A-Bike from Hong Kong

[JJ]

Be warned!!!
At the time of this writing, the Noble Hall has stopped all its business, including selling A-bike itself, spare parts and accessories, and even repair within warranty.
DAKA, the official manufacturer of A-bike and MHM, the provider to the shop keep silent on it.
Since the shop does not sell anything anymore, there will not be further victim at the shop. However, the shop has moved its place to China and opened a new web shop at http://www.abike-shop.com.cn/ . You better watch out!

At the time of my post below, the things around the shop (Noble Hall) were not so clear to us all. As time went by, too many things...mostly too bad things have been revealed about this shop. As one of the customers of the shop, I think I have obligation to tell the truth on the shop so that everyone visiting the forum can notice it before one is really fucked up.

What you can expect from the shop:

- The shop sells genuine A-bike.

What you cannot expect from the shop even the shop assures:
Too many to note. Below are just a few examples, not comprehensive at all.

- Currently the shop stops responding to a customer's repair request. There is no compulsory countermeasure to make him do what he got to do.
- The shop always delays its response to the customers even the shop promises quick responses within 24 hours. We have to wait for its answer about one week to a couple of weeks.
- The shop sometimes delays its shipping mostly because of its laziness. Jason, the only guy at the shop, deals with everything. While he is absent from the shop, either in China to purchase products or joining a convention, the tasks at the shop all stop.
- The shop never ever starts selling the spare parts and accessories simply because it cannot prepare enough stock for the customers' demand. The shop at first announced its spare parts sale from the 1st of December '06. However it turned out the sale will never start.
- There is no engineer/mechanic of bike at the shop. There is only one person, who deals with everything from web designing, ordering, shipping, database management, claim processing to sales promotion. He calls himself "Jason." Since he does not have enough knowledge on A-bike, he sometimes mistakes what we need to repair and what the cause of a trouble is, resulting in poor repair service usually taking weeks to finish.
- Since his skill in repair is so poor and his promise to launch oversea branches became false, we either ended up with sending back our broken A-bike to his shop in HK with much shipping cost or paying too much effort of self-mending. The latter is far beyond layperson's ability.
- The shop failed to expand its business in Japan. Jason promised the Japanese customers that he will launch its service centers and repair shop network in Japan , when he started his A-bike business in November '06. He kept saying its great possibility until early in January '07, when it already turned out that there happened an official distributor of A-bike in Japan and he no longer was able to commit Japanese market. Thanks to his big fat lies, most of the Japanese customers chose to use his shop instead of rather reliable shop in the UK, expecting much easier access for repair in our own country in the near future.

edited on Tue Apr 03, 2007 11:41 pm

Hi there A-Bikers!

I am planning to buy one from a company in Hong kong.
http://www.abike-shop.com/
Has anyone here bought yours from here?
Its price is the way cheaper than the UK e-shop.
I would rather buy mine from here...but it now shuts down the order.
It seems they have no stock right now.

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:16 am

[Garry]

I'm not too surprised to see it cheaper in HK than UK. In fact the difference is smaller than for most products, and you could argue it's the same after adding VAT.

I was impressed that the Chinese can fold their A-Bike in only 5 seconds! They have dextrous hands indeed

Garry

[epfli2005]

Hi there A-Bikers!

I am planning to buy one from a company in Hong kong.
http://www.abike-shop.com/
Has anyone here bought yours from here?
Its price is the way cheaper than the UK e-shop.
I would rather buy mine from here...but it now shuts down the order.
It seems they have no stock right now.

Are you going to buy from Noble Hall Limited direct? I have seen a shop named as JC Shop at 343A in Ocean Terminal, Tsimshatsui, Hongkong selling A-bike at price HK$2,630. They have one A-bike on display but do not know whether the A-bike they are selling is the geniue one or copy.

[Binch Shin]

The originators(Sinclair Research, Mayhem UK or DAKA Designs) don't permit the parallel import. Therefore, if a company sell A-bike outside of their country then the company is selling imitation A-bike now.

In the case of Korea, the only distributor is the Gil-Trading Ltd.. They also must distribute A-bike within the Korea.

[Garry]

I'd be surprised if they are selling copies in somewhere like Ocean Terminal. The fact that imports aren't officially allowed doesn't necesaarily mean they are copies, although I guess you have to check it carefully.

