# Avoid this ebike dealer



## ebike3357 (Jan 29, 2019)

Buyers beware, stay FAR away from Top Gun Bikes in Sacramento California. On March 30 2018 I paid 50% down for their top of the line ebike and two weeks later the full balance. As promised by Ren, the owner, the bike was to take five weeks to build and ship. Instead, what I received was a constant stream of feeble excuses, broken promises, missed deadlines and outright lies. After 5 months Ren instructed me to dispute the charges on my MasterCard and then pay him again on a scheduled plan that he failed to honour. At about six months he commissioned the bike to be built by another shop, but when it was ready he did not have the money to pay them so they wouldn't release it. At seven and a half months I gave him a final deadline 17 days in advance but as he always did before, he never acted with any concern of time and then two days before the deadline tried to negotiate a later date with me. On November30th, eight months after my initial deposit I finally disputed my second series of charges (this time on my Visa card) and walked away. I would never have stuck it out anywhere near that long if this particular bike had been available from someone else. I watched spring, summer and fall pass by as my hope to ride an electric bike in 2018 never materialized. What I did get instead was incredible amounts of stress, anxiety and disappointment. This man is a lowlife and the worst business owner I have ever come across. Do not be fooled by his assurances and smiley emojis, he can not be trusted to keep his word.:madmax:


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## BobBracket (Jun 6, 2018)

ebike3357 welcome to the forum. Wow I would have been going out of my GODDAMN MIND but I'm glad you didn't end up losing the money! I suppose just put down one small deposit in the future. What's the next step, still on the prowl for an ebike?


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## og-mtb (Sep 23, 2018)

ebike3357 said:


> Buyers beware, stay FAR away from Top Gun Bikes in Sacramento California. On March 30 2018 I paid 50% down for their top of the line ebike


Yeah, about those top of the line "ebikes"

https://topgunbikes.com/?orderby=popularity&post_type=product


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## honkinunit (Aug 6, 2004)

This is going to sound harsh, but it would only have taken 15 seconds of a bike-knowledgeable person looking at that guy's website to tell you those bikes are garbage. 

Let's just be real. Any bike with batteries in a nylon bag hanging from the top tube feeding a sketch controller controlling a hubmotor is a really bad idea. People watch YouTube videos of some helmetless dude riding a frightening bike 50 MPH and they think they should send the guy $5000? Yikes. 

Same goes for the bikes with currie-type "middrives" that are clamped to the downtube of a soft-steel Chinese shitbike. Turn and run. 

Stick to the name-brand stuff unless you really know what you are doing.


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## Lemonaid (May 13, 2013)

Seems legit..


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## mtnbikej (Sep 6, 2001)

Lemonaid said:


> Seems legit..
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## BobBracket (Jun 6, 2018)

Lemonaid said:


> Seems legit..
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

Lemonaid said:


> Seems legit..
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## BobBracket (Jun 6, 2018)

Holy what, that Kraken is $13,000?!! I'm dead, deader than a doornail.


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

BobBracket said:


> Holy what, that Kraken is $13,000?!! I'm dead, deader than a doornail.


I'm pretty sure it's not even the worst deal on their website too.

One born every minute...


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## KenPsz (Jan 21, 2007)

1) Buy crappy fatbike
2) Put on a hub drive
3) Put some unknown batteries on bike
4) Charge 13K

Profit has got to be over 12K, now that is a business model right there!


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## Bigwheel (Jan 12, 2004)

"I would never have stuck it out anywhere near that long if this particular bike had been available from someone else"

OP, looking at that load of eBike BS, most of which are just HPC (High Power Cycles another company altogether that has been around for a long time flogging over watted bikes so ugly not even a mother would love them) kit crap hung on sketchy bikes, I would be interested just what your particular bike spec was?


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## Gutch (Dec 17, 2010)

It’s alive! It’s alive!


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## mbmb65 (Jan 13, 2004)

Holy ****. Sometimes people get what they deserve. This is one of those times. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

Lemonaid said:


> Seems legit..
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## ziscwg (May 18, 2007)

ebike3357 said:


> Buyers beware, stay FAR away from Top Gun Bikes in Sacramento California. On March 30 2018 I paid 50% down for their top of the line ebike and two weeks later the full balance. As promised by Ren, the owner, the bike was to take five weeks to build and ship. Instead, what I received was a constant stream of feeble excuses, broken promises, missed deadlines and outright lies. After 5 months Ren instructed me to dispute the charges on my MasterCard and then pay him again on a scheduled plan that he failed to honour. At about six months he commissioned the bike to be built by another shop, but when it was ready he did not have the money to pay them so they wouldn't release it. At seven and a half months I gave him a final deadline 17 days in advance but as he always did before, he never acted with any concern of time and then two days before the deadline tried to negotiate a later date with me. On November30th, eight months after my initial deposit I finally disputed my second series of charges (this time on my Visa card) and walked away. I would never have stuck it out anywhere near that long if this particular bike had been available from someone else. I watched spring, summer and fall pass by as my hope to ride an electric bike in 2018 never materialized. What I did get instead was incredible amounts of stress, anxiety and disappointment. This man is a lowlife and the worst business owner I have ever come across. Do not be fooled by his assurances and smiley emojis, he can not be trusted to keep his word.:madmax:


Where would you have ridden this Kraken bike from them?

