Pellet Fan
Pit Talk -- Comments and Questions Regarding These Pellet Pits => recteq => Topic started by: Th3Batman86 on January 24, 2018, 11:38:49 AM
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This was the only site that really had any discussion on the Bullseye. So I have created this thread to tell you about my experience in trying to buy one. I have copied this from the post I made on Reddit /r/smoking. I apologize for any grammar problems. Original post follows below. **Note** I have now tried to leave two reviews on the bullseye webpage. Both 1 star for my experience. Neither review has shown up. When you try to leave a review you get a message that says "pending approval". Since I have left them I have seen 4 new reviews show up. All 4-5 stars. All reviews on all RecTec products on their website are glowing reviews. Nothing negative at all. This leads me to surmise that RecTec is practicing review censorship.
So.. Long story short. I ordered a Bullseye back in Nov when they were announced. I was planning on ordering an RT680 and a RT300 at the same time. Well when I went to order they had discontinued the mini and announced the bullseye. On a whim, I ordered the bullseye. The bullseye was shipped about two weeks after the promise date. Not great but whatever. It arrived and the packaging looked fine. However since I was in the process of moving I put off putting it together. On Dec 31 I decided to put it together. It did not go well. The included instruction and YouTube video on assembly are not well written or made and so it took about three hours by myself. Would have gone faster with someone else. During the build I noticed many manufacturing defects. But I wanted to put it together and some slight scuffs don't put me off. However, the problem that every hole was millimeters off and I had to do some bending and forcing to make it work probably should have clued me in. Once together I attached the lid. This is where everything went south. The lid would not close evenly. At all, even with force. It was completely askew. At this point I knew I would be sending it back. But I decided to fully assemble it just for the sake of it. So I picked up the deflector and the grill and put them in. They did not sit close to even. The bowl was not manufactured correctly. They both rocked terribly. So I went inside and emailed Rec Tec. On Tuesday I was called by Adam who listened to my complaint and agreed to just send out a new one. I was to put the bad one in the box and send it back. I was not terribly happy with this as it was a pain to assemble but I wanted one. And maybe they would throw in a "sorry" gift. My RT680 came with a free bag of pellets, so maybe. They did not. Would have been an easy and inexpensive way to score some points with me. But they did not. New one arrived and I didn't even bother assembling it. Now let me tell you, after the first one was complete garbage, and no "sorry" gift, my threshold for mistakes on the new one was zero. They did not meet this requirement. The lid and body lips were both covered in bare metal where the porcelain did not attach. I did not even finish removing things from the box. I put it all back and emailed Rec Tec asking for a refund. Which they agreed to after Adam (again) said he was "really sorry". So I have them both on a pallet and they will go back tomorrow. I am extremely unimpressed with RecTec at this point. While they stood by their product and agreed to take it back they made two costly errors in my book. 1) No "sorry" gift. I know this sounds like I am begging for something free, but I am not. After years of customer service and retail sales (my exp.) this is just the right move. It is cheaper to keep a customer than acquire a new one. When retail companies apologize they can only do it with the one thing that they and you share, your money. Give me a hat, a bag a pellets, a beer koozie, a 10% off coupon. Something to show me that you are sorry that I have to spend another 3 hours assembling it and disassembling and shipping back. Do something to admit fault beyond just replacement. and 2) and this one was perhaps bigger. Adam kept blaming shipping. He blamed shipping for everything. Every dent, ding, crooked piece, bent part, scratch, and even, somehow, for the porcelain not being attached to the metal and the paint not being attached to the metal, was all the shipping companies fault. I stuck up for them and told him that some of these have to be manufacturing problems and they should really look into them. But he stuck to what I assume the company line was and blamed it on UPS. This really rubbed me the wrong way.
What it boils down to is I would not recommend you buy a bullseye. At least not until they bring the price down to $199.99. Because that is what I feel I would pay for this product (if it weren't damaged). And based on the craftsmanship, I feel like I would pay that in a BigLots. It has absolutely no business sitting beside my RT680 and I would be ashamed to tell people the same company that made the RT680 (which I love) made the bullseye. The question at this point is would I still recommend RecTec because I love the RT680... I don't know. They did attempt to send me a new one, and they are paying for both of them to be shipped back and giving me a refund. But I really should not have had to go through all this in the first place. There should have been some quality control. A weber grill is $100 and they manage to get the porcelain right.
https://imgur.com/a/m2SQ2 (link to photos)
UPDATE: See my reply below in the posts to see that RecTec's owner reached out to me.
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Nice review of the Bullseye. Sorry to read about and see your issues.
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Nice review of the Bullseye. Sorry to read about and see your issues.
