[Closed] Dave Hinde

Just Google the name and sit back and make yourself an extremely big cup of joe.

Pitch forks at the ready!

Yes used them and have or had no issues or complaints!

GO!

Good luck. Regarded as Worst shop ever, their eBay shop was terminated as his feedback was unbelievably bad (fact), used to meet up with miffed customers in car parks for fights.(rumor). Have to buy all their Mavic parts from elsewhere as Mavic won't deal with them

TBH the stream of complaints about DH have seemingly tailored off over the years, though personally I took this to mean maybe he'd gone out of business, but maybe they have actually improved. Though the actual physical shop was always defended quite vehemently. They also sold on ebay as "number1bikebits", which is now a defunct member... I don't take that as a good sign (LOL looking at the post above)

He has a bad rep as far as I am concerned, like Mark Anthony (active sports), I shall never be buying off him or considering giving them money. If you paid by credit card, just go talk to them, instead of waste breath with DH.

Damn, should have done a bit more research!

Gutted as my lad has a new frame and I ordered parts from various shops, all have turned up apart from Mr Hinde's. Ordered a couple of weeks ago as he needs the bike tomorrow (not going to happen now)

I have been on the phone all week and the last person I spoke to was bloody rude.

Live and learn I guess.

[url= http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=number1bikebits&Dirn=Received+by&ref=home ]their old eBay feedback...[/url]

Wow. That feedback is something else!

Anyone got a new track chanset 165 arms, 48 t ring, 1/8" for sale?

I'll let you verbally abuse me on the phone!

This response to his feedback is a classic

Reply by number1bikebits (Jun-05-08 05:04):
If you spent as much time cycling as you do moaning you would be world champion

If it wasn't real it'd be funny

Just to balance things out, Ive never had a problem with them, they have custom built me 2 sets of wheels, which both times were ready the next day, and had a few parts ordered in, always been friendly and reliable. Just because they give real world replies to feedback like ordinary people would and not huge companies with plenty of legal backup.

Hi, Dave.

We've been expecting you.

🙂

There are plenty of honest, decent and helpful retailers on the web. In my experience Dave Hinde isn't one of them.

Received a pair of hand-built wheels from him the other week, no problems at all and the wheels are fine.

Trevor.

bought a wheels & disk brake package from them 10 years back which they set up for me. All in all there were 4 errors in how they'd set the brakes up, cable fouled rear tyre, one rotor mounted wrong way round, rear brake not spaced properly [old is mount hope mini's] and something else. All easily rectified but they were my 1st experience of disk brakes so thought I'd get a shop to do it properly!

Well, you live and learn don't you!

Oh, and they threw away the V brakes and levers they'd taken off that I needed for another bike and didn't compensate me.

Wheels are still going strong to this day though, and I'm a big bloke who had wrecked a few previously.

Dave Hind for wheels? Yes. Anything else.... No

I bought some wheels from him in 1993 and they were the worst set of handbuilts I ever rode. 3 snapped spokes in 3 weeks, rear so flexy it rubbed the paint off the chainstays.

Avoid like the plague.

I have a nasty feeling that I placed the order using my debit card.

I will try to cancel the order on Tuesday (on the basis of how they spoke to me tonight as well as the lies). In the mean time I am going to have to re-order the parts from someone else.

I remember seeing their adverts in cycling weekly for years so did not envisage any problems.

Simply the worst outfit I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with...

I ended up paying a tenner for the privilege of letting them have my £300 for four months with the never ending promise of a pair of mythical wheels.

[s]Bare faced lies [/s] Excuses included:

...been dispatched already (unable to provide tracking details...they used this excuse three times!)
....waiting on parts (hang on..I thought they'd been dispatched?)
....lost my address (they were beginning to run out of excuses by this stage)
.....lost my details (...ran out of excuses)
....no one there to authorise my refund (this was a good one and they ran with it for about 6 weeks)

I really hope you can get your money back....

