shinybikes.com - still around?

i was thinking about buying something from shinybikes.com in the UK, but they haven't responded to my inquiry about stock, their online inventory seems to not be valid, and their facebook and twitter pages have not been updated in a long time. can anyone in the uk please try their local phone number to check (listed on their site as 02894466369)? their international number seems not to be working, and i'm calling from the states. if you get through, can you please ask for an email address i can use to contact them?

thanks in advance!

When I ordered from them back in October/November they were pretty hopeless on the CS front.

can't seem to find this piece i need anywhere else, and given my experience trying to contact them so far this week, i want to confirm they're open and have the item in stock before i send money their way. i dont have a lot of other options at this point, so i'll take hopeless CS; i just want to avoid sending money to a black hole.

Re:

I seem to remember them being mentioned a while back. Something about waiting a long time for a groupset to show up and having a bit of a battle to get a refund. :?

Have you tried phoning them?

Re: Re:

xerxes":11qf9hxv said:

I seem to remember them being mentioned a while back. Something about waiting a long time for a groupset to show up and having a bit of a battle to get a refund. :?

Have you tried phoning them?

Click to expand...

That was Ededwards he has a really shitty experience with them from start to finish ...give them a wide berth!!! :facepalm:

Re: Re:

xerxes":3p0abml8 said:

I seem to remember them being mentioned a while back. Something about waiting a long time for a groupset to show up and having a bit of a battle to get a refund. :?

Have you tried phoning them?

Click to expand...

i have tried calling, but i just get the "fast busy" signal, which could mean a disconnected line or just a failed call. i was hoping to rule out the latter if someone local could make a call to see if there are any humans there.

either way, thanks for the input, guys. i guess this is what i was expecting and dreading.

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What is it you're hoping to buy?

...something that's out of production, and they claim to have new. i'm guessing there's very little chance they truly have it, but i'm holding out to hopefully hear from an actual human before i give up hope completely. on the off chance they DO have one, i couldn't bear to out it myself

so... any locals feel like picking up the phone and seeing if you can get a working email address for them?

As above, I had a very poor experience with shinybikes. There's a thread on here about it but as a summary they took full payment for an item listed as stock, didn't ship, were arrogant when I followed up via telephone after several e-mails were ignored ("it would have helped if you told me when I e-mailed" "well I'm telling you now aren't I") and then failed repeatedly to ship what they said they had in their hands. I finally lost patience - after a month or so - and went for a Paypal refund. Which they ignored and then shipped an item I no longer wanted (we are 6 weeks in by now); fortunately I did not accept the parcel and eventually got a refund via Paypal.

Obviously this is only my experience but a quick Google shows that there are others
http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/shinybikes-com.130390/
http://road.cc/content/forum/57421-unshiny-bike
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... p=16726840

I won't be seduced by a cheap price again without doing a more thorough check first.

i finally heard from shinybikes, confirming that my piece IS in stock, but i heard this about 10 minutes after finally locating the piece i wanted elsewhere. i ended up paying a couple bucks more, but whatever. based on the customer response and reviews above and on google, i was only considering shiny if they were the only source i could find, and even then, very cautiously. i'll cross my fingers that my alternate source comes through.