Pocket Bike Canada Review
 

OK so the kid just bought the gio 125 dirt bike and is now hooked LOL.

He is wanting more jam and is seriously wanting to get a bigger bike. He is either looking at a used yamaha 150 for 2500 bucks or a new Gio X31 for roughly 1300 bucks.

Not sure what to tell him. I would prefer he didn't buy someone elses problems at a price of 2500 bucks. I think I would prefer him to spend the 1300 on the X31.

I know there are alot of die hard Japanese lovers who think the China stuff is junk and in my opinion the bulk of them are bitter after paying what they did for the " good Japanese stuff" and don't like to see others get decent deals. So please just straight up helpful info leave the bias out.

Any thoughts suggestions?

Personally, I would be all over that Gio. Provided the young feller isn't going to be out beating on it, jumping it or racing on a track, it should be just fine. I've had my bike for a year now, and I love it.

If you DO get that Gio, check back with us for some info on what to do before the bike is rode the first time.

Sprocket bolts, fuel lines and filter, check the bolts that bold the bike together.....that kinda thing.

I have an HIGHLY modified X31, and I don't know of another gio that would touch it....I think it would even smoke an X37R to be honnest, or it would be damn close!!

LOL I am quite familiar with the CHONDA bikes. Between the boy and myself we have:

3 - Gio Pocket street bikes - 49cc 2 stroke - all modded
1 - C1 pocket street bike - 39cc 2 stroke air cooled Blata clone
1 - GIO mini pocket quad - 49cc 2 stroke
1 - GIO 125cc dirt bike
1 - GIO 110cc mini atv
1 - GIO rebel t1 110cc
1 - Baja dirt bug with 6.5 horse Honda clone

We are fully aware of the need to do the big once over on these machines.
Everything we own has had the full meal deal and in the case of the pocket bikes even more to make them reliable.

Well he doesn't plan on anything major with it he certainly doesn't plan on using it as a put put machine.

You're not likely to find much brand bias here.

I'd scour CL for a used Gio. Several people have left them for dead when they can't make 'em run, and that makes them cheap.

Exactly why I like it here lol.

Yeah but we got small town availability here not alot to choose from esp this time of year. He has the cash for it right now and wants to get some use out of it rather than wait for just the right deal.

He actually did wind up buying the X31 21/18 from pocketbikescanada, lol gotta love the income tax returns.

He likes the idea of new vs taking chances with a used unit, for what its worth on the CHONDAS lol.

Well a little update on where the kids bike purchase is sitting. For the record the kid, from here on out to be known as the boy LOL is 20 not 12 or something.

As stated above he bought the X31 21/18 from pocketbikecanada. He made the purchase then promptly paid the 1413.00 e transfer from his bank account.

Today I get a phone call from them stating that the price on the website was wrong and that he had 2 options either pay an extra 400 bucks ( which is a break on the difference) or they can refund his money. At one point the guy even said "well we didn't accept the payment yet" at which point I asked him if they were planning on refusing the payment because they made a mistake to which I got very little response. I was also quick to point out that the mistake was thiers and they were legally obligated to honor that price. I was told he didn't have the authority to make that decision and someone would call me tomorrow. To which I replied no I want this settled right now.

So here we wait on a return call from them supposedly tonight at which point we will decide if we want to get the BBB and the local police involved and go in the direction of a fraud investigation.

Will keep you all updated on this one.

Sounds akin to bait and switch. Son of Jaloos is lucky to have you.

LOL you bet. They have nooo idea who they are dealing with lol.

Advertised price is advertised price.

Well what a shock no phone call and no 1400 bucks back in the kids account yet.

Think this little note I fired off to them will work?


I received a phone call concerning ORDER # XXXXXXXX today and was informed that there was a price change on the ordered product and the price on the web site and throughout the entire purchase system was incorrect.
To this I will point out that it is not up to the consumer to monitor the correctness of your advertised prices and is the sole responsibility of the seller. It is not only unlawful but immoral to demand further compensation for an item purchased at a marked price. The internet is no different from a retail outlet that MUST sell an item for the lowest advertised or ticketed price.

