ThePinGurusReviews of thepingurus.com

This has been the most frustrating customer service and product experience I’ve had in awhile. I placed an order for (25) lapel pins for my company on 4/3/24 with a rush order to receive by 4/9/24 and this order still hasn’t arrived. I also reached out multiple times via email and phone to check the status of my order and no one contacted me until I demanded a full refund. They never provided me with a tracking number and have been very unprofessional. Don't be fooled, allow me to serve as your warning. Go elsewhere.

Do NOT trust this vendor. They are a scam. I have NEVER had this issue in a decade ordering from an online vendor ($900 worth of product) who steals your money and never sends any product. Go through the other reviews on this page and it's all the same pattern. I ordered Rush Pins as they were marketing rush orders on their website, and paid significantly more than the base amount to have the pins delivered by a certain date. Ben was very communicative UP UNTIL the point I placed the order on my card, and then went radio silent even after multiple follow ups to see if the order was ever shipped out. Significantly past the ship date, Ben finally got back to me and said that the pins had not even finished being made yet and had not been shipped out yet. He orders his pins from China and they are not local to the US. Ben is a one man shop, NEVER picks up the phone on any of the numbers, and DEFLECTS when I have been asking for a refund MULTIPLE times. To this day I have not received a refund after asking multiple times and he keeps saying "if it doesn't work out i'll give you a refund" even though I said I don't even want the pins anymore and I just want a refund ASAP. Also telling that he's rebranded the site/name multiple times. Check out his Twitter as well, looks like he's scammed a manufacturer in China out of thousands of dollars as well.

Updating my review: January 24, 2024: Still haven’t received my refund nor have I received the promised batch of pins. The “invoice” claim I mentioned in my review was indeed a scam. As soon I posted this review, I received text message after text message (which was extremely unprofessional and intrusive) and apparently my refund had a convenient error which is why it didn’t process. They have all my payment information which is all you need to process a refund. I own a business too- I know how it works. I’ll be seeing you in small claims court in San Francisco. I began my experience with The Pin Gurus on September 25, 2023. I order 3 pins- order total of over a $1000+ USD. It has been a saga and I feel absolutely lied to and scammed. 1. October: My order was placed on September 25th, 2023 and I was told it would take up to 15-20 days. This was not the case. It took longer. I never received my order in time- they were not transparent about my tracking number and had to pester them into providing me one. 2. November: When my pins eventually did arrive, 1 out of 3 pin designs still had the outer mold which was not sawed off. Like a normal customer, I reached out with my issue. Ben (the customer service guy) was very attentive at first but as time progressed the details were vaguer and vaguer. However, we came to an agreement that I would receive a partial refund if I didn’t return the pins and they would send out a new batch. 3. December: I was super patient with them and asked again, and again, and again, and, finally was told that they were shipped and I should receive them soon. But that was A LIE. They literally gaslit me into thinking it was sent when in reality they weren’t even manufactured yet. Ben blamed the back end being messy and their manufacturing unit in China not updating tracking numbers. After 20+ back and forth emails they told me again that they would provide me with a partial refund and pins. This has not happened till date. They reassured me that I would get the refund and the pins asap. 4. January 2024: Three months have passed. I have STILL not received my pins nor have I received the refund. Mind you, their customer service team continued to gaslight me and was pretty rude even though my product was manufactured poorly and agreements were not kept and my pins are still not here. 5. Today, January 12 2024: I checked in one last time and was met with a super rude email telling me that I would get a full refund only if I return the poorly manufactured pins even though we agreed on the partial refund. Why would I trust a single word that comes from their team when I have been blatantly lied to and manipulated again and again and again. My last email to them stated that I would take them to small claims court and I immediately got a email with the so called “invoice” of my refund (not an actual invoice, just some text in an email). If this doesn’t arrive in the next 4-7 business days I am taking you to court and filing the case in San Francisco. I have a 40+ email thread with all the details and agreements discussed as proof and bank statements to prove that the refund was never received. A scam company. The “about us” section on their website is an absolute lie. A small business based out of South Carolina but what they don’t tell you is that your pins are manufactured in china. They screwed up and I paid the price. My retailers stopped working with me because they couldn’t wait any longer. Remember, these were supposed to arrive in November before peak holiday sales. I hope you deter from working with them based off this review. I was foolish not to believe the other 1 star reviews. Should have taken them to court sooner. Do not give them the benefit of the doubt.

We ordered bulk pins in September for 2 separate events we had in late October. They were scheduled to ship with plenty of time to receive them for end of October dates when we needed them. Neither order was received on time for either event and it was very difficult to get in contact with anyone. No one answered our calls or emails for over a week. Turns out pins were made and shipped from China which is why they didn't arrive on time. Everyone at each event was disappointed. Now no one will respond regarding a refund or promised discount. We wouldn't use them again.

Went with PinZone since they had 48 hr rush service. Ordered Pins. Ordered Pins on Thursday, Oct. 6, with them to be shipped by Oct. 8 and received on Oct. 10. Paid 100% extra to get them based on this timeline. I did not receive the Pins until Oct. 13, and I have not seen a refund after requesting it. If I would have known this, I would have never ordered from them. Still have not received any refund.

