While going over the PayPal disputes I filed against X-Treme Scooters back in September 2008, I notice now that they have changed their business name and email address on their PayPal account. It now shows:
* Green Max Distributors Inc
* accounting[at]greenmaxdistributors.com
Did anyone else notice when this happened? This (apparently mobile enabled WAP) website says they've been in business since 1998, but the WhoIs records show the site was created on 11-Jan-2010. Trying to Google search and cross reference information comes up with confusing information.
As is usual with X-Treme Scooters / API, something here smells fishy ("and I don't think it's the chicken").
Green Max Distributors Inc.
3702 S. Fife St.
Suite # 199
Tacoma, WA 98409
Phone: 1 800 772 3852
It's a free phone call to find out what is what. Chevys Fresh Mexican Restaurant is the business listed at that address.
Is that where you got the red and green idea from? :lol
lol! I didn't dig that deep into it at the time.
But now that I'm here, I do see that there is a Mail Boxes Etc at that same location and wouldn't doubt it's where the mail goes to, since there are no "suite numbers" like 199 in that business location.
Whois was changed it has been owned by the same hong kong firm since 2001 (Taosun Ltd. Hong Kong). http://whois.domaintools.com/x-tremescooters.com . You guys do not understand import biz I guess. Wich is cool I will teach you. You see hong kong is where the bikes are shipped from. They come from the mainland . The API everybody hates is no more it was the receiver of the bikes . Green Max is the new receiver. It takes awhile for everything to be settled so it seems still messed up. That is a very industrial area 3702 S. Fife St. Suite # 199 Tacoma, WA 98409 that is a box number and there warehouse is around there somewhere .It is common for an industrial complex to send mail to a central place. Oh by the way I drive 18 wheeler and have been to china four times so I know the product and understand how import export works with china. I play on the internet as a hobby and own about 30 domains most have websites attached . Yes I am a x-treme dealer just started that . So really it was alpha's goofyness now things should get going much better.
And another thing that has been the problem is us internet dealers. Yes that includes me for now. You see 90% of xtremes dealers are internet based wich is fine. However none carry stock or parts. Sure some claim to but really it is green max's inventory. My goal is to carry stock and parts green max is a distributor I am a dealer. You do not call HP or whatever computer you use when it messes up. No you go to best buy etc. and they fix the problem and they deal with HP etc. So I would advise never buying this bike from e*** or am**** . You can and you might get a better deal than the prices on my website . But you will be left with swamping green max with things I would be taking care of for you. Help me untarnish the xtreme brand name . I love the bike as you can see me on one on my website. I owned the one in the picture in china so I sell the bike because I know what I am selling. And I know how to make xtreme shine again . Go to this website http://themusthavestore.com/11.html notice I only sell 6 models. It is because I can handle that many bike parts . Not the whole xtreme line like other websites wich are drop ship only as I am right now. But if I can start selling 100's of each of the bikes I sell . These bash threads will not happen anymore. And to the starter of this thread I will say sorry for all the bad stuff that happened to you. Now you know what really is going on.
Charlie, you poor, poor fellow. ;-)
I read your post and I laughed then cried. Then I went to your website and I laughed and cried again. There is a lot of information and understanding you need to see before thinking you have this all wrapped up as just a simple misunderstanding by X-Treme's unsatisfied customers. For years I tried to be that "buffer zone" between my valued customers and X-Treme's shotty (read with an "i") customer relation practices. I was going to be the one who would take care of the customers and even helped other dealers' customers when they eventually came to me. I was going to make this work so others could follow. Boy was I wrong!
Emails and phone calls to the dealer helpline was a nightmare. Customers' service tickets would go unanswered, ignored and even deleted by X-Treme's employees - some without ANY help at a resolution. I tried to be nice. I tried to be patient. I tried asking, begging, pleading, demanding, threatening... anything I could think of to get X-Treme to be professional and do the right thing. Nothing worked. Emailing Greg was like sending email to outer space. Most of the times all he would do is blame his crappy products on 1) UPS, 2) FedEx, 3) DHL, 4) R+L, then 5) FedEx again saying they were damaged in shipping. Any chance that he got to change the subject, he grabbed it.
When you get a customer who refuses the delivery of a $2500 scooter because the item 'looks like it was hit by a freight train before it was delivered', and X-Treme refuses to refund monies because of their clearly written warranty (which changes without any notice), and you get stuck with a payment dispute and lose that $2500... that'll be your rude awakening to this shady business.
I don't know anything about your company's reputation, Charlie, but I for one will not have the BaseStation Zero name be tarnished by upset customers whose valid technical issues with X-Treme's products were blatantly dismissed thanks to X-Treme's business practices. When I sell things, whether it be on my own or under the BSZ name, I want my customers to be 110% satisfied knowing I've got their backs on anything that comes up. This is an impossible, fairy-land dream when they get shipped junk directly from the warehouse. It's also impossible to try to make things right when X-Treme ignores service tickets and won't answer or return calls from their dealers, sends wrong replacement parts, or doesn't even have replacement parts for it's products for months and months.
