I wanted to share my recent experiences in the hope that it would help others make an educated decision on doing business with Winwing/Winctrl, particularly from one of their country specific stores (the Canadian store in my case).

I’m not one to complain too loudly when I’m not happy with a company, but this experience was so unbelievably bad I felt I needed to share in the hopes I might help someone else avoid the issues I had.

I preordered a bundle from Winwing’s Canadian store in December 2025, it was the Airbus gear handle, ECAM controls, timer, auto brakes etc.  I paid for it in January 2026 and it shipped shortly after.  UPS listed the shipper as ZENDA LOGISTICS Corp., which I assume is just Winwing’s freight forwarder in Canada.  Unfortunately UPS lost the package.  I filed a claim, UPS confirmed the package was lost, issued a credit to the shipper, and told me to follow up with the company I had bought from.  Annoying, but shouldn’t be a big issue, right?  Wrong.

I contacted Winwing, and they said they had no record of it being lost and they would contact UPS to confirm.  They refused to accept the screenshots I sent from my UPS account as proof.  Weeks went by, nothing.  I can only assume UPS wasn’t responding to Winwing because the package had been shipped by a third party.  I spent a lot of time trying to explain to Winwing their own shipping practices, provided proof from my UPS account that it was lost and a claim issued, but they stubbornly refused to do anything about it until they heard back from UPS directly.  Winwing denied using a third party to ship packages, but also told me they had no way to confirm with that third party that UPS had issued them a credit.  Oh boy.  It was honestly the most frustrating, bang my head off a wall experience I’ve had with any company.  It was like I was arguing with people on a rigid script with no ability to actually look at the situation, or even a bot that just kept taking me in circles.

After several weeks of this and nothing progressing, I started a claim with PayPal.  PayPal asked me to try and work it out with the seller.  I thought maybe Winwing would have someone more helpful involved now that it had escalated to a PayPal claim, but if anything it got worse.  I explained all the facts, provided all of my documentation, but again they just kept saying they hadn’t heard from the shipper so couldn’t do anything.  After much back and forth, they said they could help me “apply” to have the product resent, but only if I dropped my PayPal claim.  Nice try, but the PayPal claim was my only leverage so not a chance…what a sleazy move.  And not even that they would resend it, only that they would help me apply for it to be resent, whatever that means.  I did ask what they meant by “apply”, but they never answered me.

Eventually, they said if they hadn’t heard from UPS by March, they would issue me a refund.  March 1st arrived, I asked them to proceed with a refund, and received no answer over the following week.  At that point I was close to my PayPal deadline to resolve the issue with the seller, so I escalated to PayPal for their intervention, and got an email from them today confirming they had ruled in my favour and would be issuing a refund.

Maybe this would have different if it shipped directly from Winwing, but who knows.

I had always heard that Winwing’s customer service was their weak point, and had indeed faced some annoying interactions with their customer service before.  But this experience was well beyond poor service, and into the realm of deceit and incredibly poor business ethics. It’s unfortunate all around. I’ve several pieces of hardware from them and they are quite good, but I can’t see myself taking the chance to ever give them money again, which is unfortunate and was completely avoidable on their part.

Sorry for the long post, I hope someone finds it helpful.  It was certainly a bit therapeutic for me!

Edited March 17Mar 17 by regis9

23 minutes ago, regis9 said:

After much back and forth, they said they could help me “apply” to have the product resent, but only if I dropped my PayPal claim.  Nice try, but the PayPal claim was my only leverage so not a chance…what a sleazy move.

[...] so I escalated to PayPal for their intervention, and got an email from them today confirming they had ruled in my favour and would be issuing a refund.

[...]but I can’t see myself taking the chance to ever give them money again, which is unfortunate and was completely avoidable on their part.

The same thing happened to me as quoted. Winwing tries to trick customers by getting them to waive their legal/regulatory rights.

Knowing that there will NEVER be any kind of warranty or spare parts supply, I treat my existing Winwing devices like they're made of glass.

I've never bought any mechanically stressed parts like throttles or joysticks from them because I once saw a friend disassemble a joystick and felt sick at the mechanical design (who needs screws when you have hot glue?).

I originally planned to review the complete Airbus setup from WinCtrl. After getting MCDU and FCU, I cancelled that plan. Given the rather cheap build quality, it wasn't worth the effort: The parts look okay at first glance and they do work, but I doubt they're actually worth the price in the medium and long term. We'll see...

Winwing/Winctrl is on my blacklist.

We get what we pay for. This also (and especially!) applies to direct purchases in and from China. Cheap remains cheap. No matter the country.

 

Edited March 17Mar 17 by MrLamb

In Europe their delivery, replacement and support efforts have worked quite well for me. I had an issue with the ENG1 switch in my Ursa Throttle and got a replacement part about a week later after reporting the problem to Winctrl's support.