Farnell UK Reviews 1,037

Seem to be going downhill.

As an Account holder would be one of our first choices for parts. Not anymore.

Ordered a part that came in a 32 Pin DIP package.
The parcel (jiffy bag) arrived and it had clearly been crushed either by another parcel or someone standing on it. That will happen with a jiffy bag though!

Rather than Farnell just collecting the damaged package they require I photograph or video the packaging, package, contents, parts, damage.........

Really don't have time for this, if they packaged it correctly it would have arrived safe.

Have done the requested pictures but will have them collect and refund, not interested in such "Customer Service"!

Will now only use Farnell if they are the only supplier with stock.

Ordered mosfet transistors, they send me empty package! Feel totally scammed. They made some kind of credit refund. I dont see this credit in my bank account or farnell account, so no Idea how to use this credit. Plus the this refund credit only for transistors price, but not shipping, which I paid too. It was good company while ago, but now total scammers. Stay away from them! Better use RS

Their website is unusable. I have to spend way too much time trying to get parametric search to work and it becomes really expensive, both for the company and our customers. Whenever I can, I try to use Mouser or RS simply because their parametric search doesn't randomly freeze or crash my browser like Farnell's does. Seriously, has nobody actually tested how it works before deployment? Why does it update search results whenever a parameter is selected or unselected? And when I select a parameter, why does the parameter list reshuffle? Because of that, selecting multiple parameters is borderline impossible. And then when you think you have it right the website freezes or just resets all filters without warning. I left feedback MONTHS ago, but nothing has changed. Me and my colleagues don't order from Farnell anymore unless we can find the component by typing the part number into google. Otherwise, the aforementioned competition's websites are our go-to place for sourcing parts and building BoM for projects.

Very poor service. I've ordered two Flit thermal imagers back in June and two months later I still haven't received them. I keep receiving updates saying that they are checking their stock levels but at the time of ordering their website showed 5 in stock and now it still shows 3 in stock. Waste of time.

THIEVES, they send only with payment upfront and there are many things missing from the package. Just recived a small package from them and a WERA PZ0 blade was missing and a small bit. This shop should be forbidden. I will do my best so they won't be allowed to sell in my country anymore.

I swore never to buy from Farnell again after prior poor experience. However I had no choice on one item because they were the only people who had it in stock, so I was left with no choice.

I can confirm that Farnell are still as useless as they always have been.

Farnell claimed to have 14 of this item in stock available for same-day dispatch.

So I ordered it.

Of course Farnell did not dispatch the same day.
Of course Farnell did not dispatch the next day.
On Day 3 I receive an email saying "We regret to inform you that your order did not despatch as anticipated."

Useless. Completely Useless.

Had to pay £10 'handling charge' on an item costing £20!! Decided to go ahead with the order on the understanding that it would arrive next day, and because I urgently needed to get it asap. To my disappointment the item did not arrive next day - some delay or excuse was given, but they even refused to refund me some of that extortionate 'handling charge' claiming it wasn't delivery, but 'handling'.....whatever that means. My perspective is they didn't 'handle' my order well, and I never got a call back from a manager as promised. Expensive to deal with but with no corresponding good service to match the cost.

UPS have failed to deliver my parcel from
Farnell for two weeks. All sorts of nonsense about all sorts of issues and repeated failed promises to deliver the parcel. Farnell customer service have been useless and have no desire to sort this out - i.e. get me my parcel.
The last thing UPS have tried is to claim sort sort of problem with ‘security access’. There is no problem with access to the property for deliveries nor was there on the previous occasions UPS delivered on behalf of Farnell.
I’ve never had this sort of problem before but this is beyond ridiculous

I normally have had no problems with Farnell, but in the last few days, it’s gone from great to terrible.

I placed an order with them for next day delivery on a £3 component and was told it was shipped just after 6pm. Thought great, but then the next day I was told by UPS who they keep using that the order was delayed due to their super hub having a technical issue. This was at 3am, when it arrived at their ‘super hub’. By 5pm the same day it’s STILL THERE. I then got in touch with Farnell live support who in-turn contacted UPS and was told it would be delivered the following week!

