Adafruit Industries Arvostelua 88

Got a $90 kit from then with no instructions and the online instructions are a joke and not detailed. The parts have paper coated plexiglass that was so hard to get off and 1 part snapped. I asked for a replacement (I would have paid) but they would not help. The service/support sucks. It used to be a great company but no more and me a customer? No more either.

Terrible customer service, terrible support. I’m not sure the entire purpose of their website since it seems they don’t want to ship anything. Purchased from them once and it went well and products were good but whoever is handling their customer service and shipping should be fired. Or if they don’t want to sell their products online. Just close the website.

Exceptionally hostile and unprofessional staff who openly engage in shady business activities.

I purchased an order that included a small monitor. The monitor arrived non-functional. I contacted support, and they referred me to their forums. Support told me that if I didn't receive a response in 1-2 business days I should contact them again.

I provided the requested information in a forum post, but did not receive a response. After a week of going back and forth with support, they stopped responding to me altogether.

At this point I must point out that I was always polite and respectful. I did not blame staff, argue, or insult anyone (including the company). I merely provided the information requested and followed up however I was instructed.

After a full week of this, and no longer receiving responses, I opened a dispute with PayPal. Almost immediately Adafruit support reached out to me and promised that someone would respond on the forum within 24 hours. In the meantime, they tried to convince me to close the dispute with PayPal.

I politely declined, and assured them that I would happily close the dispute as soon as the issue was resolved.

Shortly after, someone on the forum responded, agreed that the monitor was defective, and authorized a replacement, which I was supposed to work with support to obtain.

Support then refused to process the replacement until after I closed the dispute. When I asked why, and pointed out that this is something that PayPal explicitly tells customers NOT to do, they immediately banned me from the forums and banned me from ever buying from them again.

Based on this, I can only assume that they were pushing to have me close the dispute so they could avoid actually processing the return. When it became clear that I would not give up my consumer protection, they cut off all contact. Incredibly unethical and unprofessional.

On 12/01/25 I ordered an item (Raspberry Pi 5) from Adafruit Industries, and the order was processed successfully. To my surprise, I get an email from support asking for more information to verify my order. Although I found this unusual, (as I have been shopping on this site for about 10 years now) I complied anyway. Only to be told that my order was voided because of some discrepancy which I believe wasn't well-articulated. I reviewed all the information and I'm still at a loss as to why my order was cancelled without any honest explanation. The said agent was a person named Zay, and I think this employee could use a little more people skill. in all this experience was a little rude, inconsiderate and hasty. I have been a loyal shopper at this site for years and to be treated in such a callous manner is very surprising.

So we are planning into launching a new product, we have a prototype, have it CE certitied for EU selling. There is one component we wanted to buy from Adafruit as bulk purchase, talking 10.000+ units.

There was no way to get in touch with the company. E-Mails not answered, nobody responds on social media and the only phone number I could get was never responded.

So we changed the part to one from another manufactor, adapted our CE certification.

Like how stupid can a company be? It was easier to reach Chinese producers over Alibaba than this US registered company!!

Shame.

I'm an autistic maker and I enjoy Adafruit's products ☺️ Thanks for all that you do for the maker community.

They absolutely suck. I cannot get past their 2FA security system to log in. I sent them an email and they told me to use my 6 pin code to log in and reset my password. If I had that, I would not need help. Either way, I noticed that I could order without logging in so I figured I would just do that. For what ever reason they have my shipping address locked and said I need to contact them to have it unlocked it was a security thing. I did just that. They replied back quick enough but required an act of congress to verify my identity. Some of the stuff I could not even supply. I then decided to do a search and found that Mouser sells their junk too. I bought what I needed from Mouser and will have it in 3 days. I have ordered from Adafruit years ago when I needed something that they specifically sell. I have also found out that places like Aliexpress or Ebay sell the same stuff a lot cheaper. It's sad when you dont want to sell to customers enough to try and help them out.

Jeg bestilte og fik sendt en masse ting. En af dimserne var defekt, og efter lidt frem-og-tilbage med support (første skridt er gennem forum, men med hurtig svartid fra medarbejdere) fik jeg sendt en ny del gratis, endda en mere passende model.

I’m a hobbyist hardware hacker, and I regularly need specialist parts and supplies. Adafruit is always good for parts, tools, kids, and even gifts. Their shipping is fast, their products are incredibly high-quality, and their customer service is outstanding.

