Complaint Review: bicycledirectory.com - Chico California

I have the same issue, I received the exact same call in December 2010. I feel for it! I had my bank account information used to pay their fees! They respond saying that I agreed to the terms! Yet they never mention any terms during the call and they even say they are paying you for your time! They also went as far as to try to say I am the one who has multiple names and locations and that my business practices are the ones at fault here. I have a business name and my own name! I have a business address and a personal residence address! I live on the border or 2 states so of course I have 2 names and 2 addresses, doesnt every business owner? And why would he focus on my business practices other than to attempt to get the spot light off of himself. I reported the fraud to my bank, and to BBB and now here as well. I never cashed the check and I never logged in to the site. I did not know I had a time frame to read anything and I didn't open the package until I was charged the $294 by surprise. Upon opening the package I saw a check and it was stapled over the "fine print" telling you the terms of the charge. It says that they wont charge until 30 days after receipt and they even placed the charge sooner than the 30 days. It wont make a difference if you call and opt out, they would have still charged you. Imagine how many businesses dont catch on to the charge!

They operated as PowerSports Directory and they answer the phone as Information Agent. They have been scamming businesses for years now! Dont be the next victim!

To respond the the owners response that "They agreed to the Terms of service" The terms were never explained so how would anyone be able to agree? It is deception and he knows it! That is his scam and he is dishonest. They have a special room in He-ll for you Mr. Scott.

Jan,

I will pay you $500 if you show a phone bill with more then two calls on more then two different days to our phone (530) 343-8894 during the month of December. I will even pay you $200 for two calls on two different days.

I will pay you $500 if you can show the headers of ANY email sent to us from you during the month of December.

I will pay you $500 if you can show ANY time you attempted to fax us.




The fact is, YOU;

 

1) YOU agreed to the terms of the offer on the phone. It was not "free". YOU agreed to the obligations. YOU AGREED. No one stood there with a gun to your head asking for your agreement.

2) A subsequent phone call was made where YOU agreed AGAIN with the VP of sales to honor the terms and obligations.

3) YOU explicitly acknowledged that YOU had received the certified letter when you spoke to Frank Bedene on December 21, 2009.

Here is the bottom line Jan,

You did NOT follow the obligations that YOU agreed to... TWICE

Once you were billed instead of giving us an opportunity to make you happy you publicly slandered our company with words such as "scam", rip-off, etc.

... and then you call our response overly sarcastic? OUTRAGEOUS.

So there you have it Jan... You agreed to obligations, you were given multiple opportunities to cancel, you failed, you slandered our company.

All that and we cheerfully refunded you.

... and your still at it... calling our services over priced etc.

Jan... Go check this company out  http://www.infousa.com/

You can buy a vastly inferior mailing list for about $2k

We allow it in real time for $294

Plus about 20 other services tossed into the deal.

... and we PAY YOU to check it out, without cost , IF you simply follow your obligations that you AGREE to in advance, plainly and clearly.

At this point Jan... please... call it a day... Thank you for at least acknowledging the cheerful refund we provided you INSTANTLY upon your request.

Try and have a little more patience and class next time before you try to burn a business in a public forum. After all you reference the holidays as a reason for your slow response and yet castigate us for not being at your beck and call.

Have a happy new year!

 

 

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Jan,

I will pay you $500 if you show a phone bill with more then two calls on more then two different days to our phone (530) 343-8894 during the month of December. I will even pay you $200 for two calls on two different days.

I will pay you $500 if you can show the headers of ANY email sent to us from you during the month of December.

I will pay you $500 if you can show ANY time you attempted to fax us.




The fact is, YOU;

 

1) YOU agreed to the terms of the offer on the phone. It was not "free". YOU agreed to the obligations. YOU AGREED. No one stood there with a gun to your head asking for your agreement.

2) A subsequent phone call was made where YOU agreed AGAIN with the VP of sales to honor the terms and obligations.

3) YOU explicitly acknowledged that YOU had received the certified letter when you spoke to Frank Bedene on December 21, 2009.

Here is the bottom line Jan,

You did NOT follow the obligations that YOU agreed to... TWICE

Once you were billed instead of giving us an opportunity to make you happy you publicly slandered our company with words such as "scam", rip-off, etc.

... and then you call our response overly sarcastic? OUTRAGEOUS.