I was also informed that there were two options. The difference of $400.00 could be paid or the money could be refunded. I was also informed that your company had not accepted the payment as of yet.
To this I ask how can a refund be made if the payment has not been accepted ? and why does a customer who purchased the item and paid promptly be responsible to cover any costs that were incurred by the seller as a result of an incorrect advertised price. One also has to surmise that when a person says “we have not accepted the payment yet” it also indicates that the bank has already notified you that the payment is ALL there and waiting to be accepted. This means that the customer has fulfilled his end of the purchase contract or agreement and the seller must legally and in good conscience fulfill their end of the agreement or contract.If as a customer I purchased an item from your company I would be bound by the same contract or agreement and would be held liable to make payment. It is a two way street and both parties must fulfill their obligations be it the buyer or the seller. This is also bordering on fraud and extortion in my opinion. Would you really go as low as to refuse a payment on a legal transaction that the purchaser did accepting all the liabilities and conforming to your specific guidelines because your company made a mistake ?

It seems to me this is not the first incident as in March 2012 I purchased a 125cc dirt bike from your company and the very next day the price went up. At that point you did not try to get us to pay the difference. It is somewhat suspicious that the price on this unit went up as well, looks more to me like the price went up a long time ago and we are the ones that bought one and pointed it out to your company. I would like to surmise that when an incorrect price was found on one product it is due diligence to check the pricing on the rest of the products and if not all at least the ones of the same product line. Your company is negligent in verifying prices on products when a known issue was detected. My son (who actually bought the bike) is guilty of nothing but purchasing and advertised item for an advertised price and nothing more.

I would like quick and speedy resolution on this matter as I do not wish to drag out what really is the only obvious solution to this situation. I would expect that your company has enough integrity to recognize when a mistake has been made and move to rectify the situation as quickly as possible. To this point I have not heard anything negative about your company. I also am not too disheartened that after purchasing the other dirt bike from you I emailed with a couple broken parts and never received a response. I still did not hesitate to order an even larger ticket item through your company. I really do not want to be the one that has negative things to say about your company and it is entirely up to you whether I do or not, I am a member of several online forums that have a large member base especially in the north west US and Canada and who generally ride Chinese bikes. I own 5 GIO motorized vehicles and am beginning to wonder why it is so hard to deal with their dealers, wonder if they realize that themselves.

I can safely say that if in fact you do not honour your end of the contract I will take this matter to the Better Business Bureau and most likely the RCMP or a lawyer. I fully expect my son to get his dirt bike with the features and functions as listed on your web site. I have copies of your ads both with and without the price changes, a printed copy of the invoice (even though it has suddenly disappeared from your site). I know what was advertised and I know what should be arriving at my door in excellent condition in a very very reasonable amount of time.

Please use my email XXXXXXXX for any further communication as I cannot guarantee cell reception at all times and I would like to keep a written record of all further communications.

Remind me to not upset you.

LOL na I am really a big pussy cat, I just have a way with words lol.

It really irks me when some company tries to pull something like this.

I also went over their whole site and there are no conditions of sale, disclaimers or anything else that would give them a way out. There is no terms of sales that a buyer or company must conform to. It would be prudent for them to post such conditions and they may have been able to protect themselves this time, but lucky for me they have not.

Does anyone know who the parent company is for them?

From what I have managed to dig up they have a BBB score of F on a scale of A+ to F.

I noticed as well that GIO Canada and the seller on ebay called Svenneo are both subsidiariies of Parnus Global Trading Company and also wonder if pocket bike canada falls into the same. So when you buy off ebay from Svenneo you are actually buying from Gio Canada. I have a nagging suspision that pocket bike canada is the same and just another store front for Gio Canada ie Parnus.

I have had issues with Svenneo from ebay as well with parts replacement in the past and from what I can tell their policies are the same as Gio Canada.

