Do you buy from CRC?

Posted by: RAHrider

I've been finding sub $300 orders seem to go under the radar. 

What's screwed is that I just split my order into two smaller orders, got the same $20 rebate on each order (for being over $150) and free shipping on everything! God bless CRC. Where else can I get 3 cinch chainrings and a carbon seatpost for $200 with free shipping and a $20 rebate?

Man, over the past year or so, every one of my CRC order has customs fees, regardless of the value. The only way I can avoid it is doing their "customs included" shipping option, which is quite expensive. I used to have good luck with CRC at customs, but not in at least 2 years.

Has anyone had CRC send them the wrong item? How did it get resolved?

I ordered a Renthal 31.8 bar and stem, and they sent a 35 clamp stem instead (and 60 mm length, rather than 40 mm as ordered). I got in touch with them by email and by FB Messenger (this was the quickest way to get a response). They say it will take me 2-3 business days for their Stock Management Team to assess the situation before I hear back on next steps.

In the meantime, I found the stem I was looking for locally, so I ideally get my money back.

In contrast, I had a similar situation with Jenson where they sent me the wrong version of a tire and it was resolved instantly with a quick phone call.

Posted by: mammal

Posted by: RAHrider

I've been finding sub $300 orders seem to go under the radar. 

What's screwed is that I just split my order into two smaller orders, got the same $20 rebate on each order (for being over $150) and free shipping on everything! God bless CRC. Where else can I get 3 cinch chainrings and a carbon seatpost for $200 with free shipping and a $20 rebate?

Man, over the past year or so, every one of my CRC order has customs fees, regardless of the value. The only way I can avoid it is doing their "customs included" shipping option, which is quite expensive. I used to have good luck with CRC at customs, but not in at least 2 years.

They used to ship by canada post, which sometimes got through without taxes/duties. I just ordered some things and they sent it DHL - it looks like the old Canada post option is no more. DHL dinged me $45 on a $200 order. I went and did customs manually and it cost me about $25. At the end of the day, probably not worth all the effort to email, get the documents, go down to the office etc but it made me feel good on principle. From now on I will either do prepaid duties or just order through merlin.

@D.C. As for returns to CRC. They have been pretty good for me in the past. One time they sent me wire bead tires when they said they were "kevlar". When I raised it as an issue that their description was misleading they just refunded the tires but didn't want me to send them back. On a second occasion, they sent me a defective helmet. I had to take pictures etc but once they determined that it was defective they sent me a return label and although it took a while, I got a refund.

If I were you, I would not hesitate to buy the stem you want. If the error was on their end I would be fairly confident they will take care of you. If you are lucky, you will have an additional stem in your parts bin.

Pretty lame, a few days have gone by and I have still not heard back. They have some okay prices, but I guess it’s buyer beware…

Posted by: D_C_

Pretty lame, a few days have gone by and I have still not heard back. They have some okay prices, but I guess it’s buyer beware…

If you go through the chat you can resolve things pretty quickly. The only issue is that they are in a very different time zone. If the wait is too long, just do a chat.

Posted by: D_C_

Pretty lame, a few days have gone by and I have still not heard back. They have some okay prices, but I guess it’s buyer beware…

My advice is to keep pushing them for a full refund of what you’ve paid (including shipping and duty), or the correct product. 

I had them send me a different compound tire than what I’d ordered. Their initial offer was either a partial refund and a credit, or returning it to them for full refund. When I pointed out that their RMA form required me to organize my own shipping and didn’t have any way for me to get a refund for the shipping and duties I’d already paid, they fully refunded the tire and shipping and let me keep the tire as it wasn’t going to be worth it to return. There were a couple days delay though for them offering me that.

Posted by: D_C_

Has anyone had CRC send them the wrong item? How did it get resolved?

A couple of years ago, I ordered a Minion DHR but received a DHF due to Maxxis having put the wrong tag & UPC on the tire.  I emailed customer service and they said I could send it back for a refund, or I could keep it for half price and they would credit me the difference, which I used to order a DHR.  Quick and easy, and I ended up spending less than $40 on each tire.

Just figured I'd bump this topic to add my recent experience. Black Friday, decided to see if this made it worth it to jump through the duty hoops for some deals. I made several iterations of my "cart" to investigate shipping options, including and excluding several different items in the process. 

"Duty included" shipping option was consistently more than the total price of the products. The regular shipping options were consistently just under the total price of the products. Not sure if this is Brexit related, but I think this officially spells the end of CRC being an even close to reasonable option.

Maybe it depends on what you buy. I just picked up an Endura MT500 II jacket for $356 all taxes and duty included. I wanted to buy it locally but it is $500 plus 13% tax. The duty/shipping portion was $46.50 on a $310 jacket.

Had an order from Bike24 somehow sail through. No duty/taxes collected on ~300 euros worth of parts and clothing. I just used their standard shipping option.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I picked it up at the post office. YMMV.

Posted by: Vandy

Had an order from Bike24 somehow sail through. No duty/taxes collected on ~300 euros worth of parts and clothing. I just used their standard shipping option.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I picked it up at the post office. YMMV.

Yeah, there's no rhyme or reason.

I've paid taxes on small shoebox sized orders that was one to two hundred dollars worth, and have had a half-fridge sized box worth $1500 sail through.

CRC has soaked me too many times.

Prefer to bring my business to my LBS's in the area. 

If I have an issue with something it gets sorted pretty quick.

Plus who doesn't love going to the shop and chatting with the people you know there? People do very little of this these days.....

I ordered a tire from CRC, which came to about $50, and chose the cheap shipping (order value too low for free shipping). My order shipped with Skynet, and I ended up owing $15.55, $12.43 of which was brokerage fee.

I received an email with a lump sum amount owed and payment instructions. I had to send a follow-up email to get a breakdown of customs costs; there was no way to find this information otherwise.

The amount I owed was fairly low, and not enough for me to kick up much of a fuss. But I didn't think it was okay for them to ask for payment without providing details, so I figured it was worth putting Skynet through the trouble of sending that info to me.

I realize my opinion of CRC is probably soured by my last purchase experience, where they sent me the wrong item and resolving it was a huge hassle. I am probably looking for fault. But the tire was too good a deal.

I just received a shipment from CRC for a trainer table and a couple other items to get up to the free shipping threshold (which was $179CDN). Chose the 'all in' duty and taxes (which was $27 of which $21 would be taxes) and it arrived at my door in less than a week with no extra costs. So I guess that is $6 in 'duty' of some kind. Seems reasonable to me. For the record, I have always chosen the 'all in' option and have yet to be hit with any surprise fees.