written by LegslikeIndurain on 16/06/2012
I had read some terrible reviews about J.E.James concerning poor communication, slow delivery, couldn't care less staff and generally poor service. Having used them once before where the only issue was slightly slow postage I thought I'd give them a go again, they were cheap after all. I now deeply regret this. With 3 weeks to go until my bike trip for which I required the parts I thought this was plenty of time. How wrong I was. Three days after ordering I was contacted to say one item was out of stock. It was still shown in stock on the website and still was 11 days later. Having changed the item immediately to another I waited expectantly. Eleven days later, still nothing. Several phone calls failed to get anything but voicemail. Nobody ever replied to a handful of messages. E mails were returned as failed. Finally after 11 days I managed to speak to a member of staff. He sounded young and embarrassed. He couldn't help me as it was the wrong department. All he could tell me was that the server had been down for many days and in short, there was no way of telling whether my order had been despatched or not and nor would there be. He understood how frustrating it could be and admitted to having been on the receiving end himself! Eleven days after placing the order I still have no idea when or if I'll ever receive it. Despite their server being down they are still taking orders. The one thing they have managed to do efficiently is take the money. No matter how cheap their products may be I would much rather go to Ribble, CRC, Wiggle, Absolute Cycles, Parker, St. John Street Cycles, Slane Cycles,my LBS or the host of other mail order companies I have dealt with without any problems over the years. If I could have given them a zero or minus rating I would have and I should add that I have never bothered to write anything on a forum before in my life- but they have made me feel I should.