So there you have it Jan... You agreed to obligations, you were given multiple opportunities to cancel, you failed, you slandered our company.

All that and we cheerfully refunded you.

... and your still at it... calling our services over priced etc.

Jan... Go check this company out  http://www.infousa.com/

You can buy a vastly inferior mailing list for about $2k

We allow it in real time for $294

Plus about 20 other services tossed into the deal.

... and we PAY YOU to check it out, without cost , IF you simply follow your obligations that you AGREE to in advance, plainly and clearly.

At this point Jan... please... call it a day... Thank you for at least acknowledging the cheerful refund we provided you INSTANTLY upon your request.

Try and have a little more patience and class next time before you try to burn a business in a public forum. After all you reference the holidays as a reason for your slow response and yet castigate us for not being at your beck and call.

Have a happy new year!

 

 

It is only fair to bicycledirectory.com that I mention the refund was processed in full on the date mentioned, December 24th, 2009. Thank goodness.

I also apologize that I have not been able to post this update until now. Considering we're in the middle of the Holiday season, I hope this delay can be seen as understandable.

However, the response by bicycledirectory.com (also operating as bicycleaccess.com and Information Agent, Inc.) is not only unnecessarily sarcastic, but also factually incorrect.

Let me state again why this $294 charge was a ripoff. Of the "obligations" mentioned, it is important to understand the following:

* We never cashed the $25 check included in the Start Up Materials
* We never logged into the site to "check out the different services [we] offer the bicycle industry" as mandated by bicycledirectory.com mainly because;
* We weren't able to login to the site since the main site and all related webpages were unavailable.
* Fortunately, the contact webpages have been updated since my report! Click here to see the update date of December 22, 2009: http://www.bicycleaccess.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=160  
* Prior to that date, and upon every attempt I made to even locate contact information through their respective webpages, I was sent to a "This page cannot be displayed" error.
* Eventually I was able to locate contact information on my own through a whois.com search for the owner of the bicycledirectory.com domain. I am very glad to see that the contact pages are now available and functioning.

If you followed the rebuttal, it also states that I, Jan Feuchtner, signed for the certified letter informing us that the trial period was ending. This statement should have been looked into first, since the initials of the signer were "H.B." on Monday, November 23rd. Not only do we not have anyone in our shop with those initials, but we're closed on Mondays so I have no idea who signed for that certified letter. It certainly wasn't me or any of my employees.

But, just like many of the points made by bicycledirectory.com, that fact is really irrelevant. What does matter is that I tried on multiple attempts to contact them via telephone, in order to speak with someone in person, and the phones were what I perceived to be inactive. The phone would ring for about three minutes and then simply disconnect. Perhaps this is an issue they need to take up with Grasshopper, but I had no interest in continuing to waste my time by sending emails, faxes or "snail mail" letters if no one was going to be there to receive them.

While I am not surprised that the example letter provided by Adam Angelona of Company Bicycle was a cancellation request, I would much prefer to see a letter from someone satisfied with the services.

Since the main reason small business owners opt to move forward with this scheme is the concept of free money, it is very important to remember the bottom line: Nothing in life is free, and even moreso there is no such thing as free money. Clearly bicycledirectory.com is finding loopholes in their "obligations" to offer a low level of service at a very high price. I just can't believe I was persuaded to move forward from the beginning. That was my fault and a mistake I will not make again. The true irony is that I'm the one being called the "bad apple."

STUNNING!

This report is from Oasis Bike Works. Oasis Bike Works has a main webpage at http://www.oasisbikeworks.com/. Despite this, Oasis Bike Works often operates under the name Bicycle Shop.

On October 6, 2009 our sales person Ashten Hilkey spoke at length with Mr. Jan Feuchtner of Oasis Bike Works, 10376 Main Street, Fairfax, VA 22030. Jan Feuchtner identified himself as the owner and was offered the opportunity to examine, without charge, the services that bicycledirectory offers to the bicycle industry. A promotion we had at the time incentivized dealers to take the time to test drive our services by payment of $25.00 from us. The money was not free. It required two (2) obligations;

1)      The customer / bicycle dealer must actually login to the site and check out the different services we offer the bicycle industry

2)      The customer / bicycle dealer must inform us if they were uninterested in purchasing the services we charge money for if not interested in purchasing them. A 30 day period was provided for that contact.