As a dealer, your customers will blame YOU for problems, not X-Treme. As a dealer, customers will issues charge-backs against YOU, not X-Treme. As a dealer, YOU will get stuck with a busted return, shipping both ways, lost profits, and a bad reputation when things go wrong, not X-Treme. When you sell a $1000 item, pay X-Treme $750 to ship it to your customer, and the customer freezes/reverses the payment, YOU get stuck with the original $1000 debt while X-Treme still keeps their $750. It's a fairly complicated circle, but you're almost guaranteed to get screwed at the end.
I'd really hate to hear about you getting burned (or anyone, by anyone). Personally, I wouldn't touch X-Treme's products with a ten-foot salami on a stick.
I also wanted to ask you - a $999 profit on the XM-5000Li isn't enough for you? Is there a reason you tack on another $400 to your customers?
No $999 profit is good But after $184 pay pal hit and $50 to deliver to there door . That would be $6233 and as a person who understands why odd number pricing works . Maybe I could sell it for $6311 but just decided on $6399 because the 9 is more attractive than 1 .
No really a lot of there products are a piece of crap. And it is pretty ignorant to say my site sucks by saying you cried when you went to it . That is a bit pretentious on your part. But back the subject. I only sell six of there items the x140 blade is just to have a blade for sale. xb562 has bad reviews on amazon. xb502 is eh ok .The xb600 is really the best they got for the mph and I should know I owned a similar one in China. The xb700li is to heavy and xm5000li has overheat problems sometimes but that customer still liked it. Of course he was the kind of person who loves tinkering. Here is his thread http://visforvoltage.org/forum/5668-my-xm5000li-experience . So really I have three fillers x140,xb562,and xb700li . And the rest is the only ones I like. Because all three are good. And what is up with base station zero. Oh wait guess you are not in the US and I get redirected because I am. The redirect page does not even work . No green max is the new gateway for china's electric bikes. You see xtreme is just a name and I know what products are a piece of crap. Why? Because I know what the Chinese are riding and they don't ride trash! Xb502 was sold in a department store and my wife thought I could find something better. So I did . Xb600 is close to the one I bought (range etc.) I don't sell xtreme because of there name I only sell them because there the gateway into the US. And the xb502 is really a generic bike with no labels in china. So I can vouch for xb502 and xb600 and xm5000li gets pretty ok reviews . I guess I could get rid of xb562 but I like the blade and xb700li has a nice little you tube slide show. In closing I hate forums I am an adult webmaster as well (gfy) and it is filled with the same pretentious type of people. You should get your nose out of the air before you trip and fall ! We both know what we are talking about in truth you hate xtreme and I like the products I know. And if I had millions I would rather put a new name on them because the one I owned in China was a sweet ride. You really should say sorry to me for starting out talking to me with ( Charlie, you poor, poor fellow. ;-) ) I am not the type you want to offend !
And also as I said before most are drop ship dealers and this is not good. If you had inventory then you know whether your shipping intact merchandise. And when a customer reverses a charge you have better control when you are the one shipping it.
The following post is merely my unfounded opinion, and should not be construed as fact until evidence sustaining these statements can be shown to be true. I have no evidence, therefore it is conjecture, and merely opinion.
In the old vein of detective shows, there are a few key sayings that apply....
"follow the money", "there's a sucker born every minute".
This thread began by pointing to a "name change" on a business that a past transaction was listed with. This would not indicate a "new reciever" in the Chinese import story, it would appear to be an OLD one doing business under a new name. Why would a company do this? That is where the next saying comes in, to fleece more unsuspecting buyers, and distributors into thinking they are nothing like the previous name, which is indeed tarnished on the web, the better business bureau, and the Iowa attorney general's office, although there are many out there who love THEIR extreme product. (yes, a proper use of "there" and "their" demonstrated. Please refer to dictionary.com for "their" "there" "they're")
As to your website and business, I wish you well and hope you do not run into the headaches of other online drop-shipper businesses such as being caught between shipping and damages, and warranty issues. I did notice that you are using old X-streme corporate videos on your site. If you truly wish to distance yourself from X-treme, it might be a good idea to not use their videos, but make your own to further demonstrate that "you are nothing like X-treme. Also, if you are bringing scooters into the USA, please make sure they are CPSC compliant, as we have enough junk vendors who are ruining the concept of these scooters by importing TRASH.
Oh wait, if X-treme and the other company arent the same, why use the other company's model and brand names? Did Alpha Products International sell off the X-tremescooter brand? Their website is still up and running... hmmmmmm.
