customer is charged the correct amount, not overcharged, is to not include the customs duties in the order total. We do want the situation regarding VAT and customs duties to be clear to customers before they confirm their order and pay. For this we have included text on our website to explain that any customs charges are not included in the product price, see VAT and customs charges on our Shipping and Stock info page. I hope this explains the current situation with VAT and customs duties, and that we have included information in key areas of our website to make this clear. We will continue to monitor customer feedback and do our best to improve what we do to ensure the best customer experience. Can you tell us a bit more about what you think should have happened? How can we make things better? We appreciate your insights and looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Best wishes, Nancy

“Non ho ancora avuto il mio ordine... Quanto tempo ancora??”

Helpful Report

Hi Dario, Thank you for ordering 1 x Finsterwalder Brummel Hook Speed System Release from Flybubble. We appreciate your custom and feedback and are of course sorry to learn that you haven't received your order yet. Checking your order I can confirm it was shipped on Tuesday 19 Apr 2022 by Royal Mail International Tracked & Signed for service. Tracking number: RV601885066GB https://www.royalmail.com/track-your-item Tracking history Tuesday 26 April 2022 18:08 Your item is currently with Customs in the destination country. Italy 18:02 Item Received Italy Investigating this for you, and checking the tracking it is in Italian customs, awaiting clearance. "There may be more information on our delivery partner's website." So I clicked the red 'Continue tracking' button below this, which took me to the tracking page for your order on the website of their delivery partner, Poste Italiane: https://www.poste.it/cerca/index.html#/risultati-spedizioni/RV601885066GB Italy Customs delays We are aware that there have been issues with Italian customs, although these now show as being cleared, I expect that it is still slow. Start date: 5 January 2021 Latest update: 22 March 2022 End date: Ongoing Incident: Customs delays Latest Update We have been advised by Poste Italiane that the backlog of items held in Italian customs has been cleared and that delays are no longer being experienced in the processing of postal items. To ensure that your items can continue to be processed without delays, please provide full and accurate data before posting your items. We will be looking to introduce faster customs processing and faster delivery times for international orders. I hope that we will have more tracking news online soon, however, we will need to give this a little more time. We are in unprecedented times and some things are taking longer than expected to get delivered worldwide - although our customers seem to be receiving orders as normal. Hopefully, it is progressing through the system and I hope that you will be receiving your order soon. Please let us know when you have safely received your package? Or if there is no further news on the Royal Mail or Poste Italiane website in the next 3-5 business days please do get in touch again. Best wishes, Nancy Flybubble

“I bought from Flybubble as I regarded and respected them as being a professional, responsible, reliable and trustworthy company. Oh my was I wrong. You see when they are selling, shipping quickly & taking our money just as quickly they are highly praised, but when a customer has problems and things go wrong then it appears they can't wash their hands of it quickly enough. I bought a flight instrument from them, the shipping was quick - kudos, well done. The instrument was faulty - no sound from the device whatsoever... no matter what I did or what configs I changed in the settings. I spent hours changing all sorts of configs & settings on the device. I decided the item must be returned so referred to their website return policy. The website stated it should be returned to a specific address (not the regular Flybubble address). No mention of any other form of contact prior to returning was stated. The following day between 08:00 – 13:00 (before I had posted the item) I phoned Flybubble several times leaving 2 messages asking for a return call. At 13:30, Carlo Borsattino at Flybubble called me back quite irate and sharply explained that he had listed to all 3 of my messages (I only left 2 although the answering machine did kick in just as I hung up one time). When I explained I had only left 2 messages Carlo quite abruptly informed me that I had left 3 messages and that there were only 2 staff and that they couldn’t possibly answer or return every call immediately & that I could have emailed instead. Carlo told me I shouldn’t return the Item as the website did specify that prior to returning anything I should contact them first – Please check your own website Carlo (Returns Policy page), I think you’ll find you're wrong. I explained my problem to Carlo who advised me that he had been in the business for 30 yrs & that the manufactures were an excellent company with excellent products – indicating that it was myself at fault for not understanding the device and/or settings & configs. Carlo patronisingly asked what configs I had used in the settings, I explained I had tried changing all settings back & forth and then he sarcastically pointed out that the device would not make any sound until it detected that it was in flight which was a feature of the instrument for which my reply was that I had already disabled that setting so that didn’t apply. Carlo advised me not to return the unit to Flybubble but to contact the manufacturers instead and if I did return the item to Flybubble it would incur shipping costs for which I would have to pay & that I had already had free shipping once (but this was just part of the sale conditions – free shipping for items over £200). By this time I was doubting myself & agreed I would recheck the device at home before proceeding with anything. I contacted SyRide (the manufacturers) via their website product support page who were excellent, they guided me through a series of steps to determine what was causing the problem – nothing could be found wrong with the settings so they asked me to & gave their permission to disassemble the device to check that the speaker was plugged into the motherboard, I did so & noticed that the speaker was not soldered to the motherboard correctly – I sent photos to SyRide who agreed that there were problems with the motherboard soldering and have therefore arranged for the instrument to be returned to France & a replacement returned to me. Well done SyRide & shame on you Carlo Borsattino (Flybubble Managing Director) for treating a paying customer with such contempt. The measure of a company is not by how fast you take their money & ship items out but by how you treat and deal with your customers and any problems that may arise.”

