My Bafang Ultra Mountain Bike! Frey AM1000

[18650]

I ordered a Frey EX via the "Frey is with you" campaign in april, and finally received pics of my bike a week ago. Unfortunately rail shipping is interrupted due to the pandemic, Let's see when it will start again. I'm impacient to receive my bike soon...

 

[washi]

Nice bike, hope you receive it soon! I am also expecting a dark blue EX ordered with the same program. Did Frey give you an estimate of the shipping date?

 

[JohnnyEppelseed]

I am also in the waiting line for receiving my order was made 7 months ago (10th of April), was supposed to be ready in mid-October and shipped by rail. Now is allegedly in the stage of production since last Friday.
My Frey representative (Ivy) claims that the railway shipments to Europe are suspended due to the pandemic but I am not offered an alternative solution yet.

Do not go with Air shipping, I did and got a heavy duty/tax bill of 640GBP Grace told me 100/200USD a big difference. I'm seeking professional help tomorrow.

You are lucky you live in UK. In the US a shrink will cost you an arm and a leg.

Is Frey suspending shipment due to the pandemic (I've had no problems with goods from other vendors) or might this have something to do with customs?

 

[18650]

I am not aware of any shipping or customs problems on the European side, but I can't verify.

 

[FlyingFinn]

OK, here is an update as to where I stand. Alibaba escalation ruled in my favor for a refund of $4180. My credit card was refunded $580 shortly after. I have been going back and forth with Alibaba at which time they closed my order as completed showing they have refunded the $4180. My last message from a Alibaba had an agent tell me to take it up with my credit card. I have file a dispute with my card issuer which is awkward as the transaction is over 90 days old as my order was made in April. I’m now out $3,600 awaiting the dispute which can take 90 days.

So basically AliBaba refunded you only the shipping costs? Where is the rest? How can it disappear?

Seems like AliBaba buyer protection is just a scam. I can't believe Frey is scamming you since even their warranty has worked flawlessly. There would be no sense to serve 99% of the customers normally and then scam the 1%.

The risk that AliBaba can ''lose'' your money is a serious one. You should share this story on the Frey facebook-group as well.

 

[brake034]

Ivy has trouble to login this forum so she requested me to forward following information.
As far as Frey is aware the refund to Mountgreenwood is completed.

 

[Mountgreenwood]

Ivy has trouble to login this forum so she requested me to forward following information.
As far as Frey is aware the refund to Mountgreenwood is completed.

That is exactly what I see in Alibaba too. The fact remains that I have only been refunded $580 of the $4,180.

 

[Mountgreenwood]

OK, here is an update as to where I stand. Alibaba escalation ruled in my favor for a refund of $4180. My credit card was refunded $580 shortly after. I have been going back and forth with Alibaba at which time they closed my order as completed showing they have refunded the $4180. My last message from a Alibaba had an agent tell me to take it up with my credit card. I have file a dispute with my card issuer which is awkward as the transaction is over 90 days old as my order was made in April. I’m now out $3,600 awaiting the dispute which can take 90 days.

So basically AliBaba refunded you only the shipping costs? Where is the rest? How can it disappear?

Seems like AliBaba buyer protection is just a scam. I can't believe Frey is scamming you since even their warranty has worked flawlessly. There would be no sense to serve 99% of the customers normally and then scam the 1%.

The risk that AliBaba can ''lose'' your money is a serious one. You should share this story on the Frey facebook-group as well.

Those are all very good questions. This is the last message I receive from Alibaba.

“For your order 34740039001022252 , refund amount 4180.00 USD
ARN: 74064180310060074565463
ARN: 35505900310060073863264
Please use these 2 arn to check , thanks ,contact your bank to check , if your bank can not find , please ask them to help youe escalate to visa or master”

So their trade assurance is recommending a charge back (escalate) which I fear might be difficult as the purchase was on 10 Apr 2020.

 

[JohnnyEppelseed]

I am not aware of any shipping or customs problems on the European side, but I can't verify.

It might be argued that Frey suspending shipments by rail to Europe is a problem.

 

[FlyingFinn]

Alibaba is the one to blame here. I think Mountgreenwood’s story is credible.

This is not the first time there is these issues with AliBaba.

I hope Frey would offer a Paypal payment option in the future. Even if it costs a few percent extra. With Paypal the peace of mind is guaranteed.

 

[Kormyr]

Hello,

I'm new here, I received my Black AM1000EX less than 1 month ago (ordered in June) and I can confirm it is worth the wait.
Still waiting for the license plate to use it for commuting.
I also ordered a top battery cover if I need to use it in single battery mode.