Charlie - I bought my first electric scooter from Arctic Fox - back in the day when he was trying to do what you are trying to do 3+ years later. It was an XM-2000 with "Electier" brand silicone lead acid batteries. Despite it's obvious shortcomings I saw potential. I became a drop shipper. In the remainder of that year I sold a grand total of one more XM-2000. However, in the next year I sold about 20 units (with zero real marketing effort) - about 15 XM-3000's and 5 XM-3500's. I would have sold at least 15 more XM-3500's and 5 more XM-3000's had the bikes arrived when they were promised. And, had the product been capable and well supported by the factory and the importer I would have ramped up the marketing and got sales closer to 100+ units and look at growing from there. One would need to be doing around 1000 bikes per year to really make it a worthwhile business venture at around $300 to $500 gross profit margin per bike (remember gross profit does not mean what you get to take home!)
Like both you and Arctic Fox I realized that to build a successful business one needed to add value not simply drop ship. My value add was not in stocking parts but was very much in customer support (that very first XM-2000 I sold - I still support it and was working on it this weekend). Your pricing is reasonable from a cost perspective (actually probably still skinny given the amount of extra work you will do given the deficiencies in the product, importer, factory chain) - but you'll have a tough job persuading folks to buy from you when they can buy the exact same product cheaper elsewhere. After all during the purchase phase most customers are envisioning a close to trouble free ownership experience - and why shouldn't they based on the near-identical advertising copy they read on all these sites advertising the XM range? Furthermore, those that have done their homework (the likes of which read and post here) will seek out the lowest price knowing that they'll likely be putting more time and effort into their bikes and thus they need the lowest price possible to justify their purchase decision.
The other thing I learned was that the importer doesn't really know much about the electric motorcycle / motor scooter / moped market and that the factories primary focus is cost. The business model and products are both flawed - in itself that's not necessarily a bad thing. There's no such thing as perfect. The key thing is to see incremental improvement - that means that (a) the parties involved are aware enough to know that things need improving & (b) the parties involved have the capabilities to make improvements. I was initially encouraged because there was a clear improvement between the XM-2000, XM-3000 and then XM-3500 products. However, this focus on product alone is misleading because it wasn't accompanied by improvements in the business. Also, I quickly came to realize that the improvements in those three products were "shallow" improvements designed to attract more customers with "bigger numbers" not "better quality". In fact as one deals with more capable bikes the demands on the subsystems and the expectations of the customers both demand an increase on "better quality". So, although things seemed better on the surface things were actually worse from a sustainable business perspective. I didn't see any improvement in the business side and as I dug deeper I became seriously concerned about the supply chain and the regulatory aspects.
That's just a little bit of insight why I decided to step away from X-Treme (And also why I thought I could do better. Of course the jury is still out on the results of this!)
Arctic Fox got burned worse by X-Treme than I did (in fact, I wouldn't say I got burned at all - but that might be because I took a slower more cautious route). As such his posts on this subject are pretty one-sided and close to vitriolic in their nature - he enjoys poking X-Treme in the eye at almost every possibility (AF - don't jump on me for this observation). However, his heart is in the right place and he has many satisfied customers - me being just one of them.
More importantly I agree with his advice - please proceed with the utmost caution. I would be very surprised if you can make a sustainable business out of selling the XM line of bikes. If you do choose to go ahead I do wish you luck and I do hope you succeed. The EV market place needs successes - unfortunately drop-ship business models such as this one with this level of quality of product appear to hurt more than they help and being one of a few loan voices trying to "do it properly" will prove pretty difficult to sustain - and that's even if you can get the product as promised...
Good luck.
John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.
I know and as I said would rather buy containers of them and not call them x-treme .The drop ship biz model does suck . You get a bunch of cut throats who have no idea what kind of profit is needed to do things right. And just gets the drop shipper rich instead of drop shipping as a crutch till you have the money to have your own inventory. Oh well like I said I like the bikes I sell. And really do plug my nose at the brand name . I like the bike because I know the bike. Think of a new name for the xb502 xb600 and xm5000li get me a few million so I can buy the containers and warehouse and it will be a bright new day lol. Yes was kidding but really is what I would do. As for there name change maybe it will still fail but I hope I can get going before they fail because they are way to drop ship heavy thanks for the proceed with caution .
Really just wanted to protest you as a grammar nazi I can't wait for the day I say the following and somebodies head explodes so here it goes. I aint got no collleges edukation ...did it work !lol Sorry had to you where talking about x-treme not grammar. There might be a forum for people to talk about how bad grammar is these days but this is not one of those.
charlie, It's never to late to learn !! when you express yourself in print you WILL be judged by what and how you type it !! bad language and poor grammar make you the fool! you smart one . I was paying attention to you, till you called someone a grammar nazi! This forum gives good advice. Take it for what it is !
thank GOD I wake up above ground !!!!