I've heard comments of a relationship between Svenneo and Gio in the past, but I have no personal experience there. I bought stuff from Parnus Global Trading before they had a separate Gio division. Back in the day, I bought Giovanni products (before it was shortened to Gio) directly from Parnus on eBay. There was no company website that you could purchase from.

I know of pocketrocket99, but that's a competitor to Gio. I've never heard of Pocket Bike Canada.

Have you contacted Son of Jaloos' bank yet?

Well update to the situation.

It looks like they do not want to honor the sale and have in fact cancelled the order.

Its on.

I'm gonna go make a bowl of popcorn.

LOL better make it a big one.

So far I have filed a complaint with the Lower Mainland Better Business Bureau and sent an email to BCTV consumer advocate.

Next is CBC consumer Advocate.

I wonder what the Mounties will say.

My next correspondance with Pocket Bike Canada.

It has come to my attention that your company has decided to cancel this order. I find this very underhanded and unscrupulous. I am in the process of determining the legality or your decision. I am confident that I will find that your decision violates consumer law and that you will be liable.
I have already lodged a complaint with the Lower Mainland Better Business Bureau and sent an email to BCTV’s Consumer Alert representative and CBC TV’s Marketplace and I will also be filling a complaint with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs.
My next step will be to obtain council and look into filling a claim in small claims court. In the event this happens I will also be pursuing all court and council expenses.
It is entirely up to your company how far this matter needs to go. I strongly suggest you honor the original sale as your actions will undoubtedly be a lot more costly than the amount you stand to lose at this point.
Advise me of your intentions regarding this matter, if I receive no response I will continue on my pre described course of actions and you will be notified by the appropriate agencies.

They may need one of these buttons soon.

http://shop.blueridgeflooring.co.uk/...bmitbutton.jpg

New update:

After sending them the last message my IP has been blocked and all I am getting over my internet be it computer or cell on wifi is "page not found 404"

Funny though the same phone on bell cel network gets on just fine.

Wow, for them to actually IP ban you instead of trying to resolve it... cowards. I can't believe a company can be so stubborn over $400. They should just give in already instead of trying to run away from it and get into more legal hassle. It's going to cost them a lot more for a lawyer than the $400 they want so badly.

Keep in contact with them through another internet connection (or even a proxy should work).

LOL yup makes no sense to me either.
The boy paid through bank e transfer as well and rather than rejecting the payment they were going to let his money sit in limbo till the 30 day expiry period ended. Of course that wasn't going to happens so he had to pay 3.50 for a stop payment and now they have a record of him stopping payment.

As far as IP banning me its all good I have other access and their email unless they want to change that, I can use any of the ten email aliases I have.

It is gonna be very hard fro them to run from the BBB and Consumer Affairs Canada though. Hopefully the CBC or CTV decides to run a story as well.
Either way they will not run from the bad publicity I will bring down on them.

On the plus side the kid shelled out some extra cash and picked up a X35 instead from somewhere else.

We're gonna need pics! :D

Good to see you picked up an X35! I can speak from my own knowledge of the criminal code and civil law in a situation like this and unfortunately there isn't much you can do.

The RCMP will not get involved in civil matters. Even if you purchased it and they didn't send you the bike, it would still be a civil matter and the Police would not get involved.

As far a civil action, you have no argument in small claims court. When a product is advertised online it is advertised as an offer to buy. The sale is not completed and the offer has not been accepted until payment is received by the seller. Businesses do have the right to refuse service. The same can be said for products that you purchase in store. If you take it to the till and the sales person notes there is a pricing error they can refuse to sell you that product at that price. This is not to say that some businesses wouldn't honor the mislabeled price to uphold good customer service. Some States may have laws regarding this and may protect consumers for in store purchases, but as far as I know BC doesn't have laws forcing businesses to honor a pricing error. There was a similar case where a few people purchased 2 speakers for $99 from the Future Shop online store. It turned out to be a pricing error and the ad should have been for 1 speaker only. Future Shop eventually did honor the offer, but only to maintain good customer service, They were not legally obligated to.

The only thing I can think of that would be against the law would be if mislabeling prices was being used as a business practice to lure customers in. Then again you would need to prove that is common practice for them.

