Posted last week about the Internet scam we thought we got caught in, and got lots of good advice from peeps about contacting the authorities, the credit card company, etc.
Back in April, JR ordered a Litespeed titanium frame, and all the bits and bobs to make up the whole bike. The guy handling the order assured us it was all on track. JR was told he had to pay up front, it was nearly 5000. Well, time went on, and no bike. We were in almost daily contact by phone or email with the specialist, Cody Smith, who told us there was a bit of a delay in making the frame. By the end of May, we still had nothing except an assurance that the order was o.k., just the Litespeed folks had a lot more orders than expected for this particular bike and production was backed up. Then in June, we were told that Cody Smith was in hospital after a bike crash. July, another staff member told us Cody would not be back. All phone calls seemed to be answered by yet another new person, all said they would get back to us and never did.
In August, we managed to get hold of the boss John Cobb, who explained that there had been some trouble with staff and Cody Smith no longer worked for him. We had to email him the original order. End of the month we heard that the frame had never even been ordered. We would have to wait another couple of months until Litespeed worked through their current order backlog. In October, Cobb said the frame had arrived, he would assemble everything and it would be shipped out by the weekend. He promised JR a great Christmas present. Then Wendy emailed to say it was going to be shipped and she would let us know when it had been sent off.
In November, we started trying again to contact them and got no replies to our emails. The phone numbers were out of service and the web site had moved!
A lot of bad language flew around the house for a while.