I will post pictures soon.

With Paypal the peace of mind is guaranteed.

I would have agreed to the peace of mind guaranteed with paypal a year ago.
Unfortunately after over 10 years of using paypal, I was scammed this year and paypal buyers protection did not apply.
I later found out that many paypal users were victim of the same malicious store (still active and using the same paypal account), and they were never refunded.
I was lucky because it was a small amount (<100USD), but now I restrict my paypal payments to the minimum.

To go back to the main topic, bike is great.
I initially requested it without Frey logo because I knew it was stickers.
When I received it it was with the logos because it was painted on the bike, which is nice.

I would have preferred to have both batteries using the same key but that's not a big deal.

 

[tsellers]

I have been following the discussion on the payment methods for the Frey Bikes here. I thought it may be worth mentioning that for 2 different bike orders totaling 5 bikes, we made payment directly to Frey, and had no issues in that respect. On our last order, we ordered mid March, shipping via sea to Canada, received order end of July.

As I do large orders with suppliers in China on a regular basis, I may be more comfortable with doing business this way. I'm not saying I recommend any specific payment method, just saying that there may be another payment option available to buyers that has also been used by others.

 

[JohnnyEppelseed]

Hello,

I'm new here, I received my Black AM1000EX less than 1 month ago (ordered in June) and I can confirm it is worth the wait.
Still waiting for the license plate to use it for commuting.
I also ordered a top battery cover if I need to use it in single battery mode.

I will post pictures soon.

With Paypal the peace of mind is guaranteed.

I would have agreed to the peace of mind guaranteed with paypal a year ago.
Unfortunately after over 10 years of using paypal, I was scammed this year and paypal buyers protection did not apply.
I later found out that many paypal users were victim of the same malicious store (still active and using the same paypal account), and they were never refunded.
I was lucky because it was a small amount (<100USD), but now I restrict my paypal payments to the minimum.

To go back to the main topic, bike is great.
I initially requested it without Frey logo because I knew it was stickers.
When I received it it was with the logos because it was painted on the bike, which is nice.

I would have preferred to have both batteries using the same key but that's not a big deal.

What is the name of the malicious store?

 

[tsellers]

I think there are lots more than just one malicious store. I've had a number of Ali Express sellers try a few different scams on me. Some are quite convincing, such as the Paypal refund scam. There is a good summary of them on Reddit here (I see scam #001 and scam #030 a lot). With the latter, if you ordered via a tracking method and they sent it with no tracking, it is usually easiest just to wait until the order is eligible for dispute, and then file a dispute that you never received it. If you paid for Ali Express Standard Shipping or ePacket, both those give the seller a tracking number to prove it was delivered, but if they send via China Post or any of the other common cheap methods, there is no tracking and the seller has no proof that he even sent it. Also keep in mind that this is in your favour when Ali looks at this dispute: ALi Express has very little patience for sellers that charge to use their shipping service, and then they do not get any part of the proceeds of the sale because the seller did a bait and switch:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress...on_scams_on_aliexpress_and_how_to_avoid_them/

 

[Kormyr]

What is the name of the malicious store?

Paypal account is laptopartsstore@gmail.com. The website was https://www.akkusnotebook.com/ (still active), but the same seller has many similar fake stores in several countries (UK, Switzerland, ...). I bought an official Dell battery which was supposed to come from Switzerland and received an unusable counterfeit one coming from China. I am usually very cautious but the fact that the battery was rather expensive and seller was accepting paypal made me think it was genuine and I was not taking any risks...
In the end when I contacted Dell to buy the battery from them directly, the fake store charged me even more than Dell for the official one

Here is a Paypal topic with lots of people in the same situation because of this seller (not in English sorry):
https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Feedback-Innovation/FINGER-WEG-VON-CHINESISCHEN-FIRMEN-DIE-SICH-ALS-EUROP%C3%84ISCHE/td-p/2014879?profile.language=fr

I opened a dispute with lots of proof and Paypal closed it automatically in favor of the store.

I then contacted Paypal many many times through different channels and got either no response or just somebody that said they couldn't do anything.

So now I prefer to pay by credit card directly and check with my bank if any issue.

 

[Kormyr]

Here is the bike after I went to pick it up.
There were many upgrades after this one, I will post another picture when finished.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Paypal will do whatever they can to avoid paying for their mistakes. They overrode a stop from Paypal Mastercard (!) on a cash advance from a crook who got hold of my info, and let the crook take the money. Then they told me I was out of luck, because I had complained to my bank first, and the bank had denied it - because it was Paypal's fault. Paypal is a quasi-criminal enterprise.