Just ask what country they're imported from and look for official documentation from the supplier. I'll have a look in Ocean Terminal myself next time I'm there.

[Binch Shin]

To Garry

There were some misunderstandings. I'm sorry.
1. I didn't indicate any company's name.
2. My last reply is right. I checked that again.

And I know the fact that the product in Ocean Terminal is the real A-bike.

[JJ]

Hi there A-Bikers!

I am planning to buy one from a company in Hong kong.
http://www.abike-shop.com/
Has anyone here bought yours from here?
Its price is the way cheaper than the UK e-shop.
I would rather buy mine from here...but it now shuts down the order.
It seems they have no stock right now.

Are you going to buy from Noble Hall Limited direct? I have seen a shop named as JC Shop at 343A in Ocean Terminal, Tsimshatsui, Hongkong selling A-bike at price HK$2,630. They have one A-bike on display but do not know whether the A-bike they are selling is the geniue one or copy.

Actually I have already bought mine from NH since it reopened.
They sell good products, not imitations, as one of DAKA's official partner.

Though, there must be some cautions when you use this shop:
1) The shop have been delaying in shipping the products, not once, but in my case, three times and as long as enough one week. They also made an excuse for not being in time that they could not get enough stock in time, which is in common sense totally of their responsibility.
2) They said that they will open service centers (customer hot-line) and tie-up repair centers in my country, Japan in the near future, but nothing is going on about it. As DAKA Japan is supposed to declare their launching portal shops in Japan, I doubt NH can do even a part of what they said in my country.
3) They also said that all accessories and spare parts are free for shipping after the purchase of A-bike itself. However, what they are planning to sell as spare parts and accessories are only tires and inner tubes!! This has become even much better....they first said they only sell tires. Anyway, at this moment, when the sales of these itmes are supposed to start, they still show dummy images including the items not listed on their plan and nothing is sold on-line now.

In addition to these points, there are much more complaints on this shop.
One big problem is...it is still a rumor-level but...the shop is said to be run personally. This rumor comes from the fact that there is only one person to respond to every inquiry and he seems to do all the chores by himself. What do you expect when he gets involved in a traffic accident on the way to a FedEx center to ship A-bikes? In worst scenario, the shop will be totally lost without any successor.

Anyway, poeple from England have little advantage to buy from this shop. Those from Asia, Australia, and America should be warned!!!

[epfli2005]

Hi there A-Bikers!

I am planning to buy one from a company in Hong kong.
http://www.abike-shop.com/
Has anyone here bought yours from here?
Its price is the way cheaper than the UK e-shop.
I would rather buy mine from here...but it now shuts down the order.
It seems they have no stock right now.

Are you going to buy from Noble Hall Limited direct? I have seen a shop named as JC Shop at 343A in Ocean Terminal, Tsimshatsui, Hongkong selling A-bike at price HK$2,630. They have one A-bike on display but do not know whether the A-bike they are selling is the geniue one or copy.

Actually I have already bought mine from NH since it reopened.
They sell good products, not imitations, as one of DAKA's official partner.

Though, there must be some cautions when you use this shop:
1) The shop have been delaying in shipping the products, not once, but in my case, three times and as long as enough one week. They also made an excuse for not being in time that they could not get enough stock in time, which is in common sense totally of their responsibility.
2) They said that they will open service centers (customer hot-line) and tie-up repair centers in my country, Japan in the near future, but nothing is going on about it. As DAKA Japan is supposed to declare their launching portal shops in Japan, I doubt NH can do even a part of what they said in my country.
3) They also said that all accessories and spare parts are free for shipping after the purchase of A-bike itself. However, what they are planning to sell as spare parts and accessories are only tires and inner tubes!! This has become even much better....they first said they only sell tires. Anyway, at this moment, when the sales of these itmes are supposed to start, they still show dummy images including the items not listed on their plan and nothing is sold on-line now.

With these points, there are much more complaints on this shop.
One big problem is...it is still a rumor-level but...the shop is said to be run by personally. This rumor comes from the fact that there is only one person to respond to every inquiry and he seems to do all the chores by himself. What do you expect when he gets involved in a traffic accident on the way to a FedEx center to ship A-bikes? In worst scenario, the shop will be totally lost without any successor.

Anyway, poeple from England have little advantage to buy from this shop. Those from Asia, Australia, and America should be warned!!!

