beware of paradise racing

[rotary787b]

Hi there, I beleive this is my first post here!

I'm posting to let you know about the shady business done by Paradise Racing. Me and two other people from toyota3tc's forums, we ordered coilovers for our cars 5 months ago and we've still received nothing at all. I looked trough paradise racing's ebay reputation history and it seems that there's a few people that didn't get their stuff in the last 6 months too...

No matter how many emails I send or how many times I call I can't get an answer. I've been told twice that my parts were shipped, last time was a month ago, but now I'm still left with nothing and no way to contact them.

Right now me (from Canada) and another customer (from Greece), we filed claims with the Better business bureau, that's the only thing we can do since we're outside the US and I can't just drive down and see what's going on for myself.

From what I found out, it seems that most of the customers who don't get their stuff are people from outside the United States. That's why I wanted to let you guys know this. Perhaps at paradise racing they think we don't have a way of getting our money back?

I suggest that if you're looking for parts, please do yourself a favor and don't buy from them...

[Mux213]

Hey rotary,

Owh gottah love that 787b huh

Anyways, very sorry to hear about your troubles. Paradise Racing is one of the few suppliers that still make certain parts for the AE86. I bought their coilover set 2 years ago and am still very happy with the parts.

That said, I can't say that the experience was all good. Luis is a hard person to reach and it took me awhile to get the order sorted and then it took awhile before the package was send and then it took awhile for it to arrive (though Dutch customs had a hand in that last one).

In the end though, I did get my parts. I've heard the same story a few times. He's a hard man to reach, he's not fast, but so far you're the first I hear that he's actually not delivered.

Off course we never hear the good stories so its hard to tell how bad or good he does his business. As I've said many times before with other foreign suppliers, and have experienced myself as a seller. International sales can be darn tricky, too many things that aren't in your control and can ruin your reputation. Still being hard to reach is never a good thing for business.

I hope you still get your parts, or otherwise can resolve your situation.

[claricae86]

hes just always so busy with his race season, ive been trying to reach him for some time now. all in all they do make good products though so i will continue to try and reach them

[NoHachi]

Take a look here: 787b's story on a forum where Louis from paradise racing used to answers and questions etc....makes for an interesting read, certainly if you plan on getting parts from them.
http://www.toyota3tc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11358

[toyd1drifter]

I have done business with them before and had no problems but that might be because I'm in the US... Aside from that when I owned my business I used to have that problem too and what seems to happen is that packages get held up in customs for some stupid reason! especially if the package is a larger package why this is I dont know why I guess its just customs way of messing with people. Ive heard that larger packages get lost somehow and just get left behind probally because no one wants to lift it?? ( lazy asses!!)

[robokill]

I think there is a big drama in sending and recieving items. Mostly it will be communication where it fails. So its a business fault his customers aren't satisfied. But if you check the amount of parts he shipped maybe 2% goes wrong so I don't see any problem!

[Mux213]

I think robokill does have the best point so far.

Doesn't matter whether you look at the stories about Luis, Gabe, or who-ever else. With people doing this much business its bound to go wrong once or twice. Sometimes their own fault, but very often its outside of their control.

Communication is the #1 problem. When businesses are hard to reach or don't answer their emails swiftly its easy to get the perception that you're being given the run around. But from the business point of view, the package has been send, there is so little you can do to speed up the sending, and shipping, especially international shipping is a very big black box, often business feel they can't answer the many queries about this and don't bother, hoping the package arives before the customer really gets upset, which really isn't the right attitude.

The really big problem though is, you hear of EVERY single case that goes even the slightest bit wrong, people feel like being taken for a fool and with active communities like our own, people can make their voice heard and when people are upset, they let their voice heard. But you rarely hear of people being satisfied customers.

I had this with PASS racing aswell, several people had let me know they had good experiences with them. So I desided to do business with them aswell. Ordered stuff and to my surprise they were very swift in communication. Also what I really appreciated is that I nicely got an email from Sym when he didn't have time to answer me directly because they where having a mad week with preparing race cars and asked me if I didn't mind waiting till the week after (so many businesses just don't answer until they have time, and usually forget about the email in the first place).
In the end my parts where shipping and he nicely informed me, after a month they should arive, after a month they didn't.. Now I'm not new to this business so I don't get upset right away, I know to much about how shipping can be. However during the whole time they nicely answered my queries, kept me informed etc.

After more then two months my package finally arived and I could see from the stamps the package had been in Holland for a full month, customs just didn't have time or see the need to follow up on my package. Didn't have to pay a customs fee though.

[jamiemirror]

Real world example - 30 days air shipping to Netherlands vs 4 days air shipping to Denmark. God knows why ...

[NoHachi]

Just for reference, for all the people here who didn't bother to actually read some of the stuff in the link:
The problems experienced by some of the foreign customers lately as described in some threads around the net are :

NON related to shipping, Luis just tends to forget to actually ship items to his foreign customers. People are not receiving tracking #'s etc. He has always been very sloppy with getting orders out of the door, it seems that this is still the case these days. Waiting times in the order of 6 months or more before shipment.

Intentional mis-information: Not responding to email messages, not responding to phone calls. Yet manages to respond within hours when a request for purchase arrives via Ebay. Check out the whole thread on 3TC, he even states that the articles have been shipped, yet no products, no tracking #'s.

Now I know that Luis is good guy who is just very busy, I'm really gratefull for him providing all kinds of stuff for old corolla's. He is a very experienced vendor and the products that he sells tend to be of high quality. However, he REALLY needs start treating his customers better.

I would still recommend people to buy products from paradise racing as they offer unequalled value for money, but my advice would be:

1. Before buying, check with Luis whether the desired product is in stock.

2. Never EVER use the cheapest way of shipping when buying over the internet. ALWAYS get a tracking number so you can verify that the item has been sent and check where it is being held up.

3. Use paypall or a credit card to pay for your purchase.

4. If you receive no tracking # or email from the vendor within 1 month, file a dispute with paypall or the CC-company and get your money back. Make sure that you file this dispute WITHIN the 45-day period.

These are just a couple of precautions that would apply to buying stuff from any online vendor. Every last thing in the list is completely reasonable towards vendors, however it might help prevent disappointments such as those experienced by the topic starter.

CAVEAT EMPTOR!

[jamiemirror]

NoHachi