The riddle of complete bikes cheaper than kits?

[alexsally]

I've been looking at rear hub kits and here's a strange thing. Some sellers on Amazon (and probably eBay) sell whole MTB with 250 rear motor and battery cheaper than kits cost. I saw one for £350 ish. It had bafang kit on it. Hundred pound cheaper than any kit and free bike. Bikes and kits must be seriously cheap at trade price!
Alex

 

[cyclebuddy]

Leading up to Christmas, one e-bike importer/re-seller had their own, exclusive model £840 e-bike openly advertised daily for anything between £250 and £500 on ebay from some fake seller.

Those listings, from an unknown "new seller" with no history, offered the same "brand new, unopened" bike every time, and was posted every night from about 7pm after the official seller closed and went home for the night.

As this particular e-bike was exclusively imported by just the one company and only ever offered by that one official importer/seller, any alternative listing would clearly be fake. But the prospective buyer wouldn't know, would they?

Of course, when the importer/official seller opened for business the next day and spotted the fake listing the next morning, they had ebay take it down.

That night and every night for months, the same thing happened, and this went on right up to Christmas, when Paypal (probably due to mounting claims for non-delivery) finally stopped it. Of course, Paypal protected the buyer, but the bikes were (I'm told) never sent or received. I know this only because I spotted the activity, advised the seller, actively followed what was happening, and had some dialogue with the seller themselves.

Moral of this story is just to be very careful and check the sellers credibility before parting with any payment. If it seems too cheap to be true, it most often is.


.

 

[alexsally]

Leading up to Christmas, one e-bike importer/re-seller had their own, exclusive model £840 e-bike openly advertised daily for anything between £250 and £500 on ebay from some fake seller.

Those listings, from an unknown "new seller" with no history, offered the same "brand new, unopened" bike every time, and was posted every night from about 7pm after the official seller closed and went home for the night.

As this particular e-bike was exclusively imported by just the one company and only ever offered by that one official importer/seller, any alternative listing would clearly be fake. But the prospective buyer wouldn't know, would they?

Of course, when the importer/official seller opened for business the next day and spotted the fake listing the next morning, they had ebay take it down.

That night and every night for months, the same thing happened, and this went on right up to Christmas, when Paypal (probably due to mounting claims for non-delivery) finally stopped it. Of course, Paypal protected the buyer, but the bikes were (I'm told) never sent or received. I know this only because I spotted the activity, advised the seller, actively followed what was happening, and had some dialogue with the seller themselves.

Moral of this story is just to be very careful and check the sellers credibility before parting with any payment. If it seems too cheap to be true, it most often is.


.

That's very interesting, a lot of the cheap ones are sold by people with no history "new sellers". I wonder how many are just scams one way or the other.
If the bafang motor cost £25 with controller and the battery cost £100, which I could believe, then I would have thought one of the proper kit sellers would use it as a lead in product and try and sell loads at say £250. But seeing the kits at £4-500 and whole bikes with the kit on for £500 or less just doesn't make sense.
The best price I have seen on a 250w rear motor and 11ah battery is I think £450

Alex

 

[cyclebuddy]

Ya see... here's another fraud.

Over on the Bafang Max Drive Bikes thread, we're discussing the Greenway Cross bike - a mid-drive bike made exclusively for Greenway Cycles and only sold through their own company East London Bike Co. We all seem to agree that the specification is too good for the asking price of £1000ish. Being suspiciously cheap, a couple of us investigated further, including a visit... and at least 3 of us have since bought one, and it does happen to be a genuine offer.

But checking on Amazon today, there's a new seller "Just Launched" called Angelina Dowman, claiming to offer this identical "Greenway Cross" bike "NEW" for £431.88. Bearing in mind this bike is made to ELBC's own specification with their own Greenway branding on it, it's impossible for anyone else to have any stock to sell... and certainly not for £431.88!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B01MEHMI68/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new

Someone will eventually realise and the offer will get removed, but in the meantime, some innocent punter may well fall for it.

EDIT: And 16 minutes after posting this, the fake listing has been removed... ELBC must be actively checking for fake listings today!

 

[KeithMac]

Surely paypal or whoever will claw back the money so how do the fakers benifit from it?.

Only way would be people paying through none returnable BACS transfer?, who would be stupid enough to do that?.

 

[anotherkiwi]

I wrote about my rack just now in another thread and went to Google to check the correct name. Then I saw the prices...

Last year I paid 48€ at Rose, today it is at 55€. OK so a little inflation there however, in France, the same rack is at its cheapest at 69€ and also on Google shopping at 79.90€! And the USA? 120€ ($130) I can't believe there is 40€ shipping on a feather light rack from Germany to the USA...

This is pricing on just one accessory so you can see bike prices are very much apples and oranges... The Greenway is a real bargain.

 

[cyclebuddy]

Surely paypal or whoever will claw back the money so how do the fakers benifit from it?.

Paypal can only claw back the money if further sales go through, or the money remains in the sellers account. If the money has already been withdrawn...

The buyer has to allow, say, a few days for delivery. When the item then doesn't arrive, they get suspicious and report it... but by then it's too late and the money withdrawn.

 

[Woosh]

ebay has a buyer money back guarantee.
paypal has a direct debit mandate on the sellers' bank account to charge back in case they find for the buyer.
I think the money is pretty safe but you lose about 2-3 weeks waiting for the bike that will never arrive then raise a dispute resolution case and wait another week or two for ebay to intervene and get paypal to refund you.
All that faffing - If the sellers have no intention to go through, they would cancel the sale, refund you and pull the ad.

 

[cyclebuddy]

paypal has a direct debit mandate on the sellers' bank account to charge back in case they find for the buyer.

Yes, the buyer is protected. But in the case I cited in post #2, the bogus seller was completely new every time... night after night, for months... the money withdrawn and the account closed. Yes, Paypal guarantee the sale and reimburse the buyer - a faff though it may be to reclaim their money: It's paypal (or Amazon) losing here as they cannot "charge-back on the sellers account" when the sellers account has been emptied.

The official seller in post #2 (okay, I'll come clean, it was eco-expedition) even "bought" one of their own bogus bikes on ebay themselves just to see what would happen... before then having to reclaim funds after the bike (which they knew would never be delivered) obviously didn't get delivered.

The real question to be asked is how the fraudulent seller managed to open so many bogus Bank accounts and ebay profiles?

 

[Woosh]

The real question to be asked is how the fraudulent seller managed to open so many bogus Bank accounts and ebay profiles?

I have no idea.
Could they use hacked email and bank accounts to open bogus paypal accounts?

 

[Charliefox]

I've been looking at rear hub kits and here's a strange thing. Some sellers on Amazon (and probably eBay) sell whole MTB with 250 rear motor and battery cheaper than kits cost. I saw one for £350 ish. It had bafang kit on it. Hundred pound cheaper than any kit and free bike. Bikes and kits must be seriously cheap at trade price!
Alex

Lots of unbranded motors on them. Most will be ungeared too and heavy. And the quality of the bike frame and fitting Uggh!