Thanks, I was sorry too. The really bad part is that it took me three phone calls to them to get the pallet picked up. They blamed that on UPS too. And I have two emails into their customer service right now for a couple questions on my RT680 and I have not gotten any reply. One of the things I heard about RecTec before I bought it was how great their customer service was. I am afraid I have not had that experience. I have not called them yet but I was hoping to avoid that.
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I am going to say this just so we are clear. We stated from day one this was not going to be a site where manufactures were bashed, or threads were allowed to devolve into a giant rant.
This is not a pleasant review for Rec Tec, but I believe it is an honest assessment of ONE PERSONS experience. It will stay up and folks will be allowed to comment...AS LONG AS IT does not turn into a scab picking contest!
Thank you all so far for adhering to the sites policys...
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I am going to say this just so we are clear. We stated from day one this was not going to be a site where manufactures were bashed, or threads were allowed to devolve into a giant rant.
This is not a pleasant review for Rec Tec, but I believe it is an honest assessment of ONE PERSONS experience. It will stay up and folks will be allowed to comment...AS LONG AS IT does not turn into a scab picking contest!
Thank you all so far for adhering to the sites policys...
Thank you for saying something. I did not intend it to be bashing and am glad I didn't break any rules with my first post. As you said it was my experience. I kept and love the RT680 I ordered at the same time. I just knew there is another bullseye thread on this site and quite frankly it was the only site I could find (among the other forums) where the bullseye was being discussed so I wanted to chime in and tell what happened to me. I always want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Launching a new product is difficult and this could just be a miss for them. We all remember "new coke".
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Thanks for being an early adopter and taking one for the team. ;) I would agree that their website has way too many positive reviews so I don’t bother reading them. They do sell some of their products on Amazon though. There are a few negative reviews of the RT-680.
Hopefully they figure out the Bullseye issues. Maybe it’s just too new and the manufacturing process has to be worked out. They should inspect them before they ship out.
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As someone looking to buy a Pellet Grill in the next couple of months, I find this review honest and informative. Thanks for leaving it up, as I feel that honest reviews like this, will also lend credence to the positive reviews. No company is infallible
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Thanks for being an early adopter and taking one for the team. ;) I would agree that their website has way too many positive reviews so I don’t bother reading them. They do sell some of their products on Amazon though. There are a few negative reviews of the RT-680.
Hopefully they figure out the Bullseye issues. Maybe it’s just too new and the manufacturing process has to be worked out. They should inspect them before they ship out.
QA and QC are job number 1. Neither of the op's units should have shipped.
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If I remember correctly, when I received my RT-680 there was a letter stating that it had been tested before shipment. Not sure if they are still doing this. Seems like the Bullseye is being shipped prepacked from China and RecTec is not opening them before shipping to the customers. Maybe that’s due to cost or perhaps they don’t have the manpower. Who knows.
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If I remember correctly, when I received my RT-680 there was a letter stating that it had been tested before shipment. Not sure if they are still doing this. Seems like the Bullseye is being shipped prepacked from China and RecTec is not opening them before shipping to the customers. Maybe thats due to cost or perhaps they dont have the manpower. Who knows.
There was a green QC sticker with some initials on it under the hopper on both units. Now, whether these were stickers from RecTec or from China is unknown. Also, whether these are stickers for the whole grill, or just the department that makes the hopper is unknown. Either way, there was a sticker.
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I am going to say this just so we are clear. We stated from day one this was not going to be a site where manufactures were bashed, or threads were allowed to devolve into a giant rant.
This is not a pleasant review for Rec Tec, but I believe it is an honest assessment of ONE PERSONS experience. It will stay up and folks will be allowed to comment...AS LONG AS IT does not turn into a scab picking contest!
Thank you all so far for adhering to the sites policys...
Thanks - One of the biggest benefits for a forum like this is honest feedback, both good and bad.
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Does anyone here actually have a Bullseye and used it to cook? I haven’t seen many reviews on them. The Rec Tec fan Facebook page has a lot of posts from people using them but no real reviews.
