# sale-bikes.com legit?



## csledd281 (Aug 21, 2009)

I was looking at google trying to find different prices in the Trek HiFi series and came across the sale-bikes.com site. So yeah, it has a 2011 Trek HiFi Pro listed for $1266. This can't be right. It has to be a scam right? I mean this is a bike that retails for $3620.

Just wanted to see what people thought of this. The company is apparently located in Indonesia. Is it common to see people running sites like this?


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## krjr13 (May 2, 2010)

Hmmm well sounds sketchy cause of the price and I wouldn't mess around with anything your not sure of when it comes to thousands of dollars!


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## csledd281 (Aug 21, 2009)

Well just to warn anyone who reads this, I did some searching and apparently there's a ton of bike scams that come out of Indonesia, so beware!


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## NC-Biker (Dec 2, 2010)

Not to sound like a broken record.....If it sound to good to be true,it probably is. STAY AWAY.


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## Cool_Man (May 5, 2010)

I don't think Trek sale their bike online.


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## Crash Test Dumby (May 3, 2011)

Indonesia seems to be a real center of these scams, not just in mountain bikes. In my years of hobbies ranging from dirt bikes to computers to mountain bikes and other things Indonesia comes up over and over. I have yet to see a legitimate business out of there (I am sure they do exist, but clearly in the minority). I believe Cool_Man is right that Trek doesn't allow online sales, and if they do they wouldn't allow discounts that heavy.


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## bleubuck (Mar 14, 2009)

They'd be sold out at that price!
I've been scouring the net for good deals on a yeti or SC. Starting to run into lots of these sites. They all seem to be out of India or something. 
I've been found several 2011 Yeti 575's for about $1800... I know that ain't right!
Always check the mfg's site to find an authorized dealer... Net or otherwise!
And no, as far as I've ever known and according to their website, Trek does not allow their bikes to be sold online.


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## ka7jun (Jul 31, 2011)

Crash Test Dumby said:


> Indonesia seems to be a real center of these scams, not just in mountain bikes.


Agree! Stay far away from those sites.


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## getagrip (Mar 26, 2008)

Here is the registration data for that domain (website address) - it was registered back in June, so the site is basically brand new. With that information, you can form your own conclusions about the company:

Registrant:
sale-bikes.com
Satria Nugroho ([email protected])
Jl Keriahen No123
Other
Other
Medan
Sumatra Utara,20141
ID
Tel. +62.620000000
Fax. +62.620000000

Creation Date: 02-Jun-2011 
Expiration Date: 02-Jun-2012

Domain servers in listed order:
ns1.idwebhost.com
ns2.idwebhost.com


Administrative Contact:
sale-bikes.com
Satria Nugroho ([email protected])
Jl Keriahen No123
Other
Other
Medan
Sumatra Utara,20141
ID
Tel. +62.620000000
Fax. +62.620000000

Technical Contact:
sale-bikes.com
Satria Nugroho ([email protected])
Jl Keriahen No123
Other
Other
Medan
Sumatra Utara,20141
ID
Tel. +62.620000000
Fax. +62.620000000

Billing Contact:
sale-bikes.com
Satria Nugroho ([email protected])
Jl Keriahen No123
Other
Other
Medan
Sumatra Utara,20141
ID
Tel. +62.620000000
Fax. +62.620000000


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## Berkley (May 21, 2007)

Def fake. Ask yourself: why is there a naked chick in high heels at the top left corner? Unless they're SPD heels...she definitely cant clip in with those...


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## Crash Test Dumby (May 3, 2011)

Would be nice if it was legit, the XTR build kit for less than the price of the brakes alone would be nice


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## jpeters (Nov 19, 2010)

The best way to tell is go through checkout and if it asks for you to wire transfer the money via western union or something like that its a scam.


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## jpeters (Nov 19, 2010)

That would be nice a Giant Anthem x for under 1000 beans I mean come on. 

It probably works good people see that and get so excited they just send off the money. It makes me so mad I want to fly to Indonesia and find the guy and beat the snot out of him. I am sure they get lots of kids who save all summer to get a new bike and they think they find a good deal online and its some hunk of §hit in another country is scamming them. If I ever meet a fücker scamming people like this its on :madmax:


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## rockcrusher (Aug 28, 2003)

remember a sucker is born every minute. Don't be that guy.


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## HighLife420 (Apr 5, 2011)

rockcrusher said:


> remember a sucker is born every minute. Don't be that guy.