Flybubble 1 star review on 12th January 2022

Helpful Report

Hi Dale, thank you for your order and review. As I explained to you over the phone, I have taken your customer feedback on board and am acting on this to improve both the information on our website and my customer service. I am sorry that the instrument you ordered from us (a new Syride SYS'Nav XL) was faulty, and that you spent hours trying to fix it. Very frustrating for you, I understand! Although faults like this are rare, they do happen from time to time. For future reference, for instruments, the best for you is to contact the instrument manufacturer direct for all questions and support. Thank you for making me aware that our Returns and Exchanges page did not contain the faulty goods info I thought it did. My mistake. It was meant to be updated a while ago, and I wrongly thought it had been. I've now updated this with what to do if you suspect the goods you received from us may be faulty. About my flustered manner to you over the phone, for which I apologise, I must admit that you phoning several times between 08:00 (we open at 09:00) and 13:00, leaving two messages asking for a return call, all within such a short space of time, when we were busy with other urgent tasks and so unable to answer the phone, did fluster me. I called you back as soon as I was able. Intending to give our customers realistic expectations about the level of service we can deliver, our contact page states near the top of the page: "We aim to reply within 48 hours but it may take longer e.g. during busy periods, holidays or flyable weather." and, further down the page, again: "Due to the nature of free flight we may sometimes be unavailable or closed at short notice during these times e.g. during busy periods or flyable weather." Our contact page also states: "Email is generally the best way to contact us for enquiries and support." because we are often not able to answer the phone. I am also sorry to learn that you took all of the advice and support I gave you over the phone in the wrong way, not how it was intended at all. I meant only to be helpful to you. My aim was only to help you get the result you wanted i.e a fully functional instrument as soon as possible. First, we needed to be sure that the instrument was indeed faulty. From experience, in over 90% of cases where instruments are reported faulty, they turn out not to be. Because of this, I tried to explain to you that if you return the instrument to us as faulty but it turns out not to be then this would just be frustrating for you, and you would have to pay the shipping costs back and forth. Therefore it was in our best interests to go through a fault-checking process which, due to the nature of instruments, needed to be done directly with the manufacturer, Syride. This is why it says on our Syride SYS'Nav XL product page: "For any questions about Syride products... Contact Syride support directly." with a link to their contact page. Intending to reassure you, I explained that from our experience Syride give excellent support, and would most likely be able to identify and resolve any issue remotely. If not then the instrument may need to be returned to Syride (in France) who may send a replacement to you. At the end of our conversation, it was left that you would confirm if the instrument had already been posted back to us. If so, we'd check it. If not, you'd contact Syride to confirm if there was an issue, then update us on the outcome. Since I did not hear back from you (until you posted this review) I assumed that you'd not sent it back to us and the issue was resolved. I am glad to hear that Syride managed to identify the fault with the instrument and have therefore arranged for it to be returned to France and a replacement returned to you. Thank you for again your order and customer feedback. If there is anything else I can help you with, let me know (email is best) thank you. Best wishes, Carlo Borsattino

“I wish I received it!!”

Helpful Report

“After two weeks the items haven't been received... the flybubbles international shipping is embarrassing.”

Helpful Report

“International shipping takes ages and no express delivery is available...”

Helpful Report

Hi Matteo, Thank you for ordering 4 x AustriAlpin FL32A Pulleys from Flybubble. We appreciate your custom and feedback, and are of course sorry to learn that you haven't received your order yet. We will be looking to introduce faster customs processing and faster delivery times for international orders in 2022. We just haven't had the resources to do this yet due to the pandemic and leaving the EU. Checking your order I can confirm it was shipped on 11 Nov 2021 by Royal Mail International Tracked & Signed for service. Tracking number: RV601884264GB https://www.royalmail.com/track-your-item Royal Mail says: "There may be more information on our delivery partner's website." So I have also checked your local postal service Poste Italiane: https://www.poste.it/cerca/index.html#/risultati-spedizioni/RV601884264GB It looks like at the moment it is between the UK and Italy - however it is likely that it has arrived in Italy and just hasn't been scanned yet. Once it is scanned in Italy it will appear on the network again and update the tracking information. It may then go to customs and duty may need to be paid. I hope that we will have more tracking news online soon, however we will need to give this a little more time. Hopefully it is progressing through the system and I hope that you will be receiving your order soon. Best wishes, Nancy Flybubble

“The purchase price is ambiguous. Buying from Europe the item, paid for just under 100 euros, is sent by ordinary post and taxed at customs with an increase of about 25%. Definitely not convenient for purchases from the UE. On the Internet there are cheaper shops for the same items, French shops for example. I would have preferred more clarity.”

Helpful Report

Hi Angelo, Thank you for your customer feedback, it really is appreciated. I am sorry that you were surprised to discover on delivery you had to pay customs duties. Due to the UK leaving the EU, as of 1st of January 2021 all customers outside the UK do not pay UK VAT but instead pay the customs duties of the receiving country. It currently is not viable for us to include the customs duties in the total order cost since we are unsure what these will be. In some instances customs duties may not be charged, however we should assume that they will. Even if we could be sure of what customs duties will be, implementing this on our website would require a great deal of work to be sure it all worked correctly, and the right amounts were charged. For the moment the best way to ensure the customer is charged the correct amount, not overcharged, is to not include the customs duties in the order total. We do want the situation regarding VAT and customs duties to be clear to customers before they confirm their order and pay. For this we have included text on our website to explain that any customs charges are not included in the product price in the Shopping Basket and the Checkout so you can see this before you confirm your order and pay: "International shipments are subject to customs charges which are not included in your order." We have also included information about VAT and customs charges to our Shipping and Stock page. Sorry for the rather long explanation. I hope this at least explains the current situation with VAT and customs duties, and that we have included information in key areas of our website to make this clear. We will continue to monitor customer feedback and do our best to improve what we do to ensure the best customer experience. Best wishes, Nancy flybubble.com

Flybubble is rated 4.9 based on 651 reviews