Filmtools — Attraction in Burbank

It was like PULLING TEETH getting them to deliver an order that I had paid for. It took this business 6 months to fulfill my order...

It was easiest to just detail our correspondence below, but long story short, they come across as extremely unorganized and horrible at communicating even amongst themselves. This is the worst experience I've had dealing with an online retailer. Had I not pushed the issue I'm sure they would have stolen the money I sent for payment and never shipped the item i purchased. Save yourself the trouble and shop elsewhere.

ME: 10/19/17- order was placed and authorized a PayPal payment -no contact, assumed item was on the way- FT: 11/2/17- Contacted by Marcus Informing me the item was backordered and gave a 4-6 week time-frame, asked if i wanted to keep the order open.

ME: 11/17/17- contacted them asking to keep the order open, because I didn't want to have to find the item elsewhere... honestly I should have just cancelled the order here.

FT: 11/21- Waiting on manufacturer, now expecting the item at the end of January, (now a 10 week wait)

FT: 1/30/18- Bri informed me Item has arrived! but PayPal payment authorization has expired. asked me how i would like to make payment again.

ME: 1/31/18- Hello, glad to hear it is finally in stock! PayPal would work best. -no contact, assumed they would request the funds through PayPal since they had my information from before...

FT: 2/6/18- Marcus informed me the item has arrived! but PayPal payment authorization has expired. asked me how I would like to make payment again.

me: 2/6/18- Hey Marcus, I've been contacted a week ago and already replied about this order payment and requested PayPal. CC'd Bri

FT: 2/8/18- they sent PayPal request for payment ME: 2/8/18- PAID -no word from film tools, assumed the order was on the way-

ME: 3/28/18- Hello, I made the payment via PayPal over a month and a half ago on Feb 8th. I never received an e-mail with a tracking number, or the item... please ship the item or refund if you cannot.

-NO EMAIL RESPONSE FROM FILM TOOLS. phone calls from here on out. ME: 4/2/18 Hi i never received my order and PayPal shows you took my payment and didn't do a refund. FT: MARY- Hi looks like the order was closed. I'll talk to Marcus and see whats going on, I'll call you back in one hour. -NO CALL BACK

ME: 4/3/18- Hi, any news? FT: MARY- Yes! we'll ship that out right away. you receive a tracking number. no tracking number ever received

ME: 4/6/18- Hi any word on my order? i never received tracking information. FT: SANDRA- looks like the order is closed! can I call you back or email you? ME: I never received a call back last time, I just want the order or my money back. Promise me you will actually call me back? FT: SANDRA- yes of course, I'll take care of it! 4/6/18 -NO CALL BACK, but receive shipping information via e-mail.

4/10/18 ITEM FINALLY...

Filmtools has been quite unprofessional. Let me tell you my experience and why this was my first and last time dealing with them.

I make an order of four lights. These lights were not in stock and I recieved a misleading email that looked like an order confirmation. Anyone would probably glance at it and think “nice, my order has been recieved.” Well I’m glad I read everything because at the bottom, they have fine print that says they have a 20% cancelation and restocking fee. There is text that follows that mentioning to respond to the email saying that I understand that the items I ordered are on back order and if they did not receive an email response that they would charge me the 20%. Right off the bat, I felt like I was being hustled.

I get notification that my order has shipped. Great! I followed the fedex tracking and I scheduled a shoot relying on the equipment I ordered. Well to my surprise, the order comes in incomplete. Now this causes a huge inconvenience because I don’t have everything for my shoot.

I contact them and they said “Looks like your shipment was split in two due to different warehouse locations. The remainder of your order is shipping out today and you will receive another e-mail shorty with a tracking number :)” As if they didn’t even check in the first place and just fixed the problem by sending it out as soon as they found out they made a mistake.

I responded to that email with my situation hoping they would do an overnight rush but no answer.

The tracking number never came in. I contact them yet again and didn’t receive a response.

I contacted again a third time and then I get a response saying that they still don’t know what is going on with the rest of the order and that they would provide me with details. They never did. I hate to beg people for things. I’ve given up. These people just don’t care. They have my money and I am left with an incomplete order. I don’t think they plan on doing anything about it either.

I don’t like to leave negative reviews, but I’ve done everything trying to resolve things directly and it hasn’t worked. Hopefully others will see this and know what bad service these people have. I reccomend buying from B&H or amazon or any other trusted company that actually care about the customer and delivering. Even eBay has a good customer satisfaction. Not...

I was originally a fan of this business. They always had competitive prices and prompt shipping. However, my most recent experience has been very poor! I purchased a 5-piece flag kit and didn't here anything for about 2-3 weeks. When I called, I was given a vague answer about the kit being back ordered with no other information. I patiently waited an entire month before calling back. During that time, I did receive only 1 of the pieces. When I called back a MONTH later to see where the rest was, I'm told the entire order was canceled because it was on back order for so long. No notification to me of this happening at all. So, I reluctantly have them put the order in again and wait nearly another month. Over the course of a few days I receive a duplicate piece to the original one sent (only supposed to be one) and two other pieces (one of the scrims has a hole). I let another week pass to see where the two remaining flags are and it's a big mystery to them. Mind you, every time I call, I'm on hold 10-15 minutes. So, to date, my order is still incomplete, I have to send their duplicate back, and who knows where the rest of my kit is. Maybe they are good for individual items, but I'd look else where for any kits...

EDIT - This review was originally posted to Yelp. About two hours after posting, a member of Filmtools damage control team was emailing me (maybe if they put this much effort into their fulfillment department?). I got the same assurances that they would "look into my order" and that I would receive an update the following day. Well, fast forward more than a week later and Filmtools has gone dark again. As it stands, my order is now over two months old and is still incomplete. I've spent 2+ hours on the phone with them and via email with no answers. This is officially the worst service experience...