100% :thumbsup:


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## Holy Roller (Mar 18, 2011)

*sale-bikes.com*

Yes, if something looks too good to be true then it probably is! But on the other hand, why are we (cyclists) being fed this constant line of crap from the manufacturers about the cost of bikes?? I mean REALLY? C'mon- $10,000 and up for a friggin' carbon fiber road bike with Dura Ace??? STOP DRINKING THE KOOL AID!!! It can't cost that much to make a carbon fiber frame & fork!! A classic case in point is the thread-less headsets; we were told that they were better (and they are) and therfore we were charged more $$$$, but the reality is that they were developed to reduce the machining cost of the parts (cutting threads costs $$) so, the industry sells us a lie and charges us more for it. They saved money on the front end and charged more on the back end- good business for them (I love capitalism) bad savings for the end user. Point 2 compare all of the R&D, tooling and machining for a 250cc dirt bike (Honda, Kawa, Suzuki, etc) and then compare that to a equally priced F/S MTB; does that make any sense???
So, When I see a $4,000 bike for $1,800- 1. I know that it is a counterfeit, 2, I also know that it was probably made in the same factory that the original one was; so, since they are on Paypal and therefore covered in their buyers protection- I was gonna roll the dice and see what happens- mostly because I'm just so pissed off at the ridiculously overpriced bicycle market!
My 2 cents- take it or leave it.
Ride on!!:madman:


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## Mellow Yellow (Sep 5, 2003)

$1266 is less that what a shop would have been able to buy the bike for. No bueno.


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## Chri (Sep 27, 2011)

I just went to the site to check it out, and was told "Account has been suspended" Guess that can answer anyone's questions on if its legit or not


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## HighLife420 (Apr 5, 2011)

Chri said:


> I just went to the site to check it out, and was told "Account has been suspended" Guess that can answer anyone's questions on if its legit or not


What sucks is that they prob scammed a bunch of people before that happened. :madmax:


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## Berkley (May 21, 2007)

Holy Roller said:


> So, When I see a $4,000 bike for $1,800- 1. I know that it is a counterfeit, 2, I also know that it was probably made in the same factory that the original one was; so, since they are on Paypal and therefore covered in their buyers protection- I was gonna roll the dice and see what happens- mostly because I'm just so pissed off at the ridiculously overpriced bicycle market!
> My 2 cents- take it or leave it.
> Ride on!!:madman:


The bikes aren't counterfeit, they just plain don't exist.


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## rockcrusher (Aug 28, 2003)

Holy Roller said:


> Yes, if something looks too good to be true then it probably is! But on the other hand, why are we (cyclists) being fed this constant line of crap from the manufacturers about the cost of bikes?? I mean REALLY? C'mon- $10,000 and up for a friggin' carbon fiber road bike with Dura Ace??? STOP DRINKING THE KOOL AID!!! It can't cost that much to make a carbon fiber frame & fork!!


When I started road biking the only difference between high end road bikes and low end road bikes was the high end ones had fancier lugs and were built by someone in England or the eastern US and the low end ones were built buy some guy in asia.

Now you can get a base road bike that shifts better, rides better, weighs at least 4 pounds less and works better than my higher end fuji from 1984 and you can get it for under $1000. The way that that bikes exists is that over the years each version of the high end bike would advance, at significant cost to the marque as they tried new technologies, did research and development, learned about aluminum, learned about bonding carbon to aluminum then learned about aluminum. Each step is a huge step forward for bikes. WE now have high end bikes that can weigh 10lbs and are stiffer and stronger an more efficient than any bike ridden by Greg Lemond, Miguel Indurain and even Lance Armstrong at the tour de france.

I can buy a $3000 road bike that is stiffer and lighter and stronger and better performing than anything ridden by Greg Lemond and Miguel Indurain at the Tour de France.

For $1500 I can now buy a road bike that is stiffer and lighter and stronger and better performing than anything ridden by Greg Lemond at the Tour de France.

That is why super bikes cost super dollars because in 5 years that technology will be available to everyone at a price that most can afford but if you want to play with it now you pay.



> A classic case in point is the thread-less headsets; we were told that they were better (and they are) and therfore we were charged more $$$$, but the reality is that they were developed to reduce the machining cost of the parts (cutting threads costs $$) so, the industry sells us a lie and charges us more for it. They saved money on the front end and charged more on the back end- good business for them (I love capitalism) bad savings for the end user


This is a poor example. Headsets were a laborious and ugly part of bikes, builders and bike shops had to stock multiple lengths of forks to match any bikes given headtube length. You needed special tools to work on them. Getting them set properly was a process of trial and error and maintaining them was a pain. They not only had to retool for an easier product but they had to discard an entire standard that existed from the beginning of bicycles. They had to file patents or find ways around patents and they had to make a product that worked better than the existing and make it desirable.

