[dandurston]

About 1.5 mths ago I was looking to buy a Race Face Diabolus seat post and I was participating in a few threads on here about where to buy it because I'd rather buy from a Canadian shop to save on shipping and tax/duty. Anyways, a lot of people suggested not going with bikeroom because a lot of their orders have gotten mixed up / delayed etc. In the end for me it came down to a toss up between them and Cambriabike.com. I ended up going with Bikeroom because I was only ordering one simple item and they assured me via phone and email that they had it in stock and it would ship ASAP. Here's some quotes from their emails:

"I have 30.9 Diablous seatpost, 350mm long, in my hand right now" (note: how do you type with a seatpost in your hand???)

"[discussing matching CambriaBike.com's price] we'll drop the shipping $0.90 cents to match them and it will be in your hand sooner."

I called them and placed the order over the phone so I could confirm they had it and confirm the size etc. This was on Tuesday Oct 18th and they said I should have it sometime next week.

Fastforward to today, over 5 weeks later, and I still haven't got anything. After 2.5 weeks I gave them a call and got no answer so I left a message. Since then I've been calling and emailing them regularly. I've left about 8 messages on their various phone lines all with detailed and numerous means of contacting me. To date, they haven't returned one call or email so I have no idea what's going on. I'd be suspicous they jumped town except for 2 things:

1) There mailbox was full and now it's not which means they are at least checking their messages
2) They just put up a brand new Christmas themed site.

Anyways, I just thought I'd share about the difficulties I'm having and perhaps you guys can either avoid shopping there or share some info with me on other ways of contacting them. I've emailed them at [email protected], [email protected] and called them at their Vancouver (604) number and their toll free 1-877-354-1996. It's sad that I don't even need to look up their phone number anymore. This sucks...

 

[Call_me_Clyde]

Bummer

Sorry to hear about your predicament. Thanks for sharing the details, as it may prevent someone else form a similar situation. I'd cross-post this in the "Where are the Best Deals" forum if you haven't already done so.

I hope you get resolution soon.

Bob

 

[finchy]

I bought a fork from them last november, they sent me the wrong size (i bought a stance king pin and needed the tall version, they sent me the short) so i sent them it back after talking on the phone with them and they received it 3 or 4 days after i sent it back... so they had it mid november... and i waited and waited and waited for them to re credit my visa ... january rolls around and the only option left after contacting them and leaving angry messages was to call visa. they did somehting and 2 days later i got my money back...

if i was you contact id my credit card company because they are commiting fraud. This is not an isolated case it has happend to me and many others whom have dealt with bikeroom.


CONTACT YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY!!!!

 

[ilikebeer]

Seems like the oldest trick in the book...
The put it off as long as they can, hoping the buyer is too lazy or forgets to do anything about it. Contact your credit card company.

 

[MVRIDER]

Call your cc company, yank the charge, start over again with someone else. Your cc company is on your side!! If you do a search, you'll find that you are not the only one with problems with bikeroom. Here's some other food for thought on the subject.

http://64.91.243.156/archives/000023.html

Apparently others think they are shady too.

 

[dogonfr]

About 1.5 mths ago I was looking to buy a Race Face Diabolus seat post and I was participating in a few threads on here about where to buy it because I'd rather buy from a Canadian shop to save on shipping and tax/duty. Anyways, a lot of people suggested not going with bikeroom because a lot of their orders have gotten mixed up / delayed etc. In the end for me it came down to a toss up between them and Cambriabike.com. I ended up going with Bikeroom because I was only ordering one simple item and they assured me via phone and email that they had it in stock and it would ship ASAP. Here's some quotes from their emails:

"I have 30.9 Diablous seatpost, 350mm long, in my hand right now" (note: how do you type with a seatpost in your hand???)

"[discussing matching CambriaBike.com's price] we'll drop the shipping $0.90 cents to match them and it will be in your hand sooner."

I called them and placed the order over the phone so I could confirm they had it and confirm the size etc. This was on Tuesday Oct 18th and they said I should have it sometime next week.

Fastforward to today, over 5 weeks later, and I still haven't got anything. After 2.5 weeks I gave them a call and got no answer so I left a message. Since then I've been calling and emailing them regularly. I've left about 8 messages on their various phone lines all with detailed and numerous means of contacting me. To date, they haven't returned one call or email so I have no idea what's going on. I'd be suspicous they jumped town except for 2 things:

1) There mailbox was full and now it's not which means they are at least checking their messages
2) They just put up a brand new Christmas themed site.

Anyways, I just thought I'd share about the difficulties I'm having and perhaps you guys can either avoid shopping there or share some info with me on other ways of contacting them. I've emailed them at [email protected], [email protected] and called them at their Vancouver (604) number and their toll free 1-877-354-1996. It's sad that I don't even need to look up their phone number anymore. This sucks...

I sent them a email,
It would be nice if you could return this persons calls & emails.
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=147869
They replyed back,
Thanks David, will call him again today
David
Give them hell!!

 

[SHIVER ME TIMBERS]

Call your cc company, yank the charge, start over again with someone else. Your cc company is on your side!! If you do a search, you'll find that you are not the only one with problems with bikeroom. Here's some other food for thought on the subject.

http://64.91.243.156/archives/000023.html

Apparently others think they are shady too.

yep call, your credit card right now

 

[dandurston]

Thx for emailing them...it seems wierd to me that they are checking their messages and replying to others emails but completely ignoring mine. It's not like I'm just shouting profanities or anything...I've always been totally professional about it. Anyways, they can check any of their phone mailboxes or their records for my contact info. I doubt they'll call though...It is cool they got back to you though. Which email address did you use? [email protected]??

