I am another victem of Extreme scooters and decided to fight back. I have filed against THE GO! STORE in Ohio who is the virtual store brokering the deal for a $944.00 piece of junk for $5000,00 in small claims court in California. Additionally I have filed against Alpha Products International, Inc. domiciled in Iowa for $7,500. Both plus court costs.
YOU TOO CAN FIGHT BACK. FILE AGAINST THEM IN SMALL CLAIMS.
NOTE THE ATTACHED NEWS PAPER ARTICLE:

Customers, state complain about Newton scooter seller
In 3 years, hundreds call service poor; company says number is actually low

By BONNIE HARRIS By BONNIE HARRIS
REGISTER BUSINESS WRITER

July 10, 2007
Add comment

Newton, Ia. - The Iowa attorney general's office says it can do little to help dozens of consumers who have complained about a Newton-based company that sells electric scooters.

Consumers say they have received faulty products, poor customer service and unsatisfactory warranty relief from X-Treme Scooters, which lists itself as a "sub company" of Alpha Products International.

The attorney general's office has received three to four consumer complaints a month during the last 36 months, spokesman Bob Brammer said. The state's Better Business Bureau has received 128 complaints in the same time period.

Because the company sells its products using the Internet, nearly all of the complaints have been from customers in other states, Brammer said. They center largely on product performance and customer service issues - not consumer fraud, he said, which prevents the attorney general's office from doing much more than referring people to the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Products Safety Commission.

"At this point, even though I'm convinced that the consumers have a legitimate dispute, we haven't been able to take much action because there doesn't appear to be outright fraud being committed by the company," Brammer said. "It's just very troubling that their customer service seems so poor and disputatious. Clearly people are frustrated here."

Greg Meske, vice president of X-Treme Scooters, said the number of consumer complaints is actually extremely low given that the company sells about 50,000 scooters and electric bikes each year. He said about one-quarter of the company's 19 employees are dedicated to customer service. "I'm not saying we don't have any problems, but ... it's an extremely low number," Meske said. "We do try to make sure the customer is taken care of."

Martin Montague, 51, a flight instructor in El Monte, Calif., said he has filed multiple complaints against X-Treme Scooters after purchasing an $800 scooter for his stepson in late January. The scooter arrived as advertised within a few days, already assembled, but it broke down a few weeks later. He said his stepson had been using it for a 3-mile commute to and from work.

"Now I have an $800 boat anchor sitting in the garage," Montague said. "They sent me replacement parts for a completely different bike, the wrong bike, and now they refuse to take it back and refund the money. I thought Iowans were supposed to be good people. What's happening here?"

Meske said X-Treme Scooters shipped an electric bicycle to Montague on Feb. 3. The company received a call from him May 7 reporting a flat tire, which is not covered under the warranty, Meske said.

The company sent a tire for the wrong model, which Montague "was extremely upset about," Meske said.

"We did our best to resolve the situation," he said. "He was already 60 days out of the warranty, and we gave him the parts for free."

Meske said X-Treme Scooters does not make direct refunds to customers because the products are sold through about 300 online dealers.

"We are a wholesale company," Meske said. "The transaction is between the customer and the dealer."

Chris Coleman, president of the Iowa Better Business Bureau, said his agency has received 66 complaints about X-Treme Scooters in the last year - a record that's considered "unsatisfactory" by the bureau. Of the 128 complaints in the last three years, 20 remain unresolved, and seven have gotten no response from the company.

The bureau closed 54 of the complaints even though "consumers remained frustrated" because it determined X-Treme Scooters had made a reasonable attempt to resolve them, Coleman said.

"I would be concerned about a company of that size having 128 complaints in 36 months," he said. "It's significant enough. We're concerned enough about this that we began working with the (attorney general's) office."

Reporter Bonnie Harris can be reached at (515) 284-8247 or [email protected]