I'm afraid I'm going to have to mention that I've not had a problem with them and I find the wheels they build bob on. Three experiences now, first building a complete wheel set, second repairing said wheels set after the mech went into the spokes, and lastly building a rear wheel for me when I needed the rear hub changing to 142x12.

All I can say is that on every occasion I rang up and placed the order without paying a penny, then when the wheels were ready (2 weeks the norm) they rang me, I went to the shop, paid my money and job was a good-un.

On the last build, I was given a number of options for converting my rear wheel to 142x12 and in the end they happily part ex'd my complete old rear wheel for a shiny new build.

I'm happy, but then I've never used their on-line services

Just recived a set of wheels from them.
Perfectly built and beautiful.
Took them nearly a month to get here however. No reply to 4 emails.
Wheels are perfect however.

As has probably been said before: Clearly not every customer who uses Dave Hinde gets ripped off: Otherwise they wouldn't remain in business. You can't tell from the internet what proportion of their customers have a problem, although Hinde certainly seems to get a lot of complaints. The point is that when it [i]does[/i] go wrong you can almost guarantee the sort of rude, abusive, deceitful behaviour you see reported here. So for me the question is: 'Do I want to give business to a shop which treats (some) customers like this? (even if I might be lucky & have no problems at all)'

.... the last person I spoke to was bloody rude.

guess who !!!

This needs to be a sticky.

Just proves how much new/churn customers there are for bikeshops out there

I can join in too.

Used once a long time ago.

Telephone order.
Expected delivery within 5 days.
7 days phone up, and the fun begins....

Took 3 months to get visa to get my money back.

Lied to at the point of ordering.
Lied to everytime i phoned to chase order.
****ing quick to take my money, although nothing was actually in stock that i ordered even though they stated it was.
Staff are so rude if you lived local you would go down the shop and find the little big man on the other end of the phone and demand your money back out of the till as no one is capable of doing a credit card refund until the end of the month when they do them en-masse, funny how quick they take the cash !

Pre-email days for me, so had to write letters and keep copys to send to visa to get my money back. Not a single reply.

If someone riding a Dave hinde bike burst into flames in front of me i wouldn't urinate on them to put it out, thats there lasting legacy, the absolute worst experince of mail order i have ever had and put me off mail order for many years.

Bunch of money grabbing barstewards.

Off to read the ebay feedbacks 🙂

Seems to me this is exactly what trading standards was invented for.

Used once many moons ago, fobbed, parts delayed, arrived evetually, think I was lucky unlike most, never again.

Seems to me this is exactly what trading standards was invented for.

I think they know where he lives; google Dave Hinde Trading Standards.

It appears I paid through Paypal so maybe all is not lost.

Kinda thought they might have managed to work out customer service.
ebay feedback is a few years old, but thats shocking.

Same old things.
If they where the last bike shop on the planet with the last available part i needed......still wouldn't use them.

eskay, good luck old bean, maybe it's in the post right NOW 🙂

Things i was told.

I could never talk to the manager, even when i phoned back as requested.
Refunds couldn't be done over the phone ? had to write and request it.
Refunds can only be done by certain staff who are not in at that moment, phone back later.
Refunds on cards are done at the end of the month only, you will have to wait until the end of the month (refund dosen't happen, repeat above)
unhelpful, rude staff that actually start baiting you for a laugh, because they know your a few hundred miles away and not about to come down and vist them.
Also had "waiting on parts" be the end of the week, etc etc etc.

Nowadays I order stuff from merlin, CRC and Charlie the bikemonger. CRC have dropped the ball a couple of times but sorted it out very quickly and at no cost to me. The other two have been faultless.

Edit: and all-terrain too actually. One of their blokes spent 15 minutes weighing cannondale rizes for me over the phone and was not every slightly pissed off when I said I'd need to mull it over. I'm sure he had a little swear under his breath after hanging up though, I would have! 🙂

I saw Dave and his henchmen at a cycle jumble last year. He looked like a right hard nut.

That got cracked?

There was a rumour going around that if you were a roadie he'd treat you great and if you were a mountain biker he'd treat you badly.

