They charge my card right away for a back ordered item. Then they discontinue the item. I complain “you charged me 65 $ (over priced to boot), for these pedals and didn’t ship them.” I get an email saying they will refund my $. Then I get my bank statement a month later and they still have my $. I ask again for my money etc.
Any legit company will not hit your card before they ship the item. Any other web site I have ever dealt with knows if something is in stock. To combine these 2 lamenesses , with a reluctance to return said $ is inexcusable.
The reason they charge your account for an item before shipping is a conscious profit maximizing choice they would discontinue if they had any real competition. But really, for a lot of stuff it’s UDC- USA or nothing, and they know it, act like it, and we must just deal with it. They read this forum and could change said rotten policy and post a thread announcing said change anytime they decide to forgo the extra $ it makes them.
I have never had another site charge my card for a non custom product before it is shipped. This is UDC USA policy. They also won’t let you know if it’s back ordered. You can just wait and hope while they hold your $. And you better not forget, because it’s your job to remind them that they ow you something. I am sure not everyone remembers. I had a similar problem on a previous order. This is not a simple problem, the result of overworked but honest people. I hate it worse when everyone says they are so “nice”. Did you ever meet a car salesmen who wasn’t ? Grow up! They have made a deliberate business decision to employ sleazy practices because it pays off for them. And no I won’t stfu until I get my money back. And they ow us more then an apology. They need to change . There is no excuse for this. Greed is an explanation, not an excuse.
I wish to end this rant by pointing out that UDC UK is a separate business, and I hear that Roger does a much better job. Please do not confuse the two.
I look foward to the opening of a new US unicycle supplier that will feature rock bottom prices, and a few people sitting around phones waiting for me to call 24 hours a day. Plus enough people to assembly all the parts of the unicycles that are ordered and to make sure they have enough unicycles and parts in stock to keep the majority of the people happy.
I assume “feel the light” and littleman joe will be heading this operation up.
I call first dibs to publicly flame them on the forums after one bad dealing with their company!
Any site may have a problem occasionally. What I want UDC USA to publicly announce they are changing is the policy that they will charge your card before they ship the item. Name another site that does that Mr. Habby. You have completely missed the point. It is ok that they update their site to reflect stock on a monthly basis. To charge an account for an item that is listed in stock, that is then not shipped is wrong. To need to be reminded to refund the money that no legitimate site would have taken in the first place is wrong. This is not a tiny Ma and Pop operation. UDC USA turns over a million dollars/yr. It is not the cost of the software that is holding them back. I have friends who own web businesses. They have confirmed to me that the only reason to show something as in stock, charge an account for it, not ship it then hold the cash as long as you can is because you get free money that way. Greed. Not because they are to small to figure it out. Not incompetence, my friend"s business is tiny in comparison. It is as simple as that. Don’t charge the account before you ship the item. That policy is dishonest, and deliberately so.
I’ve never met the people that run the buisness, so don’t say I’m bagging on them because I don’t like them. I’m sure they’re great people, but good people or not they have a major buisness so they need to run it smoothly. When I got on here my first intention was to ask if anyone else knows of a website that will sell me a torker dx without the seat, and I went a little over board with the yelling at unicycle.com. I’m sorry to everybody that I offended. I don’t want to earn myself a bad name. If there’s anyway to delete the thread I’ll do it if anybody tells me. By the way don’t tell me to shut the – up again. Thanks.
I think this place has the best price on torkers, with free shipping http://brandscycle.com/itemlist.cfm?category=111
I would try to get a used one for less. I don’t like how torkers use a unique size bearing just to rip people off. No kidding, torker bearings are 30$/pair to replace. Vs. 4$/pair if they had used a standard size.
Here’s a good read if you want to read what KH and others have to say about the retail uni pricing biz.
Give Dan a call before you flip out. He is in Mira Mesa–Action Cyclery. Why wait for shipping when you can have it TOMORROW! Tell him Sean sent you. I remember he had a DX in stock, don’t remember if it was a 20 or 24.
Feel the Light, I don’t know how your Cycle Brands place has a cheaper price than UDC. It seems that in this case they are about $20 more expensive than UDC US. Amazing - UDC US actually being cheaper than another place. I must say that I think the prices both at UDC US and Bedford are very high. It is hard to beleive that in a country the size of America another distributor to specialize in Unicycles does not pop up! I read an article on UDC in the NY times and I was surprised by how profitable the business was. John Drummond had a nice position with IBM for over 20 years and he opened up UDC on a part time basis. After a year he quite IBM because he was making so much more with UDC.
I must also say that it seems that MDC (Germany), UDC UK, UDC Sweden and Qu Ax are much more involeved in unicycling events than UDC US.
You’re right unicyle.com does suck, it is just one of those search pages that relies on people not being able to spell or type properly.
Unicycle.com on the other hand is great, it supplies almost everything you could want unicycle-wise and has a website full of photos and descriptions of unicycles and parts. They’re not perfect, sometimes a few of their 1000’s of product descriptions are not totally up to date and they do make the odd mistake from time to time but I think they are doing a good job and from what I have heard they always try and fix any mistakes, if you contact them rather than just complaining on a forum.
The cycle brands place is 10$ cheaper then UDC for a dx20, but does charge more for a dx24, which I didn’t notice when I posted the link. I have never bought anything from them. With the free shipping I thought it might save 20 $ or so, but I guess it depends on which he wants to buy.
Just an idea, maybe they would match UDC’s price, and still give the free shipping.
Could you please start by letting us know where you learned of this policy? From one or two individual experiences? That does not a policy make, as I have already responded in another thread where you wrote nearly the same thing. Talk to them first, then us.
BTW, Brands Cycle is a bike shop in Wantagh Long Island. They may be a separate operation for the mail-order stuff though, but they were a very big shop when I lived down the street from them in the 80s. They are not experts at unicycles; they just re-ship what they get from the distributor. Though their distributor might be UDC, it’s probably directly from Torker’s US distributor as Brands has been around forever (okay the site says 53 years). I notice they carry Schwinns. At least those come from UDC, as they are the official distributor.
I am sure unicycle.com are happy to rectify their mistakes as they want to help as much as possible. Before you were probably born (to ride a uni at least), no one had an online shop or a central place to buy unicycles. It was hit and miss to get anything other than a chrome juggler was difficult. Its easy to get on a bandwagon about complaining, but UDC did set the scene as we know it. They deserve some respect for making it happen.
I have ordered quite a few things from UDC and only one time did I have a problem. They included the wrong bolts w/ a larger order. When I e-mailed them of this I received the correct bolts w/in a week w/no charges and let me keep the $5 bolts they originally sent me.
I will continue to do most of my uni shoping through them.
I can understand “Distribution Exlusivity” for countries the size of Israel, Denmark, New Zealand or even Holland. These are small countries where there is just not enough room in a lot of casses for dealer competition. However it is always in a brand’s best interest to have as many dealers as possible competing with each other. This is very healthy and creates the competition that makes Capitalism so great! America is a HUGE country and usually has ecomomies of scale that make prices there so much lower than in Europe! However with the UDC US virtual monopoly on Uunicycle sales this is not the case. In Europe the prices of Unicycles are actually usually a little bit cheaper than in the US or comparable and that is after a draconian 19% VAT tax that does not exist in the US! There is definetly something rotten going on in the US!
Please do not confuse the two.