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The nightmare which is CRC!

obi wan dandobiobi wan dandobi Posts: 42
edited June 2012 in Road buying advice
Ordered some new carbon blade pedals on Thursday last week, only £100 plus doing an offer of £15 if you spend £100. Bargain! Too good to be true? Well, yes. Yesterday got an e-mail from Chain Reaction to say they're out of stock and are cancelling my order. I'll get my money back in 3-5 days. Firstly why let me order something which is out of stock? And why is it gonna take 3-5 days to refund me when they took my money straight away for an order they didn't have?! When I went back on there they're now £119 with no code to use!

Rargh! :evil:

Posts

  • sturmeysturmey Posts: 964
    Used to buy from CRC regularly but don't even look on their website any more as I've had too many bad customer experiences. Others may tell you they are great but their service has deterioriated and is no longer as reliable as it was.
  • ugo.santaluciaugo.santalucia Posts: 26,758
    sturmey wrote:
    Used to buy from CRC regularly but don't even look on their website any more as I've had too many bad customer experiences. Others may tell you they are great but their service has deterioriated and is no longer as reliable as it was.

    Tend to agree, a lot slower, they also have a lot less good stock and a lot more junk... I find myself going more and more towards smaller retailers that stock quality products
  • yeachan153yeachan153 Posts: 401
    Really? They are a bit slow, but when I got faulty brake shoes with pads they told me to keep it and sent me an entire new pack.

    Customer service gets a thumbs up from me
  • CrankbrotherCrankbrother Posts: 1,695
    Never had any probs with CRC ... Goods to Edinburgh in no more than 2 days, always ( been using them for about 7 years) ...

    OK, so sometimes their pricing is only for comedy sizing or colours but last purchase was £170 shoes for about £65 ...
  • maddog 2maddog 2 Posts: 8,114
    so you didn't get what you ordered and have not lost any money. Yeah, nightmare! Do CRC sell some 'perspective'?
    Facts are meaningless, you can use facts to prove anything that's remotely true! - Homer
  • Cleat EastwoodCleat Eastwood Posts: 7,508
    i ordered something last thursday - was dispatched friday am - and with slow post arrived monday at 7.30am - i think theyre excellent - ive never had a problem with them.
    The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns
    momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.
  • appyappy Posts: 408
    maddog 2 wrote:
    so you didn't get what you ordered and have not lost any money. Yeah, nightmare! Do CRC sell some 'perspective'?
    So you'd be happy giving someone your money for an item they knew they didn't have then they make you wait to get your money back? I know i wouldn't be happy.
  • obi wan dandobiobi wan dandobi Posts: 42
    Fair point. Never used them before so maybe just unlucky, sure I'll give them another go in the future. Got home after a rubbish day at work to find my e-mail. Probably just needed a rant!
  • obi wan dandobiobi wan dandobi Posts: 42
    Cheers appy, its that that wound me up. And that I have to wait for my refund to be able to buy new ones.
  • rolf_frolf_f Posts: 16,015
    They were selling Keo Blades for £85 with the voucher so it's not surprising they sold out. I ordered the same on Thursday around lunchtime and my order did go through though when I next looked, the price had gone up and they'd disappeared from the sale page (though they did still list them in stock).

    They did have them on Thursday morning and mine were delivered on Tuesday (though only picked them up from the PO this afternoon). They are very nice though I don't suppose that helps at all :oops:
    Faster than a tent.......
  • hsiaolchsiaolc Posts: 492
    obi wan dandobi wrote:
    Ordered some new carbon blade pedals on Thursday last week, only £100 plus doing an offer of £15 if you spend £100. Bargain! Too good to be true? Well, yes. Yesterday got an e-mail from Chain Reaction to say they're out of stock and are cancelling my order. I'll get my money back in 3-5 days. Firstly why let me order something which is out of stock? And why is it gonna take 3-5 days to refund me when they took my money straight away for an order they didn't have?! When I went back on there they're now £119 with no code to use!

    Rargh! :evil:

    It happens often. If you think thats bad its nothing.

    I have bought over £10,000 stuff from them over 50 orders of multiple orders.

    I have experienced everything from CRC immaginable.

    Just wait for the next discount code. It comes very often just have to be paitient.
  • P_TuckerP_Tucker Posts: 1,878
    maddog 2 wrote:
    so you didn't get what you ordered and have not lost any money. Yeah, nightmare! Do CRC sell some 'perspective'?

    :lol: Word. I'm pretty sure there's a "horror story" like this for every single online retailer FFS - if this sort of thing bothers you then I suggest ordering from your local bike shop so that you can feel the weight of the pedals (after a two week delay whilst theyre ordered in) in your hands before you surrender any cash. Obv you'll overpay by 25% for the privilege, but at least you avoid the nightmare that is not losing any money.
  • Ber NardBer Nard Posts: 827
    As stated above, they were selling them cheap to start with and then someone on here posted a "heads up" about them so they probably had a massive run on them and couldn't keep track of the stock.

    If CRC works anything like my employer re: refunds, they can process your refund the day you request it but the banks will sit on the money and not pay it into your account for up to five days. It's probably the same for your payment to CRC.

    Rob
  • benkxkbenkxk Posts: 151
    Ber Nard wrote:
    As stated above, they were selling them cheap to start with and then someone on here posted a "heads up" about them so they probably had a massive run on them and couldn't keep track of the stock.

    Bingo, most big online retailers do not have instant stock updates, they are usually accurate to about 5 minutes if you're lucky. Often more.

    All the big names will do this. Not just CRC. Even Amazon, Tesco etc.

    The reason for this is down to bandwith. With so many people visiting the sites, the background jobs are run less often, and as CRC have so many products, something to run over everyone and update stock will take quite a while.
  • letap73letap73 Posts: 1,608
    hsiaolc wrote:
    obi wan dandobi wrote:
    Ordered some new carbon blade pedals on Thursday last week, only £100 plus doing an offer of £15 if you spend £100. Bargain! Too good to be true? Well, yes. Yesterday got an e-mail from Chain Reaction to say they're out of stock and are cancelling my order. I'll get my money back in 3-5 days. Firstly why let me order something which is out of stock? And why is it gonna take 3-5 days to refund me when they took my money straight away for an order they didn't have?! When I went back on there they're now £119 with no code to use!

    Rargh! :evil:

    It happens often. If you think thats bad its nothing.

    I have bought over £10,000 stuff from them over 50 orders of multiple orders.

    I have experienced everything from CRC immaginable.

    Just wait for the next discount code. It comes very often just have to be paitient.


    Why order so much at so much expense if their service is so bad?
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