I don't care though, there's so much bad press about him I'd never use his shop. There's simply too much bad press about his shop to consider using him. My advice would be to follow suit. There's plenty of shops out there with none or very little poor feedback.

There's plenty of shops out there with none or very little poor feedback.

And plenty more with a lot of good feedback.

It might seem like a daft question but how can a muppet like that with possibly the worst feedback I've ever read about a shop still be in business?

Regular ads in Cycling Weekly...read the OP

Again. It shows just how much businrss there isfor a bikeshop if you sell online.

A bikeshop owner recently won the lottery, said he was poor but his wife already owned NINE horses.

The clue is to go mail order/online. Endless customers. There will always be someone new etc who has never heard of him.

Threats to customers? He'd have the Police called on him surely.

Reply by number1bikebits (Jun-18-08 06:07):
Poor communication?! The man speaks not a word of English! My fault obviousley!

That reply is class!

A certain Dave Hind holds most of the Strava KOMs on the Kalamunda (mtb) Circuit here in Perth, Western Australia. I had idly fancied it could have been the man himself, but sadly there's no e on the end.

I bought a pair of blue Hope Pro2 hubs in about 2009 from his ebay shop. I got blue rear, black front. Sent front back for exchange. Had to open paypal dispute before correct replacement hub arrived.

There are other retailers similar to his operation. Their names come up from time to time in these pages.

Some retailers are forwards-looking and develop their systems, websites, retailing procedures. BUT some still operate using the way they started online 10 years ago but haven't upscaled to cope with the increased sales volume. Therefore the kind of 'Dave Hinde' shop exists - but only continues to exist because of 'fresh meat' coming onto the net and not knowing any better.

Having an oafish owner/manager is usually why these businesses go down the path of darkeness. I have inside knowledge (unfortunately!).

terrible reputation for over 25 years? he's got staying power.

londonerinoz - Member

A certain Dave Hind holds most of the Strava KOMs on the Kalamunda (mtb) Circuit here in Perth, Western Australia. I had idly fancied it could have been the man himself, but sadly there's no e on the end.

[b]*registers on Strava as Dave Hinde. Revs up moped. [/b][i] 😉

A couple mentioned operate the same business model advertise the lowest deliver when their order to the distributor for that item arrives. Abit like lbs' s who quote 2weeks to get in (but they are honest about it)

Occasionally when they can be arsed they build a good wheel.

But thats it, I'm not going to bore you with my personal experiences or people I know who have made the fatal mistake of using them, just avoid.

Others for the list..
Foffa bikes
Velodrome shop

PayPal dispute opened and refund now issued. You have to love PayPal!

Alternative parts ordered elsewhere and turned up next day.

Lesson learnt.

I'm currently on the end of bad customer services from these guys with a wheelset, I've had a couple of excuses (you never know they might be telling the truth). I paid over the phone by Visa Debit, a month ago! What's the quickest and most straight forward way of getting a refund?

Invoking the chargeback procedure

If you suspect your card has been used fraudulently, if the goods and services you bought with your card are faulty or if they do not materialise, then you should contact the bank who has provided you with your Visa debit card within 120 days, requesting they initiate the chargeback process. It does not mean you will automatically and immediately get your money back. It will initially become a ‘dispute’ in which the claim will be fully investigated by both banks before any money is returned.

http://whatconsumer.co.uk/visa-debit-chargeback/

Cheers! Didn't know about that. This is a handy link also [url= https://ssl.datamotion.com/form.aspx?co=3438&frm=citacomplainform&to=flare.fromforms ]Trading Standards[/url]

Thanks for that, Jamie; I'd always assumed that you only got that with credit cards - not debit.

Are you being treated like a piece of s&*t aswell househusband?

Are you being treated like a piece of s&*t aswell househusband?

No, not at all - I just wasn't aware of that fact. I've always used the credit card for the added consumer protection it adds but it now appears that debit cards offer it too.

