Warning about Kavee

K

KikiKaka

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Jul 10, 2024
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Location
Hamilton, UK
Hi all,

Just a word of warning - avoid Kavee like the plague!

I bought one of their 5x2 cages in June of this year and we've had nothing but issues with it.
  • During set-up one of the plexiglass pieces shattered. This was admittedly replaced, but shouldn't have been so fragile in the first place given how little force it took to break.
  • A few nights ago we heard a loud crash in another room and noticed that all of the front had come away from the cage, allowing any of our pigs to escape at any point
  • The next night, one of the roof panels had fallen into the cage - luckily not landing on any of the piggies
I immediately contacted Kavee telling them about the situation, explaining that I'd followed their videos during setup and listened for the "click" sound when putting it together to make sure everything was secure, but that this had still happened despite following their advice.

I mentioned that I wanted to return it as I didn't trust the quality of it (a sentiment which has since been echoed by numerous other people online), to which their response was: sending me another cage.

I of course went back to them and explained once again that I had no faith that a second cage would be any better, but they just said "return fees are at your charge and that we cannot accept returns for items already used due to hygienic reasons".

Yes, you read that right - not only were they refusing to let me return an item which I'd proven was not fit for purpose (and which they seemingly agreed with by shipping me a replacement), they also expected me to pay any return costs even if they had allowed a return - which I should point out is a breach of UK law, given the reason for return.

I asked them to escalate it to someone more senior and got no response, so I contacted their CEO directly, who said that she would ask her "team to provide a satisfactory answer by end of day tomorrow".

That so-called "satisfactory answer"? "We are unable to accept your complaint as it is almost 4 months since you received the cage. If you wish to receive a full refund of your order I invite you to open a claim with your bank or PayPal". Note: it's not almost 4 months, it is in fact just under 3.

I have since reached out to their CEO again and called multiple numbers I've found online - only to be met with hostility when calling and radio silence when emailing.

Their entire company seems like a vile, predatory scam designed to con people out of their money and hope for the best.

I cannot recommend them in the slightest - buyer beware.

As for me? I'm now in the process of opening a claim with my bank, given that their CEO is seemingly happy stealing £180 from me.

Pictures here:
https://imgur.com/a/ugu6JLr
 
To address any comments about zip ties as I've had a couple on a Facebook group already: if you're meant to use zip ties, they should ship them with more than a measly 7 zip ties for the entire cage. For £180 it's the least they can do.
 
I'm surprised they don't send enough zip ties for the whole cage. C&C cages need them for stability, in my experience the connectors aren't good enough on their own. I don't bother with connectors these days, I got fed up with them popping off, I just use zip ties. Just to clarify my cages aren't Kavee but a much cheaper option.
 
Kavee is awful. They sent me a faulty product. They then made it impossible to return and then tried to say I had to pay for return postage abroad. I have a claim against them via my credit card company currently. Absolutely awful company when it comes to customer service if something goes wrong. They do not care.
 
Such a shame. Kavee was the first C&C cage brand I have bought from. It's been 2 years and the connectors to the grids are so brittle they snap with little effort. 😢

I found my Cagetopia cage to be great and made from a stronger coroplast. My current C&C cage is just 2 coroplast sheets from Lowes I cut and scored myself along with Amazon basic grids (this cage is solid).
 
Piggies2023 said:
Kavee is awful. They sent me a faulty product. They then made it impossible to return and then tried to say I had to pay for return postage abroad. I have a claim against them via my credit card company currently. Absolutely awful company when it comes to customer service if something goes wrong. They do not care.
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So sorry to hear this! Banks generally tend to be fairly good about stuff like this when you get them involved, so with any luck you should get your money back.
 
KikiKaka said:
So sorry to hear this! Banks generally tend to be fairly good about stuff like this when you get them involved, so with any luck you should get your money back.
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I hope so. I went backwards and forwards with them for months and then decided I had enough of their games. Not heard anything yet, I probably need to chase it and check the credit card company received my evidence.

It wasn't something I expected from a well known company whose items are so expensive.
 
Piggies2023 said:
I hope so. I went backwards and forwards with them for months and then decided I had enough of their games. Not heard anything yet, I probably need to chase it and check the credit card company received my evidence.

It wasn't something I expected from a well known company whose items are so expensive.
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I think chargebacks can take a few months to process - when did you file it?
 
I just want to point out that i've shopped everywhere for 30+ years and every item i ever needed to return was returned and i got my money back.
Every store has a refund policy and most shoppers arent even aware of this. They assume when they buy something n they dislike it they are just stuck with it but that isnt the case.