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UPDATE:: I received a call from Ray Carnes today. He was very apologetic and willing to do anything to make it right with me. He was very passionate and was actually upset and his feelings were genuinely hurt that I did not call him personally the minute there was a problem. Long story short he apologized. Told me they are better than that. Told me that he is convinced it is all shipping. That things to not leave their warehouse in bad condition. I argued back a little bit that I have trouble believing the freight did it all. He finally conceded that there is a small small chance that it wasn't perfect when it left. But he was very passionate that their stuff leaves perfect. He says besides shipping damage they have had a less than 1% incident problem on Bullseyes. Even with that said he promised me that they would strive to do better. To apologize and make up for my situation he is sending me a free bullseye. He is going to take it out of the box and inspect it personally. And he is going to send me photos of it before it leaves. He made me promise to save his personal cell phone number in my phone and to call him anytime for anything. He said he understands why I didn't call him and that it is because we as consumers are trained to go to customer service first. But he said RecTec is not a normal company. That people are not used to dealing with a company like his. And he wants everyone to call him for any problems. That is why he gives his phone number with every order. I just want to repeat again how passionate he was about his company and his product. He apologized to me for being upset (at the beginning of that call tempers may have been high) but he had just read my review and was just mad about the whole thing. I told him he didn't need to apologize for being passionate about his company and his product. I am so impressed with this company and this response. I have pulled down the review from Reddit as perhaps I wrote it when I was angry. I am leaving this one up for now because I have more faith in the readers of this forum than I do in Reddit. I believe that you guys will read this update and not just get the pitchforks out. I will update this once I get the new bullseye. And I will cook on it and leave a review. I want to once again say that I am impressed with Ray Carnes and his company and will consider what happened a fluke. Do not let my situation deter you from buying a RecTec. This has completely restored my faith and I am looking forward to seeing what they come out with in February.
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That is great news! It really shows you the power of posting your bad experience with photos to back it up. Good call on Ray’s part to offer you a free Bullseye.
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Proud to be a Rec Tec owner.
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This was one of the reason I left the thread and figured it was one man's opinion...And not just a bash job...Seemed quite strange to me...
(The Bullseye) It has absolutely no business sitting beside my RT680 ...the RT680 (which I love) ...because I love the RT680...
Well, I guess you got your freebie...
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Glad you got things worked out. Like you I don't believe shipping had anything to do with it. Not based on the pictures.
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but honestly, at that low of a price point, and for a grill that has to actually be assembled by hand for hours...I don’t think expectations can be but so high.
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Sorry I don't agree with you here. Regardless of the price one should expect a unit to be in tip top shape.
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Glad you got things worked out. Like you I don't believe shipping had anything to do with it. Not based on the pictures.
My only comment here is that if IF he is right and it was all damaged in shipping. Then the packaging is not correct. Because neither of the boxes were damaged. And if the contents can move around that much to damage themselves, then that still isn't on the shipping company.
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Glad to hear things are working out for ya! Customer satisfaction goes a long way in this business!
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I'd like to thank Bentley for leaving this topic up... and for the original poster for sharing , in a manner that I do believe was pretty sincere and not really trying to 'bash' the company, etc... I think virtually every grill maker is going to have issues from time to time... I think Rec Tec seems to handle problems as good or better then any other company, which is probably why it's so rare to see anything truly bad about a Rec Tec grill or a users experience with them.
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I'd like to thank Bentley for leaving this topic up... and for the original poster for sharing , in a manner that I do believe was pretty sincere and not really trying to 'bash' the company, etc... I think virtually every grill maker is going to have issues from time to time... I think Rec Tec seems to handle problems as good or better then any other company, which is probably why it's so rare to see anything truly bad about a Rec Tec grill or a users experience with them.
The third bullseye gets here on Monday. So cross your fingers it isn’t a mess. I will update this thread when I have it out of the box. That may not be Monday.
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Had a similar 'experience' with a GMG Davy Crocket a few years back, the third one was the charm - This type of situation can be very frustrating - for both parties.. Sounds like the situation will resolve itself soon..
Keep with it.. Enjoy your new Bullyeye.
.... :bbq:
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I had a similar issue with a refrigerator. They had about 9 service calls on it because the ice maker fan kept freezing over. They finally decided to give me a newer model (2 years newer). 1st delivery the product was damaged. They didn't even take it off the truck. Apparently, the next 3 deliveries to the appliance store from the manufacturer also arrived damaged. After that, the manufacturer called me and made me an offer to send them the serial number sticker on the inside of the fridge in exchange for a VISA gift card valued at what I paid for the fridge. I kept the fridge and now turn off the ice maker once it is full. Turn it back on when it gets close to empty. Haven't had an issue for over 6 months when I was having an issue every 2-3 months before. Bit of a pain, but I can deal with it for what they paid me. :cool:
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Looking forward to hearing the rest of the story Batman, and some thoughts after you use your Bullseye. My interest became peaked by the Bullseye as I use my 680 for mostly low and slow and would like to look at an alternative to high heat cooking than my gasser or a charcoal fired pit. Glad you stuck with RT as you really can't beat the customer service they provide.
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Looking forward to hearing the rest of the story Batman, and some thoughts after you use your Bullseye. My interest became peaked by the Bullseye as I use my 680 for mostly low and slow and would like to look at an alternative to high heat cooking than my gasser or a charcoal fired pit. Glad you stuck with RT as you really can't beat the customer service they provide.
