My Stradalli Purchasing Adventure
rmayerik,
Before you buy a Stradalli, allow me a moment to let you know what you might be getting into. It might sound a bit over the top, but I can back up what I say here 100% in emails and various documentation. I also have no problem being contacted personally to verify anything I write here. PM me and have at it, folks. Here are the facts:
I live in the Cayman Islands. I chose Stradalli for a couple of reasons -- they answered the phone on Saturday (7 Jan. 2012), are located within 30 miles of my freight forwarder, could ship the bike to them FedEx, and also had everything I wanted in stock. And not least, they were quite friendly and helpful, so I was delighted and confident to proceed. I've done a ton of research on the Chinese generic / Ebay frames, knew a bit about their sources and was totally comfortable with the quality, etc. It all looked so easy and simple.
I pulled the trigger on the following Monday, Jan. 9. I purchased a 58cm Trebisacce with a full SRAM Force spec. Patrick was the sales rep, and let me make it abundantly clear here and now that he has been simply great thru this whole process. From what I've experienced to date, he's a stand-up guy. I very much doubt he's at the root of my issues with Stradalli.
Long story short, they sent me the wrong frame. Frustrating and irritating, but but mistakes happen. Living on an island you get used to it. So I sent the frame back on the spot. I paid all the return shipping costs out of my own pocket (about $200 in charges and various export duties, etc.) Everything else was OK so I kept the rest of the parts. I wasn't too worried about the return shipping money. I figured that we could come to some kind of agreement later. I just wanted (and still do!) a new bike. The correct one, though. I don't think that's too much to ask, seeing how I paid for it in full now is it?.
Here's how it panned out for me.The wrong frame I sent back is still at US Customs pending clearance by Stradalli. I can't clear it from 500 miles away, they must do that themselves. It's addressed to them, for G0d's sake!! But they won't because it's 30 miles away from them. The right frame is at their shop, but they absolutely will not send it to me until the wrong frame arrives safely back in their hands.
Nevermind that there are companies out there who could clear this thing out of US Customs for about $50-$75. I even did the research to help them out and sent them an email summary of what to do. I spent a bunch of time and long distance $$ doing that. Which, as you will soon see, makes me feel like I'm wearing an extra large pair of donkey's ears right now.
So in my case their position boils down to this: they make the first mistake, I pay to correct it, they refuse to follow thru in good faith. Now they have my all my money, the correct frame in their possession and at least the legal means to retrieve the wrong frame from Miami. Just hire someone to do the paperwork and get it out of Customs. To me, that warrants a bit of positive action on their end. A couple of days go by. I'm growing uncomfortable, so I called Patrick on Friday 20 Jan. 2012 to see what's up. I explain that, quite reluctantly, if Stradalli doesn't send out my frame I would have to issue a credit card chargeback for that amount and...
Boom. That's where things go absolutely off the rails. Someone who was not Patrick (he had a German accent, I believe) butted into the conversation, and hung up on us. Disconnected a paying customer in mid sentence, mid resolution. I was not rude or unreasonable, I did not do or say anything aggressive. I was completely stunned and surprised. I emailed them a lengthy, firmly toned but still friendly note outlining my position. I called back about 3 hours later.
The same person with the German sounding accent answered. He called himself Dale (?) and claimed to be Patrick's boss. This is where things took a turn that I'm still at a loss of words to fully understand.
HE CURSED ME OUT. Called me a f*ggot. Suggested I go and fellate some one. Go and f*ck myself. A paying customer. Some Joe who just wanted to buy a bike. He treated me like some sort of mangy thief. And to think, I paid thousands to experience that.
If only...if only I could have been there to physically respond to his cowardly and vile little spiel. There's still plenty of time to make amends for that, however.
And not even an apology of any type today (Jan. 23, 2011). If I owned that business, I'd be on the phone in a flash, doing whatever it took to put the fire out. But not these guys, even in the age of the Internet and social media. What does that say about them to you??
Take all this with as much salt as you like. It's your money. But I can prove to one and all that doing business with Stradalli has been nothing but pain, aggravation and grievous insults. It's got me mad enough to make write all this down at midnight anyways! This whole fiasco is still ongoing as of today. so there's still plenty more of that to come, I'm afraid. You will DEFINITELY hear about it.
As a fellow cyclist, I advise you proceed with extreme caution, sir.
Regards,
Anthony R, Ebanks