Now by rights this isn’t Farnell at fault, which I understand. But this is where it goes from bad to worse. I placed another order for the same component for SATURDAY delivery, which cost me £31 on a £3 component! But because I needed the item I placed the order. I was told if it was before 5pm it would be sent with no issues. By 5pm I received no email, but then by 7pm I received an email to say it had been shipped and would be with me by noon on Saturday. I thought fantastic!

That’s where it went down hill FAST, I checked on the tracking straight away and was greeted with.. ‘Your parcel is delayed due to unforeseen technical issues’. It had ONLY just been picked up?!?! So got in touch with the live support again and was told and I quote:

You need to contact support via email as we don’t have access to accounts or orders

This was the SAME live chat that I had been chatting with the same day! Who had contacted ups and found out what was going on! Anyway I emailed support to try and find out what was going on and got a new reply I kid you not:

Thank you for your email, we will reply to you in 1 business day!

SERIOUSLY… this is supposed to be support who are working 24/5.. that means working 24 hours for 5 days!!

Once these orders finally arrive I’m NOT going to order from them ever again! I’d rather order from USA like mouser or digikey. Least I’ll have an idea when it’s going to arrive!!

**UPDATE**
Got in contact with a great person in their customer support who was able to trace the parcels and got everything sorted out and even processed me a full refund on the Saturday postage.

For this I’m putting the review up to 3/5

We recently received an order that was placed on April the 6th 2022 (13 months ago), cancelled it off a few weeks later and it has only just been delivered. Needless to say, we no longer require it as we purchased an alternative from RS instead.

I had ordered a digital plug and the price that was displayed was £5.53 so I chose to order 1 pc the total on the checkout was the same as above,but when I checked my PayPal account a total of 18.53 was taken from my account,when called customer service I was told that I was charged small parts handling charges.I think this is a rip off, money don't grow on trees, especially in this difficult time, tried to return the product and I was told that only £5:53 would be refunded,I am not going to throw my hard earned money away.I would like to advise all customers to be vigilant about such private firms that try to make easy money out of their sales.I would not recommend Farnell to anyone really disappointed I am going to make a formal complaint to the consumers forum to avoid such unfair charges to other customers

they promise next day delivery, if you order until 18:00 ... ordered until 10:00 just to be sure ... and still, got my package after 4 days.
I would not mind, but the shipping cost was 5x more that the cost of the product, so I would expect some quality service there. Not with these crooks obviously.

STAY AWAY!

what a terrible company to deal with their paperwork goes wrong they dont tell you and when you ring up they are unhelp. Wish I had never used them. order placed 14 of April and I have just chased as to where the parts are as they are now desperate and they could not care less. terrible service and a company that dosent care.

Don't Buy from there ! Worst customer service, worst attitude, Business non-compliant with the law - no customer oriented attitude. Simple waste of time

Waited 10 months to be told an item I had backordered had been cancelled as they couldn't take payment. No prior communication or warning to explain there was any issue taking payment and no communication to explain my order was cancelled. I only found out when I chased them. As a result I have wasted 10 months waiting for nothing.

I've been waiting for almost two weeks, filled out a bunch of paperwork for a small number of components. The data in the order is mixed up. They don't answer me. This is just terrible service and attitude towards people. You won't give me back the time I lost. Just return my money.

Order items informed the stock was allocated and waited for delivery, never arrived, I called and was told a different story, I cancelled the order

Just as I thought things were improving: placed order at the end of last week for next-business-day delivery, and despite having all Easter weekend to process the order, which should have been delivered on Tuesday morning, I've now been informed it'll be Thursday. Two tracking changes from UPS so this may be a courier issue, but the point is I needed this stuff on Tuesday not two or three days later! Maddeningly, RS stock the same thing - I so wish I'd ordered from there as I'm pretty sure i'd be shipping product today instead of delaying the customer's order.

Easy ordering, fast delivery.