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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Topic: My RecTec Bullseye Experience (Read 9515 times)