Recently i went shopping for higgins vita garden 22lbs which they didnt sell at physical stores petco/petsmart. Basically only small unknown (petflow) online shops had this item. Around $58 or so. So i placed an order at petflow, guest checkout because i only need 1 bag and would never go back to order. It asks me to make an account. I create one while checking out. My order is declined. I ask for help through texts. I get a message saying my order was picked up by thier fraud department. That i need to have an account. So i go back with an account and try again. Declined again.

Get more messages from some lady saying my order was declined/cancelled. So now i send one last message saying "ok you know what theres other stores that have this item and i will just get it from them. I no longer want this product. also please remove my account from your website as you clearly dont want me there".
I get an email next day from the lady saying "hey so we went and reversed the cancellation and allowed the order to go through". I'm like no way she this stupid. i let her know in 1 second that if i see a charge to my credit card i will be getting a refund no matter what. I check and theres 2 charges. $128 or so. I clearly said i only wanted ONE bag. It was denied so i tried again. both cancelled. She said they were cancelled btw. you know what she did? She allowed both orders to be reversed and charged my credit card without my consent when i said i want nothing to do with your company.

Items already shipped out. I let them know in 1 second it will be returned to them when it gets here (denying package/return to sender) and I'm getting my refund. I will leave a review on every shop review site that exists (yelp, trust pilot etc), i will make a youtube video and expose them, i will open a case with paypal, do a credit card chargeback with my credit card. Basically no one has ever taken advantage of me and never will because every item you buy can be returned and you will always get you're money back no matter what. quickly a different girl emails me saying sorry for the mistake etc....now they want to fix things. Anyway they got thier item returned and i got my money back.

Hall of shame petshops to stay away from
#1 petflow

I purposely pay through paypal (credit card attached) for a reason because the first line of defense is filing a claim with paypal, 2nd line of defense is another claim through you're bank. Basically one of the 2 claims has to go through. If a ceo,manager,owner,supervisor etc claim no return policy exists (false btw) your bank,paypal has you're back. you can either list it as Defective (doesnt work as it should flimsy etc) or not as described (such as hay being brown colored instead of green).

I remember when i got my guinea pigs in 2017 i went to petco/petsmart and got every treat in the store, whatever they didnt eat i returned easily. 95% of treats they disliked. I stuck to just hay and pellets since. The only treats they liked was the higgins vita garden and oat hay (tropical carnival oat spray). Hay used to be all green before. Now for some reason quality went downhill and i had to return lots of hay because it was brown etc...
 
This is a shame. I used a kavee 5x2 with acrylic panels during my last 6ish months of owning piggies. I didn’t personally have any issues, I used the connectors and also cable tied everything for my own peace of mind - obviously you can’t cable tie the acrylic sheets though.
When I received mine, a couple of the acrylic sheets had slight hairline cracks in them and Kavee quickly sent me 5 more as a replacement which I thought was nice.

Sorry you have had a poor experience :( if you can’t get it sent back, definitely cable tie everything. I know we shouldn’t have to, but I personally could never not do this on the off chance. The connectors, even from non Kavee cages, don’t fill me with much confidence by themselves!
 
Little Ones said:
This is a shame. I used a kavee 5x2 with acrylic panels during my last 6ish months of owning piggies. I didn’t personally have any issues, I used the connectors and also cable tied everything for my own peace of mind - obviously you can’t cable tie the acrylic sheets though.
When I received mine, a couple of the acrylic sheets had slight hairline cracks in them and Kavee quickly sent me 5 more as a replacement which I thought was nice.

Sorry you have had a poor experience :( if you can’t get it sent back, definitely cable tie everything. I know we shouldn’t have to, but I personally could never not do this on the off chance. The connectors, even from non Kavee cages, don’t fill me with much confidence by themselves!
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After I blasted them on social media (with dozens of people saying they had similar issues and that they simply don't care about their customers unless you're an influencer), I got an email about 20 minutes ago saying they'd be sending over a pre-paid return label for both cages.

I informed them that we're far past that point - I was told I'd have a resolution by the end of the day yesterday, so a PayPal claim has already been filed and they're getting precisely nothing back!

Definitely going the cable tie route and avoiding Kavee like the plague from now on...
 
KikiKaka said:
After I blasted them on social media (with dozens of people saying they had similar issues and that they simply don't care about their customers unless you're an influencer), I got an email about 20 minutes ago saying they'd be sending over a pre-paid return label for both cages.

