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Desmoparts - not real happy

kurt

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Location
Lago Vista, Texas
First Name
Kurt
Last Name
Brown
I bought a stainless screw kit for the FZ1 from Desmoparts on 12/12 thru a "Buy It Now" Auction on e-bay. I paid for it immediately with PayPal.

Dear Kurt,

This email confirms that you, have paid sales@desmoparts.com $36.00 USD using PayPal.


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-----------------------------------
Payment Details
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Purchased From: desmoparts

Item #: 4595675926
Item Title: Yamaha FZ1 Fazer Stainless Steel Screw Kit
Item URL: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4595675926
Quantity: 1
Price: $30.00 USD
Subtotal: $30.00 USD

Last week, I became concerned when I still had not received the kit and called the guy after sending an e-mail. He gives me some story about it taking up to 10 days to receive Priority Mail from Houston to Austin and says he's mailed it, he's off the hook. "If I sent out two kits for everyone ordered, I go out of business". No further offer of help. Then I get this on the 19th:

In the office now. Checked our shipment manifest and your FZ1 kit did ship
although it did ship late. We printed the label for shipment the 14th but it
didn't mail until the 16th late a night. Post office is off the hook on this
one. I'll accept blame for the delay.
If you need any extra screws to polish off some custom pieces on your bike
don't hesitate to ask.
Regards,
Chris Powers

Still no kit today. He sells kits for all brands of bikes (except Harley) Other people's experiences may be different, but I'm not happy with this guy.
 
I do a lot of ebay stuff, Kurt. I bet your screws show up, the guy has thousands of positive sales, I have a program that checks negagtives only, he hardly has any. Hope I'm right....
 
I'm sure they will, I'm not happy about his lack of responsiveness to the issue. I don't think a $30 kit is going to wreck his business. Contrast him with Murph's Kits, who sent me a $110 fork brace (for the Concours) 2nd day air when the USPS lost the first one. No questions asked, no excuses, he just wanted a happy customer and considered it "a cost of doing business". The first one showed up two months later. Desmoparts just gets low marks for customer service from me.
 
Sounds like he might be drop shipping them, and got caught with his drawers down when his upstream supplier might have had a delay.
 
Mine came in on time but I only paid $5 for mine ($25 ebay coupon for being a good customer or some such). I think having specific groupings bagged separately along with an instruction sheet greatly minimizes installation issues.
 
I know where Chris' shop is. He runs a few businesses out of one location. I have been buying bio-diesel from him. I have also been talking to him about bringing my SV650S and VFR to him so that he can make up kits for them. Next time I am by there I will tell him that he has fouled up and possibly alienated potential customers.
 
Heh, small world. A few years ago I was looking into buying an older Honda Accord wagon. Found one in Houston so me and my brother (Aileron) drove down to take a look at it. Turns out the guy selling it was the Desmoparts guy. He had the car at his shop by the airport. Seemed like a nice guy, he showed us around his shop & I thought his business was pretty interesting, at the time I think he was only doing kits for Ducatis though. Ended up not buying the car, decided against the Honda wagon idea. Anyways, sorry to hijack your thread. :-)
 
Everybody that I have heard of getting stuff shipped in the past couple of weeks has been having problems. It seems if he was late on it, the shippers are running even later because of the Christmas rush.
 
The UPS in our area has been renting out U-Haul trucks because they are so overloaded beyond their normal shipping loads!
 
Yeah, I've seen that too. And all trucks have a driver and a runner to reduce time per delivery. I show no delay on the exhaust I ordered from California, it's out for delivery. :rider: I'm no fan of UPS generally speaking, but they do a decent job given the increased volume during the hoidays. Their customer service is just non-responsive.

Fed-X, who uses independent contractors for their Ground Delivery service, causes me more grief with misdelivered packages, but they are at least willing to solve the problem once you get a manager on the phone. UPS actually suggested I check the area and see if the package was misdelivered to a neighbor.
 
