New Prodeco X2 owner feedback

[LeftieBiker]

Anyone here know if anything is going on at Prodeco? Their latest attempt to have me use their labels to return the battery pack to them on 1/18 have resulted in the pack being held at a local FedEx facility. The facility apparently made numerous attempts to call Kristen at Prodeco at the same time I was trying to contact her by email to see if they had gotten it. She hasn't replied to me or to them. It appears the pack has now either been sent to another facility and destroyed, or is still there awaiting destruction. In either case I haven't been refunded the $300 for the pack that we agreed upon. I'm still hoping this gets resolved, even if it's by me getting the pack back and selling it on Ebay. FedEx has been just incredibly horrible through this, and now Prodeco seems to have gone incommunicado...

Separate from my experiences with Prodeco, I want to emphasize: do *not*, under any circumstances, try to ship a lithium pack using FedEx.

 

[lantice13]

hmmm I shipped my battery before for repairs "broken plastics on the tail light" using UPS ground and I told them that it's a battery. I had no problem the battery getting there. Anyway. I'm one of the first generation Phantom X owner that bought their bikes about almost 2 years ago and I can say these bikes are like a tank!. sure it doesn't perform like home built 30mph wheely monster and not as refined as those $5000-10000 ebikes out there but its reliable enough to get me to work 11 miles everyday, through hard rain, heat, and cold, year round. I think I can say you get more than you actually pay for with this bike. 3500 miles and counting. =) haha my first post in the main forum.... Just can't ignore this post. Mostly active on the ES facebook group though.

 

[LeftieBiker]

hmmm I shipped my battery before for repairs "broken plastics on the tail light" using UPS ground and I told them that it's a battery. I had no problem the battery getting there. Anyway. I'm one of the first generation Phantom X owner that bought their bikes about almost 2 years ago and I can say these bikes are like a tank!. sure it doesn't perform like home built 30mph wheely monster and not as refined as those $5000-10000 ebikes out there but its reliable enough to get me to work 11 miles everyday, through hard rain, heat, and cold, year round. I think I can say you get more than you actually pay for with this bike. 3500 miles and counting. =) haha my first post in the main forum.... Just can't ignore this post. Mostly active on the ES facebook group though.

I shipped the pack via FedEx because Prodeco provided me with return shipping labels. I suspect that if you knowingly mislead a shipper about the presence of a lithium battery you could get in trouble, although in your case it looks like they failed to ask "What kind of battery?" so you'd be off the hook. As may be clear to some people at this point, my luck isn't quite that good. Seriously, though: FedEx is to be avoided at all cost - they even failed to deliver an *envelope* to me from Prodeco. It was returned to them with a list of check-box reasons for return...and none of the boxes were checked. (They sent me a photo of the envelope.) And FedEx's customer service people range from "stupid" to just "wrong." One of them authorized the at-home pickup of the pack even though I later learned that she had no authority to do that, one could find less information on her computer terminal on the shipping record than I had found by entering the tracking number at a tracking website, and the one I spoke with this evening, to try to get transferred to their "hazardous materials" department, could barely speak English and thought I was asking him to look up a number in the phone book. Their automated voice recognizer actually does a better job than some of their human customer "service" people...

 

[Jim615]

Has anyone heard from the person with the X2 that started this thread. (battery outcome)

 

[LeftieBiker]

I still don't have a refund for the battery pack I last saw weeks ago, and as far as I know Prodeco still doesn't have the pack, all because of their poorly-informed (on both sides) interactions with FedEx. I believe that I should get the refund now, because once they picked the pack up from my house, it was out of my "custody" - Prodeco is on the labels as both "Shipper" and recipient. Prodeco apparently doesn't agree. The last email I got from them promised to send me...new shipping labels! Seriously.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Prodeco is now ignoring my emails, apparently. I don't have the pack - I still suspect that FedEx destroyed it, as we were told by one of their reps - and I don't have the $300 refund I was promised for it. Prodeco provided the shipping labels, which turned out to be, yet again, incorrect, and now it looks like their own mistakes are going to be their excuse for not completing my refund. Maybe one of their people will read this post, and decide that it makes more sense to honor their promise than to make people wonder about how they do business...

 

[amberwolf]

Prodeco is now ignoring my emails, apparently. I don't have the pack - I still suspect that FedEx destroyed it, as we were told by one of their reps - and I don't have the $300 refund I was promised for it. Prodeco provided the shipping labels, which turned out to be, yet again, incorrect, and now it looks like their own mistakes are going to be their excuse for not completing my refund. Maybe one of their people will read this post, and decide that it makes more sense to honor their promise than to make people wonder about how they do business...

Since it would be good to get a resolution to this, even if just for the information, I've PM'd the three known Prodeco-company accounts here on ES advising they should respond to your post above, and emailed them as well at their info@prodecotech.com address.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Prodeco is now ignoring my emails, apparently. I don't have the pack - I still suspect that FedEx destroyed it, as we were told by one of their reps - and I don't have the $300 refund I was promised for it. Prodeco provided the shipping labels, which turned out to be, yet again, incorrect, and now it looks like their own mistakes are going to be their excuse for not completing my refund. Maybe one of their people will read this post, and decide that it makes more sense to honor their promise than to make people wonder about how they do business...

Since it would be good to get a resolution to this, even if just for the information, I've PM'd the three known Prodeco-company accounts here on ES advising they should respond to your post above, and emailed them as well at their info@prodecotech.com address.

Thanks for the support. I don't know what's going on there.

