BEWARE OF ACTIVEPOWERSPORTS.COM
 

I would like to give everyone in the RC Community a heads up about this company and my experience and dealings with them. If you have used their website before and have had good dealings with them then please chime in, Im not looking to give Active Powersports a bad name, for all I know, in other situations they have acted in a different manner. I am just giving my personal experience with them and giving a heads up just in case I end up not being the only one.
Their website claims they do not offer telephone assistance in order to keep their prices competitive, if they hire people to answer phones, the price of the product will increase. So fine, even after reading that, I felt inclined to order from them because it made me feel that since e-mail is the ONLY option of contact, that it would be a good one. So I search their website and I find the product I want to purchase. It is the HPI 1/10 Mitsubishi Evo X 200mm Body. Their website had stated it as in stock and 'ships in 3-4 business days'. So I decided since they were one of few with it in stock, I'd buy it from them. I order the product, pay for it, find the payment on my credit card bill, so I figure alls is good to go. So on December 27th, 2013 at roughly 7:45pm EST I officially place my order for my Evo body. Three days go by and then at about 6:00 pm EST on Dec. 30, I receive an e-mail from 'activepowersports.com' that says;

"Hello,
The car Body you ordered is on backorder for a few weeks.
Would you like to keep this on backorder or cancel?

Sorry for the inconvenience.?"

...wait.....what?....so you charged my credit card 3 days ago, but you don't tell me until now that this body is backordered? Ive sent him roughly 2 or 3 e-mails after his, and I haven't gotten a response. Early this morning, probably at about 1am EST I sent, basically my final message, asking for a response to my original e-mails and to start communicating better, or Im going to call my credit card company and deny the purchase. I also asked him if there was any way he could compensate me for the inconvenience of this whole thing and STILL CHARGING my credit card. (Idk, like free 2-day shipping, maybe a set of tires?, a sticker sheet, ANYTHING..make me want to purchase from your company) Us hobby people, once were customers somewhere, we generally don't go anywhere else.
Well, this time it didn't take him long to respond....He refunded my money with no e-mail responses and just forgot about my business altogether. I don't understand the professionalism in this at all. I will also be sending him the link to this thread so he can read what Im telling the R/C Community about his company. Maybe he'll even join the R/C Forums and give us a response? Who knows. If anyone has had any better dealings with this company, please chime in and let everyone know! Best part is, I'm probably going to backorder from Rcplanet at this point cause its out of stock everywhere. Had this guy just responded to my e-mails he would've had my money cause I want the product regardless. So, its his loss.
Thanks for hearing me out, and I hope that if anyone does deal with this company in the future they have much better customer service and a much better dealing.

sorry you had such a bad deal with them.

what about the tamiya body? It is in stock at tower hobbies.

Looks like another of Aaron Mortensen's scam websites to me. He's a pox on the RC and Powersports hobby and he's out of Escondido.

Search on this site about RCRAA, PunchIt, Hi-Rev Hobbies, ProGrade racing and others. User SBDogwood (owner of San Diego R/C Raceway) had a horrible experience with this guy and has successfully won a lawsuit against him. He now has your credit card info and has a history of credit card fraud. Be cautious.

Wow, thats ridiculous. Well i appreciate the info and I will definitely be sure to keep a look out on my credit card statement. what a piece of shit.

And i would love to get the tamiya one but it is too expensive for me right now unfortunately. I need to stick to something a little less expensive for now.

What is the issue? You placed an order on a friday night, the store processed your credit card as it is most likely set up that way through their payment gateway and come Monday evening, they tell you it's not in stock. Not sure what you do for a living, but not all of us work 24/7 or own a business that is staffed 24/7

It looks like they handled it just fine. I've never dealt with them, but at least give them a fair shot

All I wanted was a response e-mail at that point. Im the first one to understand that people don't work 24/7. However, when you run a business that doesn't hold telephone operator hours, thats not really fair to the customer because now, these people who has just given this company money, have no fair way of communication. and lets be real man... look around... i don't care who you are and who the people around you are but EVERYONE is on their cell phones ALL THE TIME... I can also almost guarantee that this guy, who's running an e-mail and online only business, has his business e-mail connected to the same phone that his personal e-mail comes to. Why bullshit. Is it so tough to send over a quick e-mail especially when you don't hold normal operating hours and theres no other form of communication then e-mail? Sorry but i disagree with you.