 

[dandurston]

I did a bit more research. My order was placed Thursday Oct 20th not the 18th and Bikeroom charged my credit card on Friday the 21st. Isn't it normal business practice for an online store to only charge your card once they have shipped the goods or are about to? I thought if something was backordered they usually hold off but perhaps that's just been my perception.

 

[dogonfr]

Thx for emailing them...it seems wierd to me that they are checking their messages and replying to others emails but completely ignoring mine. It's not like I'm just shouting profanities or anything...I've always been totally professional about it. Anyways, they can check any of their phone mailboxes or their records for my contact info. I doubt they'll call though...It is cool they got back to you though. Which email address did you use? [email protected]??

Yes that is the email address is sent it to.
Depending on the size of the buisness they will charge your card first then ship out when the product hits their place. That's how they keep their personal cash flow going to keep from going out of buisness. They probibly work on C.O.D. with suppliers.

 

[dandurston]

Perhaps I just gotta wait for a few more fools to order more stuff from them so they can charge them early and then they'll order my post. Now that I missed the last month of the riding season I really just need to have it by March or so.

 

[coma13]

I ordered some fairly expensive Christmas presents from an online retailer that serves a bunch of luxury brands, Louis Vuitton, etc. My credit card wasn't charged till they received confirmation that I had received the product, which I thought was pretty cool.

 

[dogonfr]

Perhaps I just gotta wait for a few more fools to order more stuff from them so they can charge them early and then they'll order my post. Now that I missed the last month of the riding season I really just need to have it by March or so.

They answered me in about 1 hour, but they dont have my money. You should call your credit card company as suggested cancel the order & reorder from a place that has it now. Dont let them make you wait longer.
I have used PricePoint in the past.
http://www.pricepoint.com/thumb/3-Parts-68-Seatposts-True.htm

 

[dandurston]

Can I still cancel the order if it happened back in mid-October and it's almost December? It seems like Bikeroom would have got their money from them by now.

 

[dogonfr]

Can I still cancel the order if it happened back in mid-October and it's almost December? It seems like Bikeroom would have got their money from them by now.

I'm no specialist on this matter but you should contact your credit card co. & let them do there job to get your money back or the product in your hand tommarow. While your cruzin the net you could be on hold with the credit card co. waiting for their customer service specialist. Call now while its on your mind.

 

[dandurston]

I emailed Bikeroom again today around noon saying if they didn't get back to me today then I'd call my credit card company. They called me about 4hrs later and said that they are a small family run business and their father died a couple weeks ago plus they are in between inventory systems so my order got somewhat lost or delayed or something. They offered to send it to me tomorrow via next day UPS or Xpresspost but I said regular mail is fine cuz I'm done riding for the winter anyways. The death in the family does excuse their lack of communication with me recently but I did place my order over 5 weeks ago so they still had a couple weeks to get my product off which should have been no problem since they said they had it in stock. Anyways, as long as I get it I'll be happy.

From my experience and from reading others experiences it seems to me that Bikeroom.com does have very good prices cuz they are willing to match pretty much any price but they are somewhat sloppily run and often orders are wrong or late. Other people have had trouble contacting them and finding solutions but it seems that once Bikeroom does deal with it they usually are pretty helpful and sometimes hook you up with better stuff. If you do want to order from them for some reason (like their price is the lowest) then just keep your order simple and do a follow up call or email after a couple days.

 

[finchy]

sounds like BS to me

u should have taken teh next day shipping and demand not to be charged for it

notice that they contacted u after u got the credit card company involved... big surprise

 

[ferday]

hey, i got screwed by bikeroom too!!

i ordered an evil DRS and they charged my card the next day, 6 months (yes, six months) later i finally received a DRS which was missing pieces. they do not return phone calls, and they do not return emails. i will never deal with bikeroom again. if they are a small business then their customer service should be even better than that of pricepoint, jenson etc...

shouldn't it?

 

[yespsb]

sounds like BS to me

u should have taken teh next day shipping and demand not to be charged for it

notice that they contacted u after u got the credit card company involved... big surprise

We are an online retailer to the tune of >$100m, we trade across the worlds time zones and based on UK practise you have 90 days to issue a card charge back, I am uncertain of the American time limit but I thought it was similar.

Any sane distance retailer (online, mail order etc) would act to avoid this because too many charge backs has the card issuing company looking to raise the retailers bad debt or insolvency pot.

This is basically of sum of money the business has to put either in to an escrow fund or the card issuers insolvency fund to pay out if their company goes bust or defaults. In simple terms the card issuers or clearing house work out your daily credit card revenue stream, multiple that by the number of days trading they think you could complete before they started to get warning calls from disgruntled customers if you were doing a "runner" and that becomes the insolvency pot, if you get too many charge backs the card issuers get twitchy and increase the pot by a factor of X%.

And if the death in the family is true that still does not offer a real reason for such crap service, go get your money back before you end up wasting more time on this mess.

 

[KevinB]

From my experience and from reading others experiences it seems to me that Bikeroom.com does have very good prices cuz they are willing to match pretty much any price but they are somewhat sloppily run and often orders are wrong or late. Other people have had trouble contacting them and finding solutions but it seems that once Bikeroom does deal with it they usually are pretty helpful and sometimes hook you up with better stuff. If you do want to order from them for some reason (like their price is the lowest) then just keep your order simple and do a follow up call or email after a couple days.

IMO, getting the absolutely lowest price isn't worth this much hassle. Especially since outfits like Jenson and Pricepoint have low prices, manage to get the order right, and ship quickly.

But do let us know how it turns out though...