Kabuto

Here's what has happened so far.

December 29, 2023 - I ordered a pair of Assos winter bib tights from Tradeinn/Bikeinn

December 31, 2023 - My order was supposedly created (tracking indicates PARCEL CREATED)

January 1, 2024 - This date is the final tracking entry (tracking indicates the order was still in GIRONA, 17460, ES - that's the Tradeinn/Bikeinn warehouse)

January 18, 2024 - No new update to tracking so I contacted Tradeinn/Bikeinn. Got a bogus response saying my order was stuck in customs in Japan where I live. Not possible since the order hadn't even gone through customs in Europe.

February 1, 2024 - No new update to tracking so I contacted Tradeinn/Bikeinn again. Got a reply saying they'd follow up with their carrier and please wait 2-3 weeks for a reply. Up to this point, all the messages I had sent and received were viewable by logging in to their website. Suspecting a bad outcome, I also contacted my CC company to record the events to this point.

February 23, 2024 - Received no response from Tradeinn/Bikeinn, so I contacted them again through their website. I also noticed that all the messages I had sent and received previously had been deleted.

February 24, 2024 - Received a reply stating I need to fill out some bogus form. "In order to request information from the carrier about the status of your shipment and expedite the investigation in case of any possible incident, please fill out the attached document." So, what had they been doing for the last three weeks?! Nothing, obviously. How is this my responsibility?! I don't think it is.

So I'm curious, has anyone managed to get a refund from Tradeinn/Bikeinn in similar circumstances? Did you fill out the bogus form?

I think my next step will be to contact my CC company again and press them to take action.

rsbob 

Out of 264 reviews on them 223 are one star. Pretty telling. I did a search on Tradeinn/Bikeinn Scam. Not many kind words.

Kabuto

Which site is that? trustpilot has 22,080 reviews rating bikeinn at 4.2 out of 5. there are many one star reviews but there are many more 5 star reviews. I purchased some Aerothan tubes from them in March 2023 and they arrived quickly without any problems. My bad for thinking my second transaction with them would work out much like the first one, I suppose...

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/bikeinn.com

indyfabz

Your credit card company didn’t simply give you a credit until the matter was resolved? That’s has been the process every time I have lodged a complaint.

Garthr

I've ordered from them before without any issues to the USA. My experience with a fair number on int'l orders is that the tracking can't be trusted for timing or accuracy. I've had orders that were never updated from being in Amsterdam airport and they arrived to my door. "Like magic", then all the tracking is updated. The issue is that there are multiple carriers involved which may or may not communicate well with each other. Customs is a whole separate issue that depends on the country you live in. Even domestically in the USA shipping can take weeks/months in some cases, where tacking gets stalled, gives out the wrong information, items are misplaced, fall off the chuckwagon, whatever. "stuff happens".

The lowly reviews were found here : https://www.reviews.io/company-revie...e/tradeinn.com
Seeing there are so many is in itself suspicious as I checked a number of other popular Euro cycling retailers(Chainreaction/Wiggle, SJS Cyles, Starbike, Bike24) that only had a handful of reviews there. It's not like reviews can't be faked, or are made by customers who tend don't hesitate to write scathing reviews before they even attempt any resolution beforehand.

DangerousDanR

OP's experience matches mine. I paid extra for express shipping. A month later after repeatedly being blown off by BI I contacted DHL and was finally able to get in touch with someone at a Central American branch who actually cared.
Bike Inn didn't seem to care that my package was sitting less than 200 miles from me. DHL didn't seem to be able to track a missing package for the intended recipient.

I will not deal with Bike Inn again, and DHL went from first choice shipper to last resort shipper.

Barry2 

I used bikeinn to the USA without issues. I’ve no reservations using them again.
As previously mentioned, tracking is hit & miss, but not just for bikeinn.
Fedex has always been good internationally, DHL I’ll avoid thank you.
Some European vendors have an up-charge for FedEx…. I choose to pay it for my higher dollar orders.

Barry

Koyote

When I use google's 'shopping' tab to look for items, BikeInn always seems to have to lowest prices -- by a significant margin. That's why I have never ordered from them.

DangerousDanR

Ouch! This is so true. I just got burned by a discount airline headquartered in MSP. Cutting customer service may well be a calculated business decision. If things go well, you can attract customers with lower prices. You hope that the number of customers you attract is greater than or equal to the number you alienate with your poor service.

RCMoeur 

Hmmm. That narrows it down.

"We're sorry, but consuming any oxygen during the flight, even from cabin air, is an additional mandatory charge."