I picked up the screw kit in person from Desmoparts last year for the FZ. He's a pretty decent guy. I'm sure it's a combination of a small screw up;-) on his part and UPS just being plain slow at this time of year. Though it sounds like he could have used some better customer service skills in your case, Kurt.

The kit is very well organized with a good parts list and screw count has been right on the money.:thumb:
 
I had good luck with Chris on this too for the BMW-GS. His kit was a bit off for my bike but he got it squared away quickly when I ordered a second kit.
 
Day nine and still no kit. :coffee:

I did however get a pipe, jet kit and rear signals from California in half the time.
 
FotoMoto said:
If it makes you feel any better, I have an Ohlins shock that is now 4 days late!

Better your shock than your SO, right? :duck:

Ok, so I've got some time on my hands here at work...
 
I'm waiting on a front rim right now as well. Starting to get troubled/annoyed. I had stuff I ordered after that that is here already. Guy is slow to ship (?) and no response to e-mails. 1 more week and it will be a dispute:-) .

I know how you feel. At least he responded to your queries.
 
I hated to do it, but today I left my first negative feedback. 12 days is long enough for two attempts to ship via Priority Mail. He never shipped the first time and I still haven't seen the goods 5 days after that conversation.
 
txmedic said:
I hated to do it, but today I left my first negative feedback. 12 days is long enough for two attempts to ship via Priority Mail. He never shipped the first time and I still haven't seen the goods 5 days after that conversation.
Looks like you're the exception to the rule. He's got almost 4000 positives, 1 neutral, and 2 negatives (including yours). Maybe online buying is not for you anymore? I saw the note on the Yoshi too.
:duck: ;-)
 
I'll just stick to known vendors since I buy a lot of stuff online. It just seems that lately customer service has been worse than usual. Both of these were first time purchases from new to me vendors. In both threads, I've referenced sites that provided exeptional service.

online vendors I've had excellent results with:

Murph's Kits
Holeshot Performance
Ivan's Performance
New Enough
Helmet Harbor
Ron Ayers
Oneida Suzuki

I might also mention that until this auction, I've never had anything but good results with an e-bay purchase.
 
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txmedic said:
I might also mention that until this auction, I've never had anything but good results with an e-bay purchase.
Yep. Almost all of mine have been good/great too. I've given one neutral to a guy selling repro car manuals but not declaring them as such. He gave ME a negative because I gave him the neutral! :miffed: :angryfire :rant:
 
I finally received the screw kit today, 15 days after the purchase. Still no return message from Desmoparts.

On a humorous side note, Cycle Gear sent my online order placed December 21st and it arrived on Christmas Day. Priority Mail is delivered on Christmas according to the Post Office. Why did I have to go to the Post Office to get it you ask? Because it came with $4.20 postage due. One call got it cleared up though. They credited it back to my card. Excellent recovery from a simple mistake and a great example of customer service.
 
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I still got nuthin on my rim! 1 more week then I will be after him. You have 45 days with pay pal to complain so I can wait a couple more.
 
And this evening:

Thanks a lot for the negative. :( Unjustified! I responded to every email, offered reshipment if not recieved and have an 800# for you to call. Can't do much more than that. I assume you have the kit by now.
chris

My reply:

Sorry Chris, but I disagree. On the 24th after our phone conversation on the 19th, I sent the following:

"Chris, I still have not gotten this. I think I've been patient and reasonable as the original purchase date was on the 12th. What do you suggest as a next step? Unless you can come up with a reasonable alternative, I'll be forced to go through E-bay and PayPal for satisfaction. "

You never replied. Added to your comment from our phone conversation stating "If I shipped two for every order I recieved, I'd go broke", or that mail Priority Mail could take up to 10 days, I could only surmise that you were willing to leave me on the hook for the kit. I did show up on the 27th or 28th, well after what I deemed reasonable for a purchase on the 12th. Within that same time frame, I placed and received two orders from California in the customary 4 days. I'm sure my one negative in almost 4000 positives won't mean much to anyone, but I found your responsiveness to my issue very lacking.

In the end, none of us were happy.
 
So, what parts are you going to off load now that you dont have the FZ anymore? I may be interested. :trust:
 
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