Specialized Demo 9
Wow. I just spent $2500 on a bike I saw on PinkBike.com. Here's hoping it is exactly as advertised and that it does not get damaged in shipping.
Buying something used on an auction site, or on something like PinkBike is pretty scary. Escrow services cost 3-4% of the purchase price, so for something like this purchase you have to add like $70 or $80 to the price. For this purchase I think I did a reasonable amount of information gathering to help make the determination the bike was not stolen and was actually in the condition specified. I asked for photos of the serial number, and the bike shop address and phone number. I asked for a photo of the original receipt and warranty card as well. I also called the seller at his place of employment (Intuit), and asked a fair amount of questions intended to determine if the motive for selling the bike was reasonable.
In the end I'll know if I didn't do enough info gathering next week when I get the bike in the mail.
Here are some other links for the bike I just bought:
Specialized specifications
Specialized Demo 9 Intro Page
MTBR reviews
So here's hoping.
4 Comments:
Dude, you used escrow? Doesn't Pinkbike warn you right on the main page not to use escrow? Anyway, I hope that everything there works out. I bought my Fuel EX7 off Pinkbike and it was a flawless victory for me! Haha.
Sounds sweet man, I'm jealous. Whatever you do, don't kill yourself using that beast to its full potential!
-Jamie
I didn't use an ESCROW service. That's why I'm worried about the purchase. Using an escrow service isn't really much of a problem, doing a straight cash transaction is where you can get screwed.
Ahhhh.. my bad. Makes sense, as long as you got a photo of the seller with the bike, a contact number, and an address you'll be fine. Why the photo? Well, that goes along with the address because you should confirm that he's a raky bitch so that you can buy confidently knowing that you know where he lives and you can easily ruin his shit.
Also, as I found out, with those hydro disc brakes, don't ever let someone pump the brake when the wheel is off or you'll have a bit of work to do resetting your calipers. High end ones like that have an auto-adjust feature that compensates for pad wear... if you pump with no disc, it'll clamp shut. Bad news. I just fixed mine. Haha.
-Jamie
P.S. Is it there yet?
Yeh, of course that was my primary purpose when getting pictures... Making sure I can 'ruin his S#!t'.
I wouldn't buy from someone I couldn't ruin :)
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