But look now for $30 you can get a sealed bearing headset that is tunable with only a 5mm wrench, simple to maintain and work on and does its job without a thought. Without those expensive first examples and the people that bought them there would not be this. Trickle down at its best for a product we couldn't live without.



> Point 2 compare all of the R&D, tooling and machining for a 250cc dirt bike (Honda, Kawa, Suzuki, etc) and then compare that to a equally priced F/S MTB; does that make any sense???


This comparison makes no sense as a comparably priced dirt bike to a mountain bike, say a $3500 bike would designate a low end dirt bike and a higher end mountain bike. The volumes of sales will be much different and the tooling for a dirt bike company might be shared across a hundred models where as the tooling and supply for a FS mountain bike might be shared across 3 as in Niners case.



> So, When I see a $4,000 bike for $1,800- 1. I know that it is a counterfeit, 2, I also know that it was probably made in the same factory that the original one was; so, since they are on Paypal and therefore covered in their buyers protection- I was gonna roll the dice and see what happens- mostly because I'm just so pissed off at the ridiculously overpriced bicycle market!
> My 2 cents- take it or leave it.
> Ride on!!:madman:


It might be made in the same factory as the original but so are the Subaru Imprezza and the Subaru WRX STI and I can tell you one of those is worth the premium you pay for it and one of those can't ever be expected to match the performance for the price. If you don't care for the performance, obviously the imprezza is the one for you but if you want the performance the imprezza won't do. This is just the basis of capitalism. If people want it they will buy it, companies will charge what they can, if it sells they will continue offering that model. If you don't like it vote with your dollars.

Just remember a 256k computer from Apple with no harddrive cost $4000 back in the day and it had a postage size monitor. Now your ipod has more processing power, better interface, color and only costs ~$300. If no one bought that original Apple where would we be today?


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## dma528 (Feb 25, 2008)

Just had a family member ask me if this site was legit... Leaving that question to be handled off the forums I went through the checkout process to see if I could get an Argon18 delivered to the US Importers address...........
Only to find that there was no where for me to put in my stolen credit card number. Instead I was asked to wire money to a bank account. They were even professional enough to include this information in the final screen of the checkout process while thanking me for my order. Followed up by an email with the same information. 

Oh the wild fun you can have on the internet today...:thumbsup:


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## Procter (Feb 3, 2012)

+1 on rock crusher's answer, well said.

Dirt bikes certainly go through a lot of engineering but the product lifecycle cost analysis for motos is a completely different equation:

a) for r&d, tooling, supply chain costs, they are sharing these costs (in things like engines, brakes and suspension) across multiple lines of bikes (cruiser/sport/dirt/4 Wheeler/snow mobile)
b) the r&d cost, and the initial tooling investment especially was definitely paid for by earlier higher end bikes a few years prior and is now a sunk cost, allowing them to churn out older generation tech for only the supply chain, materials, mfctr, and marketing cost. Early in the lifecycle of a new technology, high end product, r&d and tooling is 30-60% of the cost of the unit, depending on how the company decided to capitalize the investment in their books. Capitalization is an accounting method where the different costs of the product, though incurred up front, are distributed across a longer period of time in the books, usually a 3-5 year period, corresponding to the useful life of the product. Once all outstanding onetime r&d/tooling costs are completely 'depreciated' from the books, the incremental cost of the product (from an accounting perspective) is materials + manufacturing/assembly + marketing +supply chain and distribution, which, 5 yrs later, may only be 40% of the original cost to make it in its first year, hence the price being ~40% relative to the company's higher end model on the same year.


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## pseudoelf (Dec 2, 2009)

They are sharing the costs in the bicycle area too. That is.. all these bike "manufacturers" are really designer/distributors. More and more of the frames are built in Taiwan in established frame factories. and spec'ed out with parts that are mass produced by the likes of Shimano, etc... for ALL bikes. (talk about shared costs I'd like to see a common transmission across that many motorcycles.) More likely the higher costs are more to do with overall volume than production costs per se. The only thing that is specific the bike manufacturers is the frame itself, the other parts are mass produced for everyone. 
I would like to see more looking across at the motorcycle world as they have been tweaking and adjusting steering geometry for a long time with a lot more R&D money.


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## saffron (Oct 9, 2012)

*sale-bikes scam*

re post below -- thank you soo much for this thread and info.
i got REALLY excited when i found that website

(i would have only paid with a credit card because you can dispute the charges - wiring = scam.)