That was the agreement. Jan Feuchtner agreed to it, explicitly, knowingly, and clearly on October 6, 2009.

TWICE.

As a policy after any sales representative creates a start up order our vice president of marketing makes a personal phone call to confirm every single detail of the order and to be absolutely sure that the parameters of the order are understood.

Our VP, Frank Bedene, made that call and spoke again to Jan Feuchtner who confirmed his understanding of the details of the offer in clear, concise, simple language.

On November 6, 2009 Jan Feuchtner received the start up materials. They (The start up materials) were sent directly to Oasis Bike Works. Jan then wrote a personal check for company business despite the fact that the package was sent to shop address and shop name.

It appears Mr. Feuchtner has a habit of mixing personal business with company business. Comingling personal funds with business funds (particularly a partnership or any other entity besides a sole proprietorship) is a MAJOR NO NO. Check this Google search out for more info: http://comingle.moneydata.com

In LARGE CLEAR writing the terms of the offer are reiterated in the package. In the package attached to the check are the following documents: http://terms.moneydata.com

Please note that plain and clear are not one, not two, not three, but four (4) ways to contact us. Phone, Fax, email, snail mail.

No contact received from Jan ever occurs.

During our business day, 7:00 AM 3:00 PM PST we answer the phone live. After hours messages are handled by http://grasshopper.com

Grasshopper records it all and the caller ID as well. No contact from Jan there either.

It gets better;

We do not want anyone to forget about the end of the trial period. We send Jan a certified letter PRIOR to billing him that informed him that the trial period was approaching an end and it was time to cancel if his business wished to pass on the offer.  He signed for it on November 23, 2009.  You can look up tracking number 4202 2030 9121 8052 1390 7098 2874 20  at http://usps.com to view delivery details of that pre billing notification.

We did not bill until December 15, 2009.  39 days after his receipt of the startup materials. You would think that Jan could have utilized one of the four methods of contact successfully within 39 days.  Nope. It did not happen.

The first we became aware of ANY problem was this report posted on December 17, 2009. We immediately placed a call to the shop on the 18^th. It was closed for the holidays. We left a voice message. We called the shop cell phone. We left a voice message.

Jan returned our call on Monday December 21, 2009. Jan must have been a bit embarrassed. He failed to mention the rip off report he filed (we did not bring it up) He did however confirm that he had received all the materials listed above. He did confirm his receipt of the certified letter alerting him to the expiration of the free trial a full 24 days before he was actually billed.

Jan was actually very pleasant during the phone call and did ask for a cancellation and a refund. One was cheerfully issued. Jan has had that refund in his possession since December 24, 2009 at 8:00 AM. It is now December 29, 2009 and where is Jan posting an update about all the above (including his refund) ? We may well wait until a snow storm on the 4th of July!

Here below is a cancellation letter from a quality dealer that passed on our offer. He enjoyed our payment and was never billed by us. Any and all customers / shops that followed their agreement and choose not to purchase had a similar expierence. We are in business to make customers and friends and to serve the industry. It is unfortunate that a few bad apples like Jan Feuchtner / Oasis Bike Works / Bike Shop ruin it for so many others.

 

From: "Company Bicycle" [email protected]

To: <support at bicycledirectory.com>

Subject: Company Bicycle Cancel

Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:31:46 -0500

X-Mailer: Microsoft Windows Live Mail 14.0.8064.206

X-OriginalArrivalTime: 28 Feb 2009 16:31:45.0904 (UTC) FILETIME=[0BE51F00:01C999C2]

Dear Bicycle Directory,

Thank you for sending the information about your website, and I appreciate you listing my shop. I

have logged into your site and reviewed the additional services that you offer. However, I do

not need these services at this time. I would like to cancel any subscription that you may have my

business listed. I understand that by cancelling before the end of the 30 day trial, there will

be no charges. I also understand that by logging into your site and reviewing this information, I am

entitled to cash the enclosed check without obligation.

Again, thank you for your listing, but I would like to cancel the subscription that you have signed

me up for.

 

-Cheers,

Adam Angelona - Owner

Company Bicycle LLC

3714 7th Ave.

Charleston, WV 25312

304-744-7433

www.wvcompanybicycle.com