Adafruit also has a lot of excellent learning resources, and they give back to the community quite a lot.

Today I got another order from them, a bunch of storage containers for projects and parts, as well as some kits for practice. They’re all great and I can’t wait for the weekend.

I’ve been a Customer for over 14 years, and that ended today. I ordered a Raspberry Pi 5, Active cooler, kit, and M2 hat.

Their shipping charges are inflated above competitors, and somehow most of their shipments “Just missed the trailer” And are they delayed by a week. Customer services reply to this was “ We handed it off to the shipper”

Once the items finally arrived, I spent a week trying to get them to work. I was ultimately unsuccessful, and contacted customer support again. They directed me to make a post on their public forum and wait for a response. They provided some “ Helpful tips to get my post noticed”

Again, this is a successful company with nearly 100 employees. Pushing all product support to unmoderated and unmonitored public forum is something that a startup does, not a successful company. I made the post as requested, received no replies, and when I asked customer service for an update and mentioned the possibility of a chargeback, they banned my account indefinitely and told me to find a new supplier.

They did issue a full refund, which is all that I wanted to begin with. This is not the behavior of a well running and functioning company. Consumers would be well advised to follow customer services advice, and find a new supplier. I certainly will be.

Customer service is a joke- cart identified my address as "freight forwarder" which is isn't. Reached out to cust service three times, one week later I get a reply literally telling me to find another supplier. I changed shipping address and order went through. Expressed my displeasure (not in a discourteous way) at the lack of help via email and then account gets banned. Brilliant guys, ban a customer who spends $1000s a year on tech parts!! Sure, you bet I'll find another supplier now.

Superb customer service in comparison to most other electronics companies. This includes software libraries and guides for their products, something often not provided by others.

they boycotting uline because of politics , so i will boycott adafruit because of politics

They sell products that are not supported by their firmware on ESP32 device (which I also purchased) but their documentation makes it sound like the products are fully supported. Their CircuitPython does not work on Raspberry PI either. Very buggy and a lot of issues to resolve on your own. Tried on an older version RasPI and the latest, followed all the instructions to install Blinka, but did not work on either case. Complete waste of time. It would be easier to write a driver for the devices on your own.

They have some decent products in stock and an extensive inventory but good luck getting any of it to you. Shipping is a JOKE! I ordered a raspberry pi and paid extra for priority shipping in order to have it a few days before I needed it to set it up before a birthday party. It was not given to USPS until the day it was set to be delivered! Then it was lost for 2 weeks on a truck somewhere (not adafruits fault), but when I requested a replacement with NEXT DAY shipping it took FIVE days to get to me.

Now I have stupidity ordered something from them again. It has been 4 days since I placed the order and the tracking says the label was created days ago, but hasn't been dropped off/picked up yet... Why is there a 96 hour wait period between "ready to ship" and "Ok, I guess it can be shipped now"??

RUN from Adafruit!

Fast shipping, great quality, no complaints here.

I see a lot of people complaining about customer service, this is just a redistributor guys, they host multiple distribution centers hosted by separate people.

Most of the hate seems pretty unwarranted. Its a small business guys. That is supporting open source, give em a break. They aren't no google.

I've been buying Adafruit stuff for years. Usually trough other stores than directly from adafruit.

The products are all very well documented and kept reasonably up to date. They're a fun company, an okay community and they make fun video's on youtube about their products.

The one time I've ordered at adafruit though, they listed each item as a separate item which made the import tax skyrocket. That was completely unnecessary.

Even the free product ended up costing me more lol. Glad they didn't include a sticker, because that would have been charged for as well.

I tried making clear to Adafruit that the high import costs were really unnecessary if they'd only list their products differently. But it's a bit of a bother. I just took the hit to my wallet and decided to be happy with the awesome and reliable products. Which in the end is more important to me than aftersales.

Returns only get you store credit not a refund.
Got charged a restock fee and two shipping fees to order, return and replace an item.

Terrible customer service. They will hold an order if you ask a simple question and cause you to miss the deadline for shipping that day even though you got in before the deadline. Then they blame you for it. Really bad when they charge so dang much for shipping and you do overnight and they screw you like that.

They are consistent. They consistently have the worst customer service in the industry. I suppose that makes them an industry leader if the race is to the bottom.