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Be cautious with any imitation A-bike

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Expand view Topic review: Be cautious with any imitation A-bike

Post by Weakling on Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:39 am

Contact Amazon and tell us what they answer. They could have a teime limit for such complaints so do it ASAP and tell us what they answer. That could help others in same situation.

Re: fake "a-bicycle"being sold on amazon for $50

Post by newcross on Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:57 pm

igotscrewedbyamazon wrote: my boyfriend pointed out it was a fake because it said made in China-and i know they were invented in England.


I'm sorry to hear your story about Amazon USA. Japanese Amazon used to sell one of the fake, but they withdraw the item quite quickly, probably someone reported it as counterfeit.

The original Sinclair A-bike IS made in China too. at least until now. and for the reference, inovative chinese people come up with their counterfeit A-bike within the first month (could be even in a week) of the original A-bike launch. :?

Post by Weakling on Wed Feb 20, 2008 5:20 pm

Read through Amazon closely. Maybe they license other firms to take care of Sport gear? Read what they say about advertizing being correct and if you have a chance to get refund if you send it back?

Seems odd that Amazon would sell fakes. They ruin their good reputation.

Try to find Consumer advocates that give free advice in your state or town.

fake "a-bicycle"being sold on amazon for $50

Post by igotscrewedbyamazon on Wed Feb 20, 2008 4:26 pm

:!: :?: i am totally pissed! In America-that means mad! I was sooo happy to get what i thought was an A-bike from my postal guy yesterday-until my boyfriend pointed out it was a fake because it said made in China-and i know they were invented in England. It looked identital to the A-bike ad on the UK site-but i noticed that the words"A-bike" were missing from the piece of plastic near the seat-and also-the words"sinclair" did not appear on the metal part of the wheels-haven't even measured the wheels to see if they are 8" versus 6"-i am soo totally pissed! At first i didn't wanna believe him-because i thought it would be impossible to produce a fake-the bike is only 2 years on the market and has very elaborate engineering. Thank God for all of your posts about this-wish i had read about it b-4 i bought one on amazon. I weigh 183 pounds-safe for A-bike-but according to your posts-the fakes will have structural and frame defects. The last thing i want is for my overweight ass falling off this god-forsaken Chinese excuse for an A-bike! Thankyou for saving my life and my ass, especially the poster from Korea, Binch!

Re: A-Bike Marketing

Post by Amuro Lee on Wed Feb 13, 2008 7:14 pm

SG Man wrote:Hi there,

Greetings from Singapore. Im interested to get afew a-bikes for my family. Appreciate if anyone could refer to the right party. Just went to a- bike. co. uk seems like it's soldout.

From the pics this thing looks so cool and handy :)

THanks in advance.

Cheers!

brucetan (at) yahoo (dot) com

Hi SG Man,

I think you can buy the genuine A-bikes from this website in Hong Kong:
http://www.abike-shop.com

Regards,

Amuro

Re: A-Bike Marketing

Post by SG Man on Sat Feb 09, 2008 9:23 am

Hi there,

Greetings from Singapore. Im interested to get afew a-bikes for my family. Appreciate if anyone could refer to the right party. Just went to a- bike. co. uk seems like it's soldout.

From the pics this thing looks so cool and handy :)

THanks in advance.

Cheers!

brucetan (at) yahoo (dot) com

Re: A-Bike Marketing

Post by ABK on Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:13 pm

Oritatami wrote:What does this indicate? That the Sinclair A-Bike is over priced? That the real A-Bike has been rolled out to new markets too slowly? The companies producing the copies wouldn't do it unless they thought that they would sell, so perhaps it is a kind of compliment to the A-Bike design.

I am not sure whether there is any way to protect the A-Bike from being copied. The A-Bike frame itself is the same shape as the Strida. As for the method of folding, how many folding bikes have we seen that effectively have the same single fold method as a Dahon. Even Brompton has been copied now, but I think the 25 year protection a patent gives must have passed by now.

Maybe all folding bikes in the future will be A-frame folders. A-Bike could be the first of a new breed.

Jonathan



I felt that A-Bike had not planned it's business strategy well. And I agree with Oritatami that A-Bike has been slow in introducing their product to new markets.

Today we are living in a borderless world with information spread very fast round the world. Those who wants it would want it quick.

Another thing, the pricing of A-Bike is overly high. If those who imitates willing to take business risk and lower their price to more than 300% compared to the original, A-Bike should be over-charging the consumers.

While I agree that IP should be respected, yet the majority of the consumers will turn 'victim' if IP is being abused too. Imagine that the inventor of paper clip had IP protection or windscreen wiper is IP protected.

Ultimately, the government is the one that makes tonnes of money giving out IPs rights.

There are many events pointing to A-Bike's bad business strategy and the consumers are not having enough information to start with.

For example, in the country I live in, I get to know about A-Bike only from it's so call imitator and distributors who spend marketing dollars. Perhaps, A-Bike might be "making use" of these imitators to market the product for them then to claim as original?

Post by CapiCapo on Sun Jul 08, 2007 6:06 am

AMJZ

I bought the bike you posted, unfortunately I Believe it is a Fake. :-(

Can't go further than a block with it.

Very tough to get moving in the bike.

Capi

Post by Binch Shin on Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:49 pm

Hi thatsme

I have not been in Japan.
But I have been in Japanese internet sites.
That's Great!! Especially Leonarhodo's blog.