I spoke with Ben at pin zone over two weeks ago. He explained to me that shipping takes 2 days from South Carolina. I went ahead and ordered 200 pins for a memorial race. This race has been very emotional as it remembers a young girl that died of cancer four years ago. Each year then family designs a special pin to be given to all of the young athletes. When ordering I chose a date well in advance of the race and even paid extra to make sure that they arrived on time. I heard from Ben as soon as I ordered. When I responded there was radio silence. As the date got closer I called several time only to get a VM with no response. I also sent several emails for a follow up. Finally 4 days before the event I received an apologetic email stating that they were short staffed and my pins would be received Saturday morning. I asked for tracking and decry nothing. The event came and went with no pins. This is a horrible fraudulent company do not order!

Beware of shipping times for 'rush pins', I got decieved. I had an important event and with 2 weeks left I got tasked to provide special commemorative pins for the group. After researching all the pin providers online and learning about the types of pins and what is called 'rush pins' I landed with 'The Pin Zone' and lots of back of forth dialogue with Ben in Sept 2021. We even had a lengthy text dialogue. After lots of communication on my timeline, Ben assured me that I would get my pins on time based on a certain order date. Despite Ben's recommendation, I went ahead and paid the extra fee to have the ship date moved up a couple days just to pad against any potential issues. After I placed my order (albeit only 50 pins, worth about $300), I notified Ben I had made the order. After a few days I realized I wasn't getting a shipping confirmation. After repeated attempts to contact Ben I was not getting a response. And then he responded that sorry for communication delays but 'they were busy' etc etc. And then finally I got a shipping email that it was coming from China and would be arriving a week late! I contacted Ben and he tried to deny responsibility for shipping times etc. After reviewing shipping info and our dialogue its clear that for some reason (maybe small order) that Ben did NOT put my order in on time and was scrambling last minute and my pins showed up late and I was unable to give them out and suffered a major embarrassment. I contacted Ben about this and asked for a refund or compensation and none was offered. So my advice to others is that if you need rush pins and have a small order, you would be better off going somewhere else. The Pin Zone is just a one many show who maybe has other jobs and the smaller orders he gets are at risk of not being delivered on time.

I have ordered several times from this company. I am currently editing my review at the request of Ben from the pinzone. He contacted me after I posted a review of my most recent experience with The Pinzone. I am giving them an opportunity to fix the problems I have experienced. I will give them until July 21 2021 to complete and ship my order (a time line chosen by Ben). If they do not meet their promises, I will be reposting my original review. If they meet the deadline and fix the previous issues, I will edit this review again. ORIGINAL POST: I have ordered several times from this company. Usually the products are nice. I placed an order in October 2020. Before placing the order the proof had a letter spacing issue. I brought a letter spacing issue to their attention before placing my order. I was assured the spacing issue would not be present on my completed product. I was told it was a online program issue and I had nothing to worry about. When I received my order the spacing issue was present on my pins. I informed them of the problem. The issue makes one word look like two words because of the spacing problem. After much debate they agreed to redo my pins. I was told on many different occasions my pin were being reproduced. They informed me they were redoing my pins back around Christmas 2020. I originally ordered 300 pins at a cost of nearly $1000.00. Since they agreed to reproduce my pins to the proper specifications I have had extremely poor communication. I have been strung along for more than 6 months with promises that my pins were being reproduced. I tried often to communicate with Ben about the status of my order. I just kept getting excuse after excuse of why it was taking so long to complete my order. That is if he responded to my emails at all. I was told they had to completely reinvent to process of producing my pins. I gave them the benefit of the doubt more than a few times. I was also told on several occasions that my pins were being polished and packaged. The communication process with Ben is horrible and I was lied to on multiple occasions. I was suppose to have my pins by mid June (more than 7 months from my original order date). They failed to provide me with my order. I still have not received my order to this date. They have also completely stopped communicating with me. They haven’t responded to any of my emails for over a month now. I requested a refund or my pins. They are completely ignoring me at this point. Basically they have stolen almost $1000 from my non profit organization by not providing the product I ordered. Do not do business with this company. They are horrible at customer service. Find another company to produce your products. They lied, mislead me and still have not provided my order yet. Completely unprofessional company, especially Ben. Update: Ben did not deliver on his promises once again. I did not receive my order by the deadline picked by Ben. I did finally received my replacement order a couple weeks after the agreed upon deadline. Unfortunately the product I received was not done to the specifications agreed upon. The replacement order is very good quality. But the size was incorrect. They were 1/4 inch wider than the were suppose to be and they were suppose to have a slight curve to them (they are firefighter badges). They were not curved, they are flat. I have given Ben multiple opportunities to make things right. I have given them the benefit of the doubt multiple times. They have failed miserably. Do not use this company. The consistently lie and have the worst customer service. I originally planned on doing a lot of repeat business with this company. But the experience I have had forced me to find a better more professional vendor.