Thanks for the information. NH appears to be situated in Causeway Bay in Hongkong with full address although their telephone number is not indicated. They seem to be the main office but there is no information to show that they are also the distributors selling the products. JC shop in Ocean Terminal, Tsimshatsui told me that their suppliers are in Japan. They showed me a paper with the introduction of the A-Bike which we can see from the official website. They do not have the stock. If ones wishes to buy the A-Bike, full payment has to be paid in advance.

[JJ]

One more thing to add.
The NH explained the delay of shipping partly because they could not get enough amount of stock in time from DAKA, and strangely enough, partly because they use a "personal account" of FedEx to ship their A-bikes overseas for free and the acount has a certain limit of shipping in a certain period. Have you ever heard about anything like that? This is one of the strongest supports to indicate that the NH is run personally. I assume that their temporary stop of order acceptance right now is due to the limit. Otherwise they could have many more orders coming in thanks to their lower price.

They seem to be the main office but there is no information to show that they are also the distributors selling the products. JC shop in Ocean Terminal, Tsimshatsui told me that their suppliers are in Japan. They showed me a paper with the introduction of the A-Bike which we can see from the official website. They do not have the stock. If ones wishes to buy the A-Bike, full payment has to be paid in advance.

I do not know what you mean by this, but if you live in HK and actually went to see what the office looked like, then I understand the meaning. If not, DAKA the manufacturer has announced this shop is one of their official distributors at the following URL. http://www.daka-designs.com/products/sh ... php?id=212 I wonder why JC shop is not listed there.

Anyway, the thing you said the JC shop is supplied from Japan sounds really weird to me. There is no supplier of A-bike in Japan at this moment and that is our biggest concern.

[Ling]

Hi,

I bough my A-bike via abike-shop.com in July,
but the my bill paid to NH (credic card),

what I know the sales person from abike-shop.com, he told me now they no more focus on Hong Kong market, cause there is an official retail shop here - City Super. In fact, he told me they have to share the stock level with City Super every shipment from the manufactory in China.

that why they out of stock in Nov almost same period of time as City Super.

[epfli2005]

Hi,

I bough my A-bike via abike-shop.com in July,
but the my bill paid to NH (credic card),

what I know the sales person from abike-shop.com, he told me now they no more focus on Hong Kong market, cause there is an official retail shop here - City Super. In fact, he told me they have to share the stock level with City Super every shipment from the manufactory in China.

that why they out of stock in Nov almost same period of time as City Super.

Do you mean City Super is actually JC shop in Ocean Terminal, Tsimshatsui.

Did you buy your A-Bike over the internet?

[Ling]

No, JC shop is different with City Super
I bough my A-bike via abike-shop.com

[JJ]

There was a man running a bike shop.
Then a cyclist got flat tire and stopped by the shop.
He asked the shop keeper to sell a tube.
But the shop owner refused to sell the tube and said,
"This tube is only for customers who need repair."

What a joke!!!

This is the reality of the HK shop.
I asked them to prepare enough stock of tubes and tires as minimum request.
They or should I say, he first announced spare parts will be available from the 1st Dec. and showed all the possible items for spare parts and accessaries on the web-shop, all of which you can see even now.
However, when the time has come, nothing has changed.
I asked why and he replied that he wants to keep very few spare parts in stock in order to deal with customers who really need spare parts...for example who rushed into a hole and totally broke a wheel, which is actually one of the cases so far.
So, I think he wants to distinguish customers suffered from flat tires from those heavily screwed. That is why I have to use the UK shop instead.

[JJ]

This is what you expected to see on the 1st of Dec:
a) start of sales of all sorts of spare parts listed as "coming soon"
http://www.abike-shop.com/abike_parts.htm

This is what you expected to see after the mid of Dec:
b) reopening sale of A-bike
https://www2.abike-shop.com/abike_backorder_enquiry.htm

Now, what can we see?
a) Even only one of the spare parts is NOT on sale, including tires and tubes. Does he want to tell us to ride A-bike without any flat tire for this long?
b) There has NOT been any message from the shop to a customer who back ordered.

Besides, he is said to have been to a foregin country for the last whole week, making an excuse that his absense is to join a business show there.

We can see that he avoided his responsibility to respond to customers requests and inruiries during the period. Actually I have not got his response for over ten days by now!

What a wonderful shop!!

[JJ]

The subject was to..."HK shop updated info...not actually 'updated' but downgraded"