Negative feedback for YATON

[Voguekun]

I see a lot of negative reviews for Yaton here and just wanted to chime in with my own experience. If you haven't gotten your stuff in months and haven't heard from in a month, that's not acceptable.

Ordered two Astro City cabs in April. Paid via paypal f&f at first. I got a message from him that my paypal f&f bounced and that I needed to send a wire instead. It is truly only the three people I asked who said "yaton is legit" that kept me from blowing the whole thing up. But, as promised, in August, my cabs arrived. The condition was okay--one had vertical collapse that wasn't fixed with a recap, the other had bending that is 80% fixed via a full recap. When I told him about the broken one, Yaton sent me another chassis for free on the condition that I send him the broken one. It got here this week and it works perfectly.

There is definitely stuff getting lost in translation. I had a DHL tracking number sent that literally never updated and made me feel anxious about that chassis, for example. But then it simply arrived somehow. On the same token, I got a phone number for the delivery service for the two cabs which just didn't work. I had to figure out how to call out of the country to his province in China to finally hear from someone, who hung up on me instantly--but then sent me an email.

So basically, my perspective as someone who just had a chassis he charges 300 bucks for sent for free without any guarantee I'd send my broken one back--you might understand how I'm very confused that he's basically ghosting everyone else. He should do better--it's his job as a business to make the customer happy. But his actions don't seem like someone who is intentionally negligent or scammy.

 

[rewrite]

Not replying to people for weeks and months, promising refunds and not sending them, and no shipping products *is* intentionally negligent and scammy.

You cannot do those things on accident.

 

[Voguekun]

I think it can be equally contributed to being slow and bad at communication.

Where was the upside on him sending me a chassis which he has no recourse for recovering? I mean, maybe the fact that I'd share this in a thread and help his reputation, sure. I don't blame anyone for being mad at him, for the record. He should give refunds to people that want them, especially to those that didn't receive items.

 

[Hedonism Bot 2.0]

Not replying to people for weeks and months, promising refunds and not sending them, and no shipping products *is* intentionally negligent and scammy.

You cannot do those things on accident.

Something is up, since ordering off his ebay accounts the stuff arrives.

I've done business with him for years but things are far out of hand now.

 

[BlinG]

Something is up, since ordering off his ebay accounts the stuff arrives.

I've done business with him for years but things are far out of hand now.

Yaton doesn't have an ebay account anymore. The Chinese sellers you see on there that look like Yaton are probably some old business associates of Yaton.

 

[TodoRojo]

I’ve been kind as hell to the dude and I’m happy to post screenshots of our conversations. When he asks for a week, I give him 3. When he disappears for months at a time, I reply with a “life happens!”

To the end that he sells product and it often arrives; sure, he’s not a scammer on that part. But he will hang you out to dry the minute anything goes wrong. Once he owes you money, he stops responding. Does he sell product? Yes. But give him an inch…

 

[narf]

I ordered 2 astro city cabs in late May which showed up in July. Communication is difficult I suspect because of language barrier. Had to chase for updates even after the cabs landed to get them delivered to my door.
Cabs were in fairly rough shape. one was fixed with a recap. The other partially fixed with recap. Also had very shoddy wiring. Complained and he sent new chassis and wiring for under the control panel. Would I do it again? well it was a good learning experience in fixing it all up, however I wasn't expecting to have to do that. Pay a little more and buy local is my recommendation. If you need to contact them, they respond in facebook chat in a day or 2. Stay polite and professional and he does typically deliver on promises.

 

[TodoRojo]

I ordered 2 astro city cabs in late May which showed up in July. Communication is difficult I suspect because of language barrier. Had to chase for updates even after the cabs landed to get them delivered to my door.
Cabs were in fairly rough shape. one was fixed with a recap. The other partially fixed with recap. Also had very shoddy wiring. Complained and he sent new chassis and wiring for under the control panel. Would I do it again? well it was a good learning experience in fixing it all up, however I wasn't expecting to have to do that. Pay a little more and buy local is my recommendation. If you need to contact them, they respond in facebook chat in a day or 2. Stay polite and professional and he does typically deliver on promises.

I would love to report that that is my experience. But I ordered in January and have no cab and no refund. I’d love to have at least a broken cab.

 

[BlinG]

The fact that people still buy expensive cabs from him is crazy. It has been documented for a while now that he stiffs people the second things go wrong in shipping. When he tried to stiff someone over a huge container (I think it was over $10k) and it required the buyer to do a charge back on his credit card should have been the moment he was banned.

Some of you might have to just take the L and take this as a learning experience.

 

[TodoRojo]

The fact that people still buy expensive cabs from him is crazy. It has been documented for a while now that he stiffs people the second things go wrong in shipping. When he tried to stiff someone over a huge container (I think it was over $10k) and it required the buyer to do a charge back on his credit card should have been the moment he was banned.

Some of you might have to just take the L and take this as a learning experience.

Absolutely, and that’s how I started this process. $1800 was worth the gamble for me. As the closest importer to me stopped doing business last year, it wasn’t a bad price for a cab delivered to my door. It also wasn’t anything I was too concerned about losing since it’s only $1800 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. But if I can get it back, I’m sure gonna try.

I wouldn’t do it again, but had it arrived it would’ve been aight.