 

[JohnnyEppelseed]

What is the name of the malicious store?

Paypal account is laptopartsstore@gmail.com. The website was https://www.akkusnotebook.com/ (still active), but the same seller has many similar fake stores in several countries (UK, Switzerland, ...). I bought an official Dell battery which was supposed to come from Switzerland and received an unusable counterfeit one coming from China. I am usually very cautious but the fact that the battery was rather expensive and seller was accepting paypal made me think it was genuine and I was not taking any risks...
In the end when I contacted Dell to buy the battery from them directly, the fake store charged me even more than Dell for the official one

Here is a Paypal topic with lots of people in the same situation because of this seller (not in English sorry):
https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Feedback-Innovation/FINGER-WEG-VON-CHINESISCHEN-FIRMEN-DIE-SICH-ALS-EUROP%C3%84ISCHE/td-p/2014879?profile.language=fr

I opened a dispute with lots of proof and Paypal closed it automatically in favor of the store.

I then contacted Paypal many many times through different channels and got either no response or just somebody that said they couldn't do anything.

So now I prefer to pay by credit card directly and check with my bank if any issue.

Thanks for the information.

 

[JohnnyEppelseed]

Here is the bike after I went to pick it up.
There were many upgrades after this one, I will post another picture when finished.
am1000ex.jpg

Looks great. Mine should be here any day now. What brand is your trailer? Weight limit?

 

[Kormyr]

Thanks for the information.

No prob, I just saw they have hidden the seller info in the paypal topic. Seller is still there and actively operating...

Looks great. Mine should be here any day now. What brand is your trailer? Weight limit?

It is a Thule Easyfold XT 3. You can load up to 3 bikes, 30kg per bike but 60kg total. Then it also depends on the max weight you have with the hitch on your car.
It is very convenient.

I removed the batteries of course to install this monster.

 

[tsellers]

30kg per bike but 60kg total.

When loading our 2 heavy bikes onto my generic hitch rack, I found it helps to attach a cargo strap to one of the bikes from the roof rack to a bike and then cinch the strap, transferring some of the weight to the roof rack from the bike rack via the cinch strap. This helps a lot when you go over a bump, texas gate, speed bump, etc.

 

[bugnut]

Is there a list of options that you can get when ordering? Things such as gears, brakes, rear shock, front fork (Lyrik Ultimate), crank size, chain ring etc. I already have an AM1000 and was looking to purchase another. I am not sure if it will be the AM1000 or the EX. What is the difference with the 2 bikes. Which bike is better off road? Thanks for any input.

 

[Cruncher123]

Is there a list of options that you can get when ordering? Things such as gears, brakes, rear shock, front fork (Lyrik Ultimate), crank size, chain ring etc. I already have an AM1000 and was looking to purchase another. I am not sure if it will be the AM1000 or the EX. What is the difference with the 2 bikes. Which bike is better off road? Thanks for any input.

Frey seems to offer a ton of options if you ask. Just be very specific when asking for prices and carefully double/triple check your order.

 

[Cruncher123]

Paypal will do whatever they can to avoid paying for their mistakes. They overrode a stop from Paypal Mastercard (!) on a cash advance from a crook who got hold of my info, and let the crook take the money. Then they told me I was out of luck, because I had complained to my bank first, and the bank had denied it - because it was Paypal's fault. Paypal is a quasi-criminal enterprise.

Paypal IS a criminal enterprise. Years ago they unilaterally held $500 without any notice or explanation and locked my account - unilaterally said I had to wait 180 days to get MY money back (there were no T&Cs they could point to justify what they did - just said it was their "policy"). When I first contacted them about the issue, they asked for details (SSN, driver's license) that were supposedly needed to "investigate". In reality, they did zero "investigation" and simply used the details to report ME as a potential scammer - an absurd claim with no ability to dispute their ridiculous claim - nobody will talk to you besides useless front-line drones who can't/won't do anything to help.

This fraud happened to multiple people and they were sued under a Class Action that took years to wend thru the courts - PayPal lost, but there wasn't any compensation I can recall (or if there was, it was only a few dollars after legal fees). They should have been criminally sued to stop their abusive practices, but of course, no Federal agency could be bothered.

Online payment processors are still a "wild west" business - regulation and oversight is far behind and consumers continue to be defrauded.

 

[Hardcore]

A video on something a bit flatter than I'm used to but these bikes are so fun!
Enjoy the Holidays!

[youtube]8ThXXYDOIyE[/youtube]