I informed them that we're far past that point - I was told I'd have a resolution by the end of the day yesterday, so a PayPal claim has already been filed and they're getting precisely nothing back!

Definitely going the cable tie route and avoiding Kavee like the plague from now on...
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With a PayPal claim, I believe you will only get your money back if they haven’t offered to return the products. Since you’re refusing to return the products, PayPal will likely not be able to do anything since you could get your money back from the supplier but are now choosing not to
 
Little Ones said:
With a PayPal claim, I believe you will only get your money back if they haven’t offered to return the products. Since you’re refusing to return the products, PayPal will likely not be able to do anything since you could get your money back from the supplier but are now choosing not to
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If that's the case I'll just go to my bank and explain PayPal are breaching UK law by requesting I pay return postage on a faulty item. All bases are covered!
 
Gosh I hope you get your money back! I have to admit I have a kavee cage that I haven't had the best experience with either. It was a 5x2 originally on a stand (like yours pictured) and the stand was rubbish, wobbled everywhere until I cable tied everything together, which I agree they should supply all the cable ties at the price point. Now I have extended to a 6x2 and I put the cage on a table instead of the stand and it's much more secure - but I'm sure it would be cheaper to buy the grids and coroplast elsewhere and make it up at home
 
JaseChase said:
Gosh I hope you get your money back! I have to admit I have a kavee cage that I haven't had the best experience with either. It was a 5x2 originally on a stand (like yours pictured) and the stand was rubbish, wobbled everywhere until I cable tied everything together, which I agree they should supply all the cable ties at the price point. Now I have extended to a 6x2 and I put the cage on a table instead of the stand and it's much more secure - but I'm sure it would be cheaper to buy the grids and coroplast elsewhere and make it up at home
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I definitely will be thanks to their incompetence at replying to the initial claim - I know the law fairly well, as do most of the people who oversee chargebacks, and their defence will get laughed out.

On the 0.0001% chance my case goes to someone incompetent, I'll just file a court claim against Kavee - it'll be an open and shut case!
 
Nothing wrong with Kavee. You’re just not putting it together properly. Use zip ties and it’s all good. And don’t complain about the price of zip ties.. they’re like £1 for 200..

Imagine putting a cage together incorrectly then moaning it’s not stable.. 🥴🥴🥴
 
Isabellajones said:
Nothing wrong with Kavee. You’re just not putting it together properly. Use zip ties and it’s all good. And don’t complain about the price of zip ties.. they’re like £1 for 200..

Imagine putting a cage together incorrectly then moaning it’s not stable.. 🥴🥴🥴
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Did you bother reading the thread, or did you just come in here to shill a horrible, fraudulent company?

Regardless of the terrible quality of the product (and the fact that they never once mentioned cable ties in any of the instructions I was sent for assembly), their customer support (or complete lack thereof) is absolutely disgusting.
 
Isabellajones said:
Nothing wrong with Kavee. You’re just not putting it together properly. Use zip ties and it’s all good. And don’t complain about the price of zip ties.. they’re like £1 for 200..

Imagine putting a cage together incorrectly then moaning it’s not stable.. 🥴🥴🥴
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Do you practice being obnoxious or does it come naturally? :twist:
 
Ive had two kavee cages and lasted 6 years.i did use zip ties.c and c cages uk ,are very good and solid.
I'm sorry you have had a bad experience.
I would recommend zip ties forfuther use of c and c cages
Ive got commercial cages,due to having a cat,i find them very solid ,i also use disposable bedding in these..
Good luck in getting it all sorted.
 
I didnt have a good experience with them either when I used them a couple of years ago. My cage ended up stuck in some EU country (can't remember where now, possibly Belgium?) And I had to go back and forth between fed ex and Kavee, neither being any help whatsoever until I almost had to demand an explanation on one of their Instagram lives. Eventually they managed to get in contact with fed ex after my multiple attempts to contact them were met with basically being told to leave them alone 🤣 and the cage arrived almost a month late.

Anyway, it was so flimsy even with cable ties I had to create a base for it with regular C&C grids and again, cable tie the living hell out of the thing, which was a pain as their grids are just ever so slightly different sizes to regular grids, meaning the base isn't actually flat 🫠 so it's still wobbly, but sturdy thanks to the 100+ cable ties I shouldn't have had to use. Connectors went in the bin as they were useless.

The only good thing was they once made "baby bars" but they no longer sell them, so I now don't really have any good points I'd really recommend from them.
 
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