 

[Lemlux]

San Diego Electric Bike has moved this year from a garage shop to a stand-alone building on coastal highway 101 in Solana Beach, Ca. They are now pushing Prodeco as their primary prebuilt bike. Pat Winston, the founder and now the store manager is a good guy and might be able to shame his supplier into doing the right thing. I've heard him tout the 2-year Prodeco Warranty to a number of prospective customers and I know he hates prebuilt bike homing pigeons.

If someone here wants to contact him I'll be glad to reinforce the message.

http://sdelectricbike.com/

 

[Jason27]

They really do need to honor your 2 yr warrantee. What you going through is ridiculous.

 

[LeftieBiker]

They really do need to honor your 2 yr warrantee. What you going through is ridiculous.

It's a catch-22: because I returned the bike, I'm not really an "owner" anymore. They just can't seem to get the battery pack shipped back to their own facility, with their own labels. The irony is that I was actually willing to keep first the whole bike when the forks finally got broken in (the company insisted I return it anyway at that point) and was then willing to keep the pack and charger for $300, to build another bike, once we ran into problems with FedEx on that. They wanted first $500, then $350, so I returned it. Still, it should *not* be anywhere near this difficult to get a pre-broken bike returned!

 

[ozi]

We also took it one step further and in about 6 weeks, we have a new aluminum carrier which mounts over the 12Ah battery and allows the storing of items. Another issue causing the battery to have the slot crack was baggage on the battery. I don't think we ever came across a customer who stated the place luggage on the battery or have someone sit on the battery yet on Facebook and other social sites, we see the bikes with all kinds of luggage strapped to the battery. We understand riders use the bike for commuting and this is why we made the rack. The rack also forces the rider to slide the battery in straight and avoid chipping away at the security slot. The rack is made of aluminum and powder coated black. It is nice looking and also there is no charge for all X2 owners. We will even pay shipping.

Robert Provost, CEO Prodeco Technologies

I just ordered a Prodeco Phantom X2. I'll be using my bike for commuting to work. Where can I find/order the new rack? Couldn't find it on Prodeco website.

 

[amberwolf]

Ah, now we get to see if they respond to someone wanting to buy something instead of someone trying to get their money back.

 

[mark5]

Ah, now we get to see if they respond to someone wanting to buy something instead of someone trying to get their money back.

And if Prodeco responds to ozi wanting to buy something they really need to respond at the same time to LeftieBiker about the refund due him.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Has Prodeco responded to anyone? They still owe me $300, and are still silent about it. I'm also waiting for the $1099 refund check from BillMeLater for the bike refund to them, and I'm getting worried two weeks after they claimed to have sent it - with no tracking info. Is *anybody* honest anymore?

 

[LeftieBiker]

I finally got a response from Prodeco today - from Robert Provost himself. He essentially told me that it was my own fault for bringing the pack to Office Max to ship, and that I was using "extortion" to try to get the refund. This man cannot seem to represent anything accurately. After Office Max mistakenly told us they could ship the pack and then later asked us to come back and get it, I arranged for a pickup at my house, again using the shipping labels Prodeco supplied. Prodeco is listed as both shipper and recipient on those labels, so the pack actually left my house as a package sent *by* them *to* them and I no longer have possession of it. Fine points like this seem to evade Mr. Provost, however, and when I pointed this out he responded that he'd look into it, and refund my money if I was being truthful. He than used the word "extortion" again. Anyway, he also promised to read all of my posts on Sunday, along with his lawyers, and to take legal action against me if necessary. All because I emailed him after the Rep who mis-handled this debacle stopped responding to emails. Yikes.

 

[Jason27]

Your posts sound nothing like extortion, just an unsatisfied customer. Provost and Prodeco need to make this right and simply refund you rather than getting lawyers involved. I'm sure your not the only person going through this right now.

 

[Ypedal]

The company name on the label makes no difference, but the From address, needs to be the pickup address, ie : yours.

if both the from, and , To, addresses on the label are theirs... say helllloooooo problems.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Problems and I are already on a first name basis...

 

[amberwolf]

Talk about overreaction! Sounds like Mr. Provost could use some business lessons. I imagine he's going to lose sales over his reaction, if he wasn't already doing it from his company's representatives' previous actions.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Talk about overreaction! Sounds like Mr. Provost could use some business lessons. I imagine he's going to lose sales over his reaction, if he wasn't already doing it from his company's representatives' previous actions.

Be careful - that sounds like extortion! Or maybe vandalism, I dunno. You can ask him what offense you've committed later today, I guess. I'll be sleeping.

 

[LeftieBiker]

After a very unpleasant series of exchanges over the last few days, Provost has agreed to refund the rest of the money for the battery pack. I can't begin to describe all of the distortions of what I have written, both here and in emails, that I've tried to correct him about, (and he appears to think I'm some kind of master extortionist/manipulator/liar/whiner/competitor) but hopefully this will all be resolved shortly. He wrote that he has read the posts here, and that I have tricked you all into believing me by dishonest means. That is a brief summary, not a quote. I have offered to post, completely unedited, what he has written. I really hope that by the end of the week I'll be writing about my positive experiences with my EZIP Trailz, instead.

 

[LeftieBiker]

It's all over, including the shouting. I got the final refund tonight. Thanks to those who posted in support of my position.

 

[Ykick]

It's all over, including the shouting. I got the final refund tonight. Thanks to those who posted in support of my position.

Glad your ordeal is over. Thanks for the GENUINE feedback!

 

[LeftieBiker]

It's all over, including the shouting. I got the final refund tonight. Thanks to those who posted in support of my position.

Glad your ordeal is over. Thanks for the GENUINE feedback!

Keep in mind that this was a bike with a broken battery holder that was never powered up.