It is perfect for what you are looking for. I have a 680 and bought a bullseye for just that reason and love it. fast to temp, super hot searing. You can fire it up for lunch even and have it hot, cooked food cooling and be eating before your 680 would be at temp. super easy too no lighting and prepping charcoal. Gasser is easier, but wood is better flavor.
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I’ve been waiting for reviews on the Bullseye. Are you willing to do a more in depth review?
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I’ve been waiting for reviews on the Bullseye. Are you willing to do a more in depth review?
I am hoping to, just had zero time to really do one up. Long and short though I LOVE it. I was upset when they discontinued the mini, as I had planned to get that for my hot and fast grilling (90% of my grilling fits on two 19" long grill grates). However now that I have a bullseye I am glad they did and forced me to wait. The bullseye is a better GRILLER than a typical pellet grill with drip tray could ever be imho. Nothing beats direct flame on meat for grilling.
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Thanks to EVERYBODY involved in this thread. In the end we wind up with a potentially happy customer, informed future customers, great pub for a hard working manufacturer and a forum gains more credibility. None of this would be possible if the forum didn't allow an honest telling of a customer's experience.
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Thanks to EVERYBODY involved in this thread. In the end we wind up with a potentially happy customer, informed future customers, great pub for a hard working manufacturer and a forum gains more credibility. None of this would be possible if the forum didn't allow an honest telling of a customer's experience.
I agree and I am really happy the admin let it stay. I will do a more in depth review once I get it. Just might not be timely. I work full time and am a full time student as well (nothing like back to school in your 30’s) so it may be a bit before I get to really use it. I will update on th delivery condition though. I also want to say as the OP I love that this is such an active thread and active site.
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Hope you stick around for awhile after your delivery.
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The new Bullseye arrived today. The box looks good. I will update with assembly when I have time. I popped open the top and took a quick pick. Nothing jumping out at me. I did notice the strapping band is very loose and the little triangle on top to keep things from being stacked on it is MIA. Not looking good for UPS at this point.
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The new Bullseye arrived today. The box looks good. I will update with assembly when I have time. I popped open the top and took a quick pick. Nothing jumping out at me. I did notice the strapping band is very loose and the little triangle on top to keep things from being stacked on it is MIA. Not looking good for UPS at this point.
So it was UPS freight that made the delivery? Def interested to see how it turns out for you.
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UPS Freight have made 2 out of the three deliveries. The first and the last. The middle one was XPO logistics
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Have you had a chance to use the Bullseye much? I’m considering getting one and would like to know what you think of it.
I’d primarily use it for hot and fast grilling.
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Have you had a chance to use the Bullseye much? I’m considering getting one and would like to know what you think of it.
I’d primarily use it for hot and fast grilling.
I have used it a few times. Been pretty wet here in Oregon so not much. I have been refraining from typing a "review" until I really get to use it. But to answer your question, for hot and fast (think what you would do on a propane) it works great. This will be/is my primary use for it too. However, I do think for build quality they have it over priced. So you will have to weigh that yourself. Also, it pretty much has to been vacuumed out every time so that is kind of a bummer. A cool thing is that the weber grate drops right in. So I bought the weber gourmet system grate with a cast iron insert and a wok insert so I am looking forward to playing with those on it. I will do a better review once I have really put some time on it.
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Maybe the quotes mean something, maybe it is semantics. But I will take this time to remind everyone, we don't allow "Reviews" by members of Pellet Units! We have a section for Member reviews of just about anything else if a Member can follow those rules.
Cook on the unit, feel free to post your cooks and comments, personal experiences, but please leave the Pellet Unit Reviews to the Site!
I have been refraining from typing a "review" until I really get to use it.
I will do a better review once I have really put some time on it.
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That is what I meant by the quotes. Not a true review, just my thoughts and feeling and experiences once I have enough of them to form a solid opinion.
Maybe the quotes mean something, maybe it is semantics. But I will take this time to remind everyone, we don't allow "Reviews" by members of Pellet Units! We have a section for Member reviews of just about anything else if a Member can follow those rules.
Cook on the unit, feel free to post your cooks and comments, personal experiences, but please leave the Pellet Unit Reviews to the Site!
I have been refraining from typing a "review" until I really get to use it.
I will do a better review once I have really put some time on it.
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Does anyone here actually have a Bullseye and used it to cook? I haven’t seen many reviews on them. The Rec Tec fan Facebook page has a lot of posts from people using them but no real reviews.
I have one and use it often. It's a good griller. Ups delivered mine all beat up. Took one phone call to get it replaced. It's not perfect. It's just an entry level pellet grill. I like the concept and know the company will improve on that design.
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