I've always known about Dave Hinde's reputation and have only ever bought once from them; a bottom bracket so I didn't think much could go wrong - and that was five years ago!

I actually went in their shop in Northwich one day (2001 ish)...and from that day forward, I was cured!!!
I'd never give them a shit penny again!!!

I actually went in their shop in Northwich one day (2001 ish)...and from that day forward, I was cured!!!
I'd never give them a shit penny again!!!

Ohh, do tell! It sounds like you're holding back on the full facts there! 🙂

I've always found them great, much better than Superstar, CRC etc.

I think those with problems are likely to be noobs who break stuff then cry about it on the internet

I bought a wheelset that went out of true within 2 weeks. I was told I must have misused and I would have to pay postage to and from their shop to get them trued. I said I would get the LBS to do it and was told that would invalidate the warranty...:-)

I would rather build myself than buy anything from them.

[img] [/img]

Heh...

davehinde - Member
I've always found them great, much better than Superstar, CRC etc.
I think those with problems are likely to be noobs who break stuff then cry about it on the internet

Some sort of wind up, surely....?

davehinde - Member
I've always found them great, much better than Superstar, CRC etc.

I think those with problems are likely to be noobs who break stuff then cry about it on the internet

The problem is the appalling customer service. Taking peoples money and not giving a monkeys. It's criminal.

Superstar, CRC etc you place an order at 3pm and it's with you 9am the following day.

@PeterPoddy - no big deal. I went in there to buy something. It was too hard. They were too busy to serve me, although I was the only one there in person. The whole experience was bad. I never went there again.

PeterPoddy - Member

davehinde - Member
I've always found them great, much better than Superstar, CRC etc.
I think those with problems are likely to be noobs who break stuff then cry about it on the internet

Some sort of wind up, surely....?

Look at his post history. 😆

Hah yup wind up merchant.

Some unbelievable feedback, but this one is my favourite...

I will never buy anything form this seller again, no replies to emails, poor.

Reply by number1bikebits (Jun-06-08 03:58):
How can it be fair that a complete idiot can leave bad feedback?

Another cracker:

Dave Hinde = No.1 Cowboy in the cycling world -Total amatuer & con-man - BEWARE!

Reply by number1bikebits (May-21-07 01:21):
We think this guy has an unusual obsession with the wild west. Weirdo Alert !

@stratobiker - I did the same circa 1999, went in to look and possibly buy a new set of forks, empty shop, staff to busy to talk to me. Worked for two years in Northwich, went to Dave Hinde once, once was enough. ****ing awful experience. How are they still in business in the Internet age? Does no one use google before buying online?

I'm not sure who I like less, Dave Hinde or Mark Anthony Bikes. Both total lying *s. Dave Hinde at least is quite funny and takes a bit of pride in his lying *ness.

Dave Hinde taught me how to build wheels. Or, to put it another way, the wheels I bought from him were so bad I learnt how to rebuild them and have never used a shop to build or true any since.

no stooge yet ?

I have to say reading this post has made me chuckle.... But seriously in this day and age how can you run a business in this way? Its a wonder he is still going. A google search of this Hinde fella brings up all kinds of worrying information. And those ebay responses?? WTF? I think this man seriously lacks any sort of business acumen.

As long as folk buy on price and nothing else he will keep going.

If everyone had the sense to avoid him he would go nicely out of business and wander the streets of Northwich with a carrier bag, shouting random things. It would be a better world.

This makes interesting reading.... Glad it's still available really, so everyone can see what a twunt DH is (AKA Number One Bike Bits on eBay)

http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=number1bikebits&Dirn=Received+by&ref=home

Popped in the other day, picked up cassette, chain and BB for an old Italian frame size that no other local bike shop had as usual great service and a great price! I have been buying stuff on and off for years never had an issue and the lads are always a good laugh! Can only speak from experience.

To be fair I agree with liquid up there, never had an issue and always get a good deal on prices.

Me too actually- I bought some wheels over winter that were miles cheaper than elsewhere and they were great, very helpful on the phone too.