I get it, when I purchase something online, i want it shipped that minute. But be realistic, it was a weekend. I ran an online company for 4 years, i understand that people expect an answer right away, but if its saturday night and I'm busy, you better bet that I wont be answering an email about "where's my stuff"

I've ordered from Active power sports before, just be patient, you'll get your stuff. I think I ordered a Futaba BLS451 for like $50. It's seems to be a site with access to items at a good price, but they don't actually have it in stock.
People want stuff as cheap as possible (which is why you ordered from there if I had to guess), but then they want top notch expedited service. Sometimes can't have it all.

I placed an order with them about 6-8 months ago, same scenario product back ordered. I emailed (after a week of waiting) stating that if I did not get a response in 3 days I was going to do a charge back. I got my money back after 2 weeks. buyer beware.

Aaron is not affiliated with active powersports. No need to worry. An old friend of mine use to, or may still work there.its been a couple years. I had them order 2 kits for me. Couldnt beat the price. Everything showed up within a week. I picked up everything in person because I live local. .active powersports doesn't stock much at all for rc. Maybe a couple slash's.They sell stuff for full size offroad vehicles.
Hopefully everything works out for you.

just a little bit of advice...when buying HPI bodies, always check tower hobbies site first. if its "in stock" there, you shouldn't have any issues getting the same body elsewhere, if it's "out of stock", you're not likely going to get it at any other online site wen if they claim it's in stock. you're only bet at that point would be to hit up a LHS that has one or to find one for sale in forums or from an individual on eBay, not a store.
tower hobbies is VERY accurate on HPI body stock status, the same goes for basically everything they carry from my experience. if they don't have it or can't get it, no other "drop ship" online site will either because of how most online sites operate (they don't keep stock, just order from manufacture when you place your order).

just a little bit of advice...when buying HPI bodies, always check tower hobbies site first. if its "in stock" there, you shouldn't have any issues getting the same body elsewhere, if it's "out of stock", you're not likely going to get it at any other online site wen if they claim it's in stock. you're only bet at that point would be to hit up a LHS that has one or to find one for sale in forums or from an individual on eBay, not a store.
tower hobbies is VERY accurate on HPI body stock status, the same goes for basically everything they carry from my experience. if they don't have it or can't get it, no other "drop ship" online site will either because of how most online sites operate (they don't keep stock, just order from manufacture when you place your order).

Thats the thing, i wasnt expecting an immediate response. I gave him 4 business days to reply to me. And when your business is solely run through e-mails and not telephone, i expect 4 business days to be ample time to give a reply. Your making it sound like i ordered my product, and within 2 hours i was expecting an email back, which is not the case. And to further prove my point, if its saturday night and ur out drinking and the 4 days prior u didnt get back to me, take 1 minute out of your 'busy' social schedule and respond to me. And idk, maybe its just my personal opinion, but if you are trying to run a successful online business that doesnt hold telephone hours, that means ur not paying a soul to do any work for u, which is fine, but in my opinion that should make it more of a priority to make sure you are in contact with any customer trying to do business with you. Im not being unrealistic and i wasnt expecting my order to ship immediately, i just wanted communication.

You're not alone Scotty. I've been in similar situations before and it's really frustrating when a company takes the better half of a week to give a simple response, even if its "I got your email and Im working on it" or "I got your email, give me a day or two to sort it out". When they don't respond AT ALL within a couple business days, it just shows they don't really care.
I get that some of these businesses are "side jobs" for people or are only run/operated by 1 or 2 people, but that's no excuse for ignoring a customer for more than a couple business days, especially without an apology or reason/excuse.

If a company has horrible customer service, even if they have hands down the best prices around, I'll gladly spend more money at a business where they at least act like they care and try to please me as a customer. Thats the whole point of a business...offer a good or service in return for money.
It's 2014 now...everyone knows and has known for a long time that customer service is basically the most important factor for a successful business.