I agree what you encountered doesn't seem very honest and is poor customer service on their part. Your best bet would be to report it to the BBB and Consumer Protection BC http://www.consumerprotectionbc.ca/c...lving-problems

amwilkie you have some very interesting points.

I have a couple main points as well though.

Before they decided not to honor the sale the bank had already sent the email money transfer. It was already sitting there as full payment monday morning when they opened up. All they had to do was punch in the answer to the security question. The money was as good as theirs. They were sitting there with it when I was called and in his own words "you can pay the difference or we can refund your money" Money cannot be refunded if it was never accepted. If I had agreed to it they would have gladly typed in the 6 letter word and the money would have been instantly in their account. Furthermore if they did not want to honor the sale they also had an option to return or deny the transfer. They did nothing of the sort, they let the money sit in limbo for what would have been 30 days (bank default time out) if the boy had not done a stop payment on it at a cost of 3.50 to himself. Does Walmart make you wait up to 30 days to get your money back on a returned item or is your cash recieved on the spot.

Also the matter of due dilligence. In march we bought a 125cc dirt bike from them and noticed on the following day the price increased by 100 dollars. They did not pursue or back out of the sale at that point. I am not sure if this can be argued as precident or not. My point here is if 2 months ago an item was purchased and after the fact you noticed the price increase on the item is it not due dilligence to check the rest of you pricing.

Their website does not list any type of sales contrct, conditions of sale or any of the usual "fine print" that retailers use to enable them to cover themselves in multiple situations including this type of instance. There is absolutly nothing, not a word.

I have checked and the retailer is obligated to provide the customer with all pertinent information and for lack of a better word contracts.

Disclosure of information
46 (1) A supplier must disclose the following information to a consumer before the consumer enters into a distance sales contract:
(a) the information referred to in sections 19 (a) to (c), (f) to (j) and (n) [required contents of contract] and 23 (2) [required contents of future performance contract];
(b) if available, the supplier's electronic mail address;
(c) a detailed description of the goods or services to be supplied under the contract, including any relevant technical or system specifications;
(d) the currency in which amounts owing under the contract are payable;
(e) the supplier's delivery arrangements, including the identity of the shipper, the mode of transportation and the place of delivery to the consumer;
(f) the supplier's cancellation, return, exchange and refund policies, if any;
(g) any other prescribed information.
(2) The supplier must disclose the information required under subsection (1) in a clear and comprehensible manner.

Note section F. And section g where the simple addition of the term "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" would have more than covered the situation.

And as stated before the sale is a binding contract between 2 parties and is refered to as such in many many instances in the consumer protection act. If you go to an auction and bid on something you are obliged to pay for the item right? By raising your hand you and the seller have entered into a contract of sale. By letting my son go through the entire purchase, close the purchase and furnish information on how to make payment, they too have entered into the sales contract.

I managed a retail outlet and was forced to honor a mispriced item myself many many times.

It is not that I am bummed that my kid did not get an unreal steal of a deal on a bike. It is the fact that they feel they can do this sort of thing in the first place. It has gone far beyond a bike.

Either way this thing plays out the bad publicity will cost them many many times more than the simple 400 bucks extra profit they stood to lose. I am a member on several different forums (all dealing with china bikes)
and the majority of them have sections for retailer reviews. They will certainly not fare well in any of them.

They will still have to either answer the BBB or as they aparently have done in the past just ignore them. Either way its a long way to make up for their BBB rating of F

And I guess any legality issues will be taken care of by Consumer and Corporate Affairs Canada as a formal complaint had been filed against them as promised.

You bet, as soon as it gets here and is given the once over.

I hope this doesn't start an online argument.

As I understand it, you sent to money to them, but they did not accept it. Under the eyes of the law the sale is not complete until they accept payment. I agree what they are doing is not very professional, but you need to understand they listed the item as an "offer to purchase". If they had accepted the money it would be a completely different story. It was an a$$hole move on their part to let the money sit there.