Happy Cycling ^(^

Let's make an Asian Network

Post by Binch Shin on Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:43 pm

I tried to receive a reasonable solution for 'the purchase queries or A/S in Japan' from DAKA. My request was not great. I just want to receive an email address for Japanese A-bikers. But it seems to me that they think 'Binch, you are in Korea. Why do you have an interest in Japan?' They are right. It is not suitable for business but I have no relation about the A-bike business. Anyway, I failed.
Through about 5 times of mail exchanges, I acknowledged new 3 email addresses of them. But what mail address is prepared for Japan? I don't know yet. Please understand that I can't open their mail list on this post. I think it is their information.

Anyway, I made a solution by myself. Let's make an Asian Network.
As I told before, there are huge A-bike community in Korea.
001. 4,200 members but about 300 owners.
002. many peoples of us have 2~5 bicycles including A-bike.
003. most of us have good talents such as engineer, programmer, journalist, designer...
004. all of us are very active and like to help our friends.
005. the translation machine between KR and JP are working very well.
So we can supply every information to Japanese A-bikers in fact.
Step one : Mailing. If you send a mail to me about Usages, Self-Repair tips or Trouble shooting then I will reply absolutely. Of course, you can write in Japanese. My open mail address is dynafeel@lycos.co.kr
Step two : Japanese page on our site. We will improve our site links more friendly and open more posts to unregistered members.
Step three : Asian Network. Before next spring, probably we can make a Japanese community combined with Korean community in Japan. We can supply every sources of useful posts such as information texts, photos, videos by HTML. And I think we can enjoy two countries' sites, also we can exchange various information about all sorts of bicycles. (of course, mainly about A-bike)
How about my solution?

Post by thatsme on Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:55 am

Binch Shin wrote:To thatsme

Oh, I omitted an answer to your question.
You asked what are you doing in korea?
I am an engineering designer and a mechanics enthusiast at the same time in Korea. I have a plan to develop a boat next year and love all products designed by Alexander Kalogroulis. I am writing some posts here because I hope to learn English. In Korea, we have a huge A-bike community that has about 4,200 registered members and the number is increasing day by day(but all posts only use Korean language). This is amazing!. We can find all information about A-bike because our members are bringing them from everywhere.

Regards


cool,
your english is better than mine, no even need to keep studyng it.
as for your project that is very nice, unfortunately i am not into that field, i am a manager for a small tour operator in tokyo.
amazing how popular has became the a bike in korea.
i think it is a fantastic invention, just the bicycle i always wanted, easy to carry, very light, easy to fold, and you can ride it!!
what else can you ask for?

if everything goes ok, when my kid will get old enough i will buy for him too, he is almost 4 years old.
for camping and traveling is the best.

anyway i also would like to push the aka in japan, see if an extra pressure may help a bit to move quicker.

cheers.
p.s have you ever been to japan?
i have been several time to soul, great time!!!

Post by Binch Shin on Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:46 am

To thatsme

Oh, I omitted an answer to your question.
You asked what are you doing in korea?
I am an engineering designer and a mechanics enthusiast at the same time in Korea. I have a plan to develop a boat next year and love all products designed by Alexander Kalogroulis. I am writing some posts here because I hope to learn English. In Korea, we have a huge A-bike community that has about 4,200 registered members and the number is increasing day by day(but all posts only use Korean language). This is amazing!. We can find all information about A-bike because our members are bringing news from everywhere on this planet.

Regards

Post by thatsme on Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:40 am

JJ wrote:thasme, I wanna play a game.... :twisted:


Now, you have three choices as a customer bound in Japan, I think:
1) Go buy from the HK shop at least expensive cost ($340+2500 yen for taxes and custom) and get worst service.
2) Go buy from the UK shop at most expensive cost (nearly 60,000 yen including taxes) and get moderate service (perhaps unavailable from Japan).
3) Just be patient and wait for unpromised shop launch in Japan.

Live or die. It is your choice. Now, let's begin the game... :twisted:


hey, thanks for the advices.
i read the post saiyng that soon they will sell it in japan.
that is a great news!!
even though i really want it now, i rather wait.
as for the hk shops, can we black mail them by saying we tell the newspaper about riping off the clients?
that might scared them off!!

wher do you live in tokyo?
also have you had any problem to carry it on the train, of course inside the bag?
i know they could charge estra, but if it is in the bag should not be a problem.
any experience on that?
btw, i even started a thread on gaijinpot.com regarding the a bike, quite good responce, i should be the a bike sales person :lol:

Post by Binch Shin on Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:11 am

Hi JJ and other Japanese A-bikers

Now, the one chief officer of DAKA is looking at these posts.
Probably, he will inform a reasonable solution after punishing some lazy guys.

Happy Cycling

Post by JJ on Thu Dec 07, 2006 3:49 am

I have just sent my previous messages once again to DAKA in HK.
I got immediate response from the postmaster.
According to the messages, sam_at_daka.com.hk and jess_at_daka.com.hk are no longer available.
Does this mean DAKA no longer collect "new idea" and announce to "press"?

You can see what I am talking about to see below:
http://www.daka-designs.com/contact/
Code: Select all
then view the source and find:
function  setMail() {
   var myType = (document.form1.type.options[document.form1.type.selectedIndex].value);
   var myRegion = (document.form1.region.options[document.form1.region.selectedIndex].value);
   var mailHK = new Array("joey@....


The whole email addresses are listed there.

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