Dual hub drive motors? You may as well just get a motorcycle.

I also don't think that is a class 1, 2 or 3. Maybe a class 9 with all that power.

It has a throttle, so no MUT use (legally). With it's speed, I'd say it would be classified as a motorcycle. So, you'd need a license and reg and lighting.....

That's a lot of money unless you are going to be in Downieville 4 weekends a month


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## Gutch (Dec 17, 2010)

Release the Kraken...


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

Gutch said:


> Release the Kraken...


Precisely!


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## BCsaltchucker (Jan 16, 2014)

this company demonstrates every ebike h8ter's worst fears. Garbage bikes with sketchy kits sold for 4x what they are worth, with overpowered illegal specifications. Stick with the major brand eMTB, bikes built to modern legal and safety specifications.

If you are on such a tight budget you can't afford them, then throw a BBSHD kit on a well-reviewed and respected Hardtail - and do it yourself. like $1k for a used hardtail and $1K for a kit from a well respected BBSHD dealer like Lunacycle. And accept it will not be near the bike that you get with a major brand eMTB (Specialized, PIvot, Rocky Mtn, Haibike, Giant, Trek, Norco etc)

If you are just looking for a super powerful ebike to use on the road, then consider https://www.zeromotorcycles.com/ which cost way less than that $13k (the base model is $8500usd) are legal and safe and amazing


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## Bigwheel (Jan 12, 2004)

The lamest thing is that their 12,000w bike with two 6,000w motors, which if multiplied does equal 12,000, but in reality is just a bike with two motors that produce 6,000w's and that is the peak output the bike can produce regardless if both are on at the same time. 

Still waiting for the OP to come back with what his dream eBike that only these tools could build for him consisted of......

.


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## mtnbikej (Sep 6, 2001)

This thread didn't go the way the OP thought it would....doubt he will be back.


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## richardjohnson (Sep 12, 2016)

Glad this fell through. Love to run into a throttled 16 horse motorcycle on the trails. Especially considering that the brakes are probably not even close to being able to stop a 16hp 50mph compensation machine, and also glad you warned us though, thanks for preventing me from losing my hard earned dollars on a POS franken motor-bike from some hack selling snake oil. Save me a ton, bro.


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## 127.0.0.1 (Nov 19, 2013)

the bike site dude probably has or wanted a JIT model and could not deliver, JIT (just in time) failed. you can only JIT if your supply chain is intact. if you supply chain is an ali-baba login, that cannot be trusted to be the same day-to-day/week-to-week/month-to-month.

because he said 'just dispute it with the credit card company', shows he wanted to give a refund but it is easier for him to have you do it, and he'll just pay up the card company later, removing him from direct refund (which is a pita when you are not a full commerce shop)

a) make a few crazy ebike using cheap chinese sourced crapola for everything

b) make some videos, make a web site

c) if/when someone bites, only then resource all parts from china again, intending to build a bike for a customer but now maybe certain parts are ghosted, or not available, or unable to deliver

d) customer demands refund, far easier to deal with visa/mc on his end and on your end

shady as all get out, but me thinks total ripoff was not the intent here. just a lazy business model.

[I have no idea what really is going in, but that is how I can imagine things might be]


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## BobBracket (Jun 6, 2018)

127.0.0.1 said:


> the bike site dude probably has or wanted a JIT model and could not deliver, JIT (just in time) failed. you can only JIT if your supply chain is intact. if you supply chain is an ali-baba login, that cannot be trusted to be the same day-to-day/week-to-week/month-to-month.
> 
> because he said 'just dispute it with the credit card company', shows he wanted to give a refund but it is easier for him to have you do it, and he'll just pay up the card company later, removing him from direct refund (which is a pita when you are not a full commerce shop)
> 
> ...


That sounds about right.


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## Harryman (Jun 14, 2011)

mtnbikej said:


> This thread didn't go the way the OP thought it would....doubt he will be back.


He's posted the same saga on other ebike forums and is getting sympathy, so it's unlikely. :crazy:


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

I'm surprised the guy didn't try to throw something together and pass it off as a comparable substitute so he could keep the money.


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## BobBracket (Jun 6, 2018)

Harryman said:


> He's posted the same saga on other ebike forums and is getting sympathy, so it's unlikely. :crazy:


Judging by those ebikes I think the OP is disappointed about the wrong thing. He actually got lucky the owner never followed through, the worse scenario for OP would have been if TopGun honoured the purchase. He got his money back and didn't get royally ripped off!


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## Cornfield (Apr 15, 2012)

I think everyone should avoid ALL ebike dealers just to play it safe. :thumbsup:


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## og-mtb (Sep 23, 2018)

Seems legit.


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## matt4x4 (Dec 21, 2013)

Cornfield said:


> I think everyone should avoid ALL ebike dealers just to play it safe. :thumbsup:


I agree, I think everyone should just build their own ebike then buy from an ebike from any dealer!


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## mykle (Dec 25, 2013)

og-mtb said:


> Yeah, about those top of the line "ebikes"
> 
> https://topgunbikes.com/?orderby=popularity&post_type=product




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