Plain and simple until they accept payment and have sent your son a confirmation email stating that payment has been received and the item will be shipped you do not have a contract, there has been no sale.

As far as the disclosure of information you posted. I agree any business should have one posted on their site, but at the end of the day again you have no contract. Quite often online retailers will also email their terms of sale when they have confirmed your order and accept payment. I know GIO Bike did this when I ordered mine. Do you really expect to lawyer up or have a consumer protection group use the courts to compel Canada Pocket Bikes to honor the advertised price because their website does not list their terms of sale including cancelation information? I know for a fact the terms of sale that was emailed to me from GIO Bike went above and beyond the one on their website. I would imagine if you agreed to pay more to Canada Pocket Bikes they probably would have sent you an email with the terms or sales, of course I'm only speculating this. Instead of thinking of it as they canceled your order or contract, think of it more so as they have refused your offer to purchase.


Out of curiosity when you managed a retail store who "forced" you to honor a mispriced item? Unless it was a court order I don't see who or what could compel you to do that.

It's good to have information like this available on forums though. I know I check out forums for a lot of the products I purchase online. This would definitely discourage me from doing any business with Pocket Bike Canada. I hope the BBB, Consumer Protection BC, or the Office of Consumer Affairs is able to do something for you.

I forgot to also say in regards to the disclosure of information, I believe what it means by cancelation is more so their policy if you are to cancel not the seller. For instance this could be a policy of a cancelation fee. If they don't have a policy posted and you were never made aware of it via email then they would have no right to impose a cancelation fee. If however they had it on their site under sale terms they could charge it.

Don't worry no arguments started here.

No from our other purchase 2 months ago they have already sent out all the information that they do. The only thing different in the 2 sales is the fact that they won't honor their offer to sell the item.

As a consumer I do not offer to buy anything I shop for retailers best offer to sell an item. It is not a bid system here it is a companies offer to sell me something not my offer to buy something. I would not have given them a price, say an item is retailed at 1500 and I say I would like to pay 1200 that is my offer to buy. In this instance they are setting the price and I am agreeing to their price and terms (provided they actually have any).

At the end of the day I really do not care what happens as far as the bike goes, he bought a better bike elsewhere end of story.

I do however plan on making their life miserable and costing them as many customers as I can. They need to be made aware that consumer need not stand for these kinds of actions and that in doing so it will cost them revenue. Not only any further revenue from myself but from as many people as I can get the word out to. They have already cost themselves as I had plans on buying a bigger quad at some point this summer. I will be doing so but not from them.

The long and the short of it is they are unscrupulous and decietful in their business practices period. Whether it is illegal is left to been seen but they are definatly dishonest and underhanded and people will be made aware of it. The line I have added to my sig will be added to all the forums I belong to.

I would really apreciate it if a mod could change the thread tittle to

"Pocket Bike Canada Review" so that people who google Pocket Bike Canada will find this thread and be allowed to read it before having any dealings with them.

Do you want this moved to Reviews as well?

If it pleases the court lol. Probably a better place for it anyway.

Thanks big guy.

Done. You're welcome.

New Update.

I recieved a call from Sven from Parnus international concerning this matter (as I suspected Sven99neo from Ebay, Gio Canada AND Pocke Bike Canada are all subsidiaries of Parnus Global Trading Company, they are all the same company).
He did agree with me and offered to sell the bike at the original purchase price. Unfortunatly we bought an X35 already so I had to pass.

Of course the only reason I got the call was because the better business bureau had sent them the notice of complaint.

So I guess the matter is resolved in a way. There really is no resolution as we purchased another bike from Gio Canada (funny how our money ultimatly went to Parnus either way). It would have been nice if they had reacted faster and the kid saved the extra 500 bucks he paid but he did wind up with a better bike.

Either way be very cautious if ever dealing with Pocket Bike Canada. I would recomend from now on using the toll free number to confirm prices and orders rather than rely on their internet sales.

For the record as well my IP is still banned from Pocket Bike Canada's web site.

So, is that your Gio 125 for sale on Kijiji?