Swobo Adventures Pt 4 (Why I’ll Never buy Another Swobo Nor Another Bike from Wheelworks Ever Again)
Two weeks later. Nothing – no surprise there. Maybe three weeks later? Nope. I gave my week of padding, for good measures, and called Ace on Nov 30th.
The original sales rep answered. He recognized my ..case(?), took a message and said he would find the status. Another rep called me back, the second time I’ve received a promised call-back (whoa) snce this whole fiasco began. She said,
“They have the bike over at Swobo, and I will find out what the status is and call you back. ” She did so later that same day (double whoa) and asked:
“Swobo says they can fix the frame. They said ‘It won’t look right, but we can fix it.’ They want me to ask if you would be ok with that.”
“No,” I said, “that’s not the warranty. I’m not ok with that. The warranty is a new frame.”
“Ok. I will tell them.”
Another weekend (4.5 weeks since bike went to Ace) went by and I hear nothing. When I called Ace again on Dec 7th, lady rep put me on hold to gather her notes (ie. there was progress but I had to call to prompt the update), and returned to the phone with:
“Now, I’m only a messenger: …”
According to lady rep, Swobo had went ahead with the repair and shipped the bike back. She couldn’t tell me exactly when this happened, but she believed it was either on Dec 1 or 2nd. She also gave me a Swobo phone number and name to call, and said that they would be happy to talk to me about that repair. The bike should be en route to Ace.
Since they’ve already shipped it, I just wanted it back. I asked how much the shipping cost would be, and lady rep couldn’t tell me that, either, because the person in charge of that (manager’s mom – don’t know why this info was important) is on vacation (and I guess neglected to delegate her responsibilities while she was away).
In this same conversation, I expressed my disappointment with Swobo, and that I had planned to buy the Sanchez. Lady rep then began to suggest (sell) some models of Specialized. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was also disappointed with Ace’s’ customer service and will not be buying bikes from them again (she was perfectly sweet and she called me back two out of the three times promised. That’s pretty good for Ace).
I asked lady rep to keep me posted as soon as the bike arrives. At the time of this conversation, I had been without a bike for exactly five weeks.