To be clear I think it's more than just the drop-ship biz model that is "broken". We looked into the "bringing in containers and not calling them x-treme". We also looked at minor upgrades to those bikes to fix what we considered issues. In the end we decided there were more problems than solutions. I don't dislike the XM range. I think the XM-3000 with lithium (and a proper BMS) is a good moped solution (although I notice that's not in your wish list ;-)).
BTW - When selling X-Tremes I quickly gave up on the XB line because I didn't want to support the DUI-beater crowd (I sold one XB - a 600 I think) and at the time (just 3 years ago) there was more confusion around the legality of these pedal assist e-bikes. Especially ones that look more scooter-like than bike-like. I think the situation is better now.
Anyway - good luck to you. Maybe you'll figure out how to make it work...
If there's anything I can do to help then let me know (aside from the money part - I don't have any and I need more too!)
John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.
You're a funny guy, Charlie.
Proper grammar = more professionalism. Looking through your site, it tells me a 15 year old is running it. Your defensiveness and attitude towards a jest (you poor fellow) tells me the same thing. I'm now actually looking forward to hearing from your future customer.
Again, you think you have this all figured out - like having parts in stock will solve it all? Just wait until you order your first 5 'widgets'. I'd love to see the look on your face when you realize that 2 are the wrong things, the one that is correct is broken, and the other two are back-ordered until 2035. That will be the company saying "screw you AND your customer". LOL
There's a huge difference in riding a similar scooter in China versus ordering one shipped from China. HUGE difference. I'm guessing you like surprises, Charlie.
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I find that interesting you would bring this up. I have a few forks in my code that separate visitors for various reasons, sending them to a 404 or 403 Access Denied page. The main ones are as follows:
Perhaps you fit into one of the above categories that gets filtered from everyone else? Hmmm...
AF - Dude, why turn everything into a fight? Take a deep breath, count to ten - all that jazz. I know Charlie responded strongly - but he missed or didn't appreciate your humor.
Why pour more gasoline on the flames? Try a little water. (Or maybe "Try a little tenderness" as the song goes - personally I like The Commitments version - great movie!)
John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.
Hey jdh love your bike you are making by the way (went to your website). Forgot to mention that. And to AF and to the guy I called grammar nazi. As much attention as it gets to have bad grammar in moderation. I think it is like upside down billboards it gets people to read instead of breezing through something you want someone to read. And stupid cookie cutter template crap made my site so can not help how it looks . Gonna change somethings around anyway. Good luck all.
Well, this was an interesting thread so thought I'd comment here too. First, I bought my XB600 via Arctic Fox. He gave me a good price and excellent customer service. Didn't realize though until later that he had so many problems, as others have reported, with Xtreme. But, regardless, buying via AF was a very good purchasing experience for me.
Now, as for Xtreme. Many on here know I've only had good things to say about them. That's just because the few parts I've ordered were always sent promptly and I always got replies from them to questions, etc. Obviously there are others with totally different experiences and I certainly believe them. But for me, I always have gotten ok customer service from them. Other than being sent a wrong tube once...it's been good. And, when I brought it to their attention about the tube they shipped the right one out right away. But again, that's my experience only and maybe I've just been really lucky!
As far as the product itself. I have also been very satisfied with my XB600...especially considering the cost. So I have no complaints there either.
Now, to a more important notion...
I think rather than waste time on all this evaluation maybe some of you might direct your energy in another direction. First, let me state categorically I am only aware of "John" and his business from what I read here and having looked at his website. However, I truly believe he and his business partners are trying to overcome the odds and offer quality scooters to all of us who have found this type of ride enjoyable, interesting and smart. There must be folks here, perhaps like "Charlie," who also are venturing (however limited) into some kind of business with e-scooters/bikes. I'm just thinking maybe "John's" business will continue to move forward positively and you all can somehow get onboard with his products. The more they sell the better they can put them together and improve them. I think they really have a commitment to quality and support...and providing a reasonably affordable product. So, everyone here I think should support them at least in communication...and those who are interested in the business end really should look seriously at what they might do to become dealers for them if that's where CURRENT is headed with their efforts. Now that would be great for all of us and all US electric scooter enthusiasts...and those in other countries!
Again, I have no connection to CURRENT or anyone involved with that company. But, I've found John to be sincere, via our communication here, and I believe his efforts in the e-scooter business should be applauded. And, as I'm often reminding myself about this or that....put your energy where it can make a positive difference rather than complaining about what isn't right or what doesn't work...or who won't be the way you want them to be! In the end you find alot more results from the latter!
My .02
Gus
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Whoops!...regarding my last sentence above...I mean't to say the "former" not the "latter." Sorry! Geez, and I have a degree in Communication! HA! duh...
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