 

[Cereth]

To the people posting positive transactions, how long have you been doing business with Yaton? ‘cause I think you guys are missing some of the point. Yaton has been a go-to in the past, and a lot of us bringing up problems about it now know that. The problem is that he isn’t fulfilling NOW. People recommending Yaton to you did so based on the fact that he for the most part WAS good. There’s no point in trying to excuse what he’s doing now; we have already seen better service out of him before. What he’s doing now is not normal and not acceptable, past be damned.

 

[Voguekun]

If there is any confusion at all about the timeline of my experience, he sent me a working replacement chassis thirty days ago. It arrived one week ago. The Astro Cities I bought from him this year were the first pieces of arcade hardware I've purchased.

Your issues with Yaton are valid. He should update you. You aren't wrong for wanting to hear from your selling in a timely manner. I am simply sharing a transparent account of my situation with the same seller.

If nothing else, here's proof that he's around on facebook messenger. His messages from me were from Thursday, Sep 29th. It's definitely uncool to leave people on read but update someone else who has something to send you--but this has so far only been to my benefit. Blurred addresses.

 

[rewrite]

If there is any confusion at all about the timeline of my experience, he sent me a working replacement chassis thirty days ago. It arrived one week ago. The Astro Cities I bought from him this year were the first pieces of arcade hardware I've purchased.

Your issues with Yaton are valid. He should update you. You aren't wrong for wanting to hear from your selling in a timely manner. I am simply sharing a transparent account of my situation with the same seller.

If nothing else, here's proof that he's around on facebook messenger. His messages from me were from Thursday, Sep 29th. It's definitely uncool to leave people on read but update someone else who has something to send you--but this has so far only been to my benefit. Blurred addresses.

All you're really doing is proving that he's willfully screwing over others by showing he's capable of communication inside the past few days.

It's good you got lucky. Unfortunately many have not.

 

[Romano]

If someone was communicating with YATON exclusively via this forum, please let us know and we will enable him again but with some restrictions. If nobody contact us, we wil leave it as it is, but honestlty, if he hasn't responded yet or has done it so poorly, I doubt it will get any better now.

Hi

On my side the only contact I had from him (James) was on this topic and/or PM (after several weeks/months).

So Thanks to arcade-Projects.

But no result for now…

 

[Darksoft]

OK. We will enable his account again but his posts will need approval. Pinging @brizzo

 

[RetroRGB]

I bought an Astro City from Yaton. The deal was $1900 total (including shipping) for one that was in good condition, with a tube that didn't have any burn-in and two six button controls.

When it arrived, I saw it had two 4-button controls, so I already knew he got it wrong. I carefully wheeled it out of the palette and heard a clank - After opening the back, I realized he never bolted the chassis to the CRT frame and it was flopping around.

I waited to power it on until Jose and Artemio arrived...this was back on August 25th when everyone was visiting. We inspected the whole thing and found the yoke connectors were broken. We tried to get it working and only got an image in the center of the screen. We put it back together and I ordered some proper yoke connectors and a chassis cap kit.

Jose came by this week, did the full recap and fixed the yoke connectors - No change: https://twitter.com/RetroRGB/status/1577425368528859136

We also tried putting the CRT in TATE mode to see if it would fit and it didn't - The frame hit the back of the cab, so it was probably the wrong frame. My guess is Yaton never powered it on - He just slapped a CRT, frame and chassis into a random Astro City and shipped it over.

I spoke to PayPal and they said they'd start an investigation against the account I sent my money to (gouqinghua0314@sina.com), but since he insisted on using friends and family, there isn't much they could do.

BUT

If enough people complain to PayPal, they'll definitely treat it differently than just one complaint...ESPECIALLY considering the combined total dollar amount from all the people he screwed over. Also, if the payment included a credit card, there's some hope. Luckily, 2/3 of the PayPal payment came off my credit card, so there's a small chance I'll get something back, but most likely not as much as it'll cost to figure out how to properly repair this.

So, if you care enough to try to get your money back from any of his scams, start compiling all the different PayPal accounts he uses, report them all and let them know a LOT of people are getting screwed over. I know a lot of people here hate me and that's fine...but maybe you can put that aside temporarily and help us all try to get our money back? My damage is tiny compared to what he did to other people I know, but I'll still help any way I can out of principal.

 

[BlinG]

Jose came by this week, did the full recap and fixed the yoke connectors - No change: https://twitter.com/RetroRGB/status/1577425368528859136

Your yoke windings is probably broken somewhere. Check this thread, the issue is almost identical.

 

[Plymelk]

We also tried putting the CRT in TATE mode to see if it would fit and it didn't - The frame hit the back of the cab, so it was probably the wrong frame. My guess is Yaton never powered it on - He just slapped a CRT, frame and chassis into a random Astro City and shipped it over.

That frame in the video you linked is not an original Nanao frame for sure.

I know a lot of people here hate me and that's fine...but maybe you can put that aside temporarily and help us all try to get our money back? My damage is tiny compared to what he did to other people I know, but I'll still help any way I can out of principal.

I can only speak for myself but I enjoy your content Bob and appreciate the work you and your crew do promoting our little corner of the world. I wouldn't think I am alone here.

 

[cruzlink2]

This is what the hanging chassis looked like, it was a miracle it didn't get knecked.

 

[Aurich]

can only speak for myself but I enjoy your content Bob and appreciate the work you and your crew do promoting our little corner of the world. I wouldn't think I am alone here.

Nah, lots of people like Bob, there's just a small vocal group that has issues with the NY crew for whatever reason. It's petty nonsense that really doesn't belong here imo.

Bob and Jose are cool with me, that's for sure!