You have saved us all SO much trouble - and sigh i am very disappointed after thinking I'd get a specialized or a fuji for a fraction of the cost on a DISCOUNTED bike like you can get from bikes direct.

thank you (eventhough this discussions was long ago)

their website -sale-bikes is still up though!

s



dma528 said:


> Just had a family member ask me if this site was legit... Leaving that question to be handled off the forums I went through the checkout process to see if I could get an Argon18 delivered to the US Importers address...........
> Only to find that there was no where for me to put in my stolen credit card number. Instead I was asked to wire money to a bank account. They were even professional enough to include this information in the final screen of the checkout process while thanking me for my order. Followed up by an email with the same information.
> 
> Oh the wild fun you can have on the internet today...:thumbsup:


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## casmac80 (Jul 22, 2013)

The other point is that internet buying can save money but you put no money into your local economy. The guy at your local bike shop has probably persevered through **** times and selling and fixing $300 "Huffy" quality bikes. And he also will look after you on the flip side if you spend money there with tweaks and advice. I bought a 2012 GT in 2013 for a heavily reduced price as it was a run out special as 2013 models were arriving. I also decided to buy some tyres and servicing products through them and they have given me discounts on subsequent purchases for my loyalty. If you only buy online bargains then your LBS will probably go out of business eventually as they also have to compete with Big W and K Mart for low end business.


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## spiderweb831 (Jan 13, 2014)

Hi folks, I'm new to the forum but a long time mtb'r in Santa Cruz. My wife and I's Giant mountain bikes were recently stolen off our car rack and we're sadly in the market for new bikes. I also in my internet searches have come across the sale-bikes promo discount bikes website. Pretty slick looking site actually. All the links work and are written in understandable english which is impressive considering the origin of the site. I ALMOST got reeled in by these guys on a 2011 Giant Reign X0 and have since decided it's not worth the risk. I started going through the process of adding the bike to my cart and checking out just to see what the final price would be and before I knew it, without ever clicking on a "submit order" button, the order was finalized and they're asking for a wire transfer payment. Yeah right!! Didn't see any options to pay with Paypal.

I've done a fair amount of online research on this site and there has yet to be a success story forthcoming of someone actually buying and receiving a bike. I did write to them asking several questions about canceling orders, frame sizes, etc. I received 2 identical replies for different emails I sent them - here it is:

Dear Sir / Madam

Thanks for your mail

Available all size for the bike and when you place an order please fill the order comments with size of your order
The bike will delivery in assembled condition and ready to used.

If you interested please place an order on our website and fill the order comments with size of your order.
After that there will be details of bank account to make the transfer payment via International Bank Transfer.
If you have clear the payment please inform us and we will confirm to the billing department to make shipment and send you shipment tracking number

Thanks
Sale Bikes
Promo Discount Bikes
Sale Bikes - Promo Discount Bike

Sketchy? Yeah. Who mails a bike in assembled, ready to ride condition? Is that even possible? I talked to the folks at my LBS and they said that even they couldn't get a wholesale price like that on a bike, even a early model like the one I'm looking at. This is undoubtedly a scam and should be avoided. Best of luck out there!


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## cobba (Apr 5, 2007)

Read some of the results on the following 2 searches.

https://www.google.com/#q=site:forums.mtbr.com+indonesian+bike+shop+scams
& 
https://www.google.com/#q=indonesian+bike+shop+scams


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## XJaredX (Apr 17, 2006)

Just knowing that Specialized is vehemently opposed to online retailers tells me that is a scam. Also that they are still selling mostly 2011 models for some reason. Stay away!


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## lotusdriver (Sep 15, 2013)

It's appalling that this scam bike sales site is still operating (and probably making money) TWO YEARS after it was exposed.

There should be a way of shutting these sites down, but l guess with the internet being unregulated, this is not possible.


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## Kiwiplague (Jul 22, 2011)

If people are still dumb enough to give money to Nigerian princes for their inheritance, then you can be damn sure there are more than enough suckers out there who will give there money to sites like these!

I don't think the average MTB rider who purchases online is likely to be taken in by these sites due to the fact that we generally know when a deal is likely to be to good to be true. People who don't know much about bikes on the other hand... When they see the prices of bikes on the fake sites compared to the prices in the shops (or online at reputable sites), is it any wonder that they can fall for it?


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## Roadsters (Jul 7, 2008)

This is a good thread. I found it after searching online for a Scott 600 RC frame, and finding a new one in Indonesia for less than half price.

Here's something else I found in my searching:

419 Advance Fee Fraud: Indonesian Bike Scammers


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