I recently bought a new front derailer from Performancebike.com. This is the kind of thing that an experienced cyclist who does his or her own mechanical work does all the time. You know what you need, you find it for the lowest price you can get it, and you order it. I checked the specs, and really, there aren't many parameters on a thing like this. Make and model? Clamp diameter? So it arrived, lo and behold, it's a braze-on model. Not the 31.8mm clamp-on model I expected. I emailed customer service, with a PDF printout of the page from their website showing that what they were advertising was different from what they were shipping and got this response:
Performance is not responsible for printing errors or other errors appearing in our catalogs or Web site. All orders are subject to acceptance by Performance, Inc.
Rad. So, if you advertise that you're selling a pair of cycling shoes and I order them and get only one in the mail, you can blame it on a printing error and I'm just screwed?
4 comments:
performance pulls this crap all the time. The prices look good until you realize you receive the downgrade from what you ordered. They have done this to me a couple times so I stopped ordering from them.
Yeah, and we have no shortage of shops around here where I can see what I'm getting before I pay. And really, the prices aren't that much different.
I admit, I'm an online e-tailer junkie when it comes to bike parts, often because I don't have time to drive around to the various shops to find out what I need. It's easier sometimes to just order online and let the parts come to my door. Still, I had a huge runaround with Performance that ended happily when I posted this story to my blog:
http://re-turn.blogspot.com/2009/09/indignity-of-doing-your-own-bicycle.html
The short version is that despite my ordering from them lots of times, they couldn't find any record of me in their system, until somebody actually tried to do so, and then they could...
I've never been impressed with Performance either online or in-store. I tend to order online from jensonusa.com or Niagara Cycle Works (through Amazon). Both of those have been good so far.
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