Redbullet

Tradeinn generally had the best prices on the market in the past. But many of their prices are now aligned with the market (even bigger here and there).
I bought 5-6 times from them, and everything was ok, apart from a delay of 20-25 days on the last order in Jan 2024. They proposed me to wait or to request reimbursement, and I preferred to wait. Another issue is the poor technical description of the products: you must know very well the parts you want to buy, because you do not get detailed clarification on their website.

Overall, Tradeinn is not fraud. Maybe there was a problem with the carrier during delivery?

tempocyclist

I ordered something from BikeInn recently for the first time. Prices were all in my local currency and I didn't even realise it would be shipped from overseas.

Order arrived today, took slightly longer than expected of course coming from Europe. No problems though. All good.

One Wheel

What's the consensus here? If time isn't an issue, are $50 GP5000s worth the risk? I want the tires, but for a build that I'm just starting, and will take me several weeks at best.

Kabuto

OP here. I'd say your chances of getting the tires in around two to three weeks is 50-60%. If they don't have the tires in stock when you place your order, it may take much longer (several months). There's probably a 20-30% chance of that happening. The remaining 10-20%... they'll ship the tires to you, the shipping company will "lose" them (in my case, right there at the warehouse in Girona), and if you don't make a claim for a refund within three to four months, tough luck, you lose your money.

Regarding my situation, Bikeinn's shipping company apparently "lost" my parcel (there's no record of it ever leaving their Girona warehouse) and I ended up getting a refund, but it took over three months and required much back and forth by email, and I had to fill in an "manually sign" a stupid form. It was a PITA to deal with and their customer service is practically non-existent. YMMV.

indyfabz

Based on the posts, there is no consensus.

What you have to ask yourself is whether it’s worth the risk/headache. Personally, my time has a value, even more so now that I retired. I’d rather pay more for a product and spend my time doing something other than dealing with a problem.

HMJ

I bought a pair of gravel tires from Bikeinn during the off-season, knowing that I had a good three months before I'd even think about using them. If it took 2-3 months for delivery, no big deal since I planned for it. As it happened, I received them in about three weeks. The point being: in my case, time was not an issue - and it doesn't sound like it's too much of an issue for you either.

Fortunately, I did not have to go through what the OP did, though. There always that risk of something going wrong and becoming a painful ordeal...with any purchase.

Good luck.

Garthr

So-called "discount" retailers have always been a mixed bag of experiences, regardless of the products. With the rise of internet shopping though, even "regular" retailers can screw up and hem and haw and take forever to resolve the issue. Even in store experiernces can be lengthy and drawn out to the most simple things these days. It's really a store by store thing. Some "discounters" are every bit as good as anyone other reatiler. Don't judge or expect less(or more!) becasue of price, it doesn't necessarily correlate.

Koyote

This thread makes me glad that I can afford to pay a few bucks more in order to promptly get things from reliable sellers.

Viich

I'm in Canada. Buying from Europe is usually cheaper and faster shipping than from USA.

UPS is the the devil. They charge COD fees to broker that are outrageous. I avoid any USA company that won't give the option of DHL or USPS to ship to Canada.

I've never had an issue with BikeInn.

icemilkcoffee 

you’ve been missing out on those good deals then. I ordered from them 4 times and never had a single issue.

Koyote

I'll repeat this post for your benefit:

I do understand that some people may find those sums of money less trivial and/or have greater risk tolerance for such things.

will be was

Little more than a year ago ordered pair of gatorskin because of value and shipping,
Never received it,
Bikeinn kept saying it is in USA so it is out of their jurisdiction.
At that time Bikeinn office was in somewhere Spain and package was shipped from Netherlands or Belgium.

Russ Roth

I've thought of buying from bikeinn but they've never had the best deals. Until this year I typically ordered from bike24.com but the last time I tried to they stopped shipping continental and magura to the US so I tried out bike-components.de. They ended up being about 3.00 more on a 300.00 order so I could live with that but shipping wasn't any faster, both claimed 10-14 days and that was an absolute truth. Orders have been typically 12 days. At 40-50 for shipping it seems that it should be faster but it isn't. The upside is that I can stock up on essentials and extras that more than cover the shipping; the maguras I bought were almost 100.00 less and at 3.00 for tubes it doesn't take too many to make up 40.00 in shipping either.

Camilo

FWIW, Colorado Cyclist is having what they're calling a going out of business sale, with pretty good discounts. I just bought a couple each of GP5000 and Gatorskins for a great price. Their shipping is reasonable and reliable.

One Wheel

They don't have the GP5000s in the size I need, and their price is good but still $20/ tire over Bikeinn.