In February 2008, I ordered a bicycle engine kit from this seller via their website revolutioncycles.us. I paid with PayPal. The amount was close to $300. I carefully examined the pictures and description of the kit before ordering. In about 10 days, I received a large box, very poorly taped and had holes in it. All the nuts and bolts were bouncing around loose in the box and many washers and nuts and bolts were missing. I did not receive the gearbox that was in the site picture and description. Instead, I received a much cheaper and prone to failure gearbox. I also didn't receive the proper motor mount as pictured. And part of the sprocket kit was missing, making it impossible to install and get a bike running. There were no parts lists or assembly instructions or other documentation whatsoever. I also received the wrong crank pedal assembly, which is required to clear the engine. The left twist grip was broken. I could figure out how most parts would be installed on my bike, but there were a few parts I had no idea about.
I emailed the seller about all the problems. He asked $50 more to send me just the correct motor mount if I returned the wrong one. He refused to send me the rest of the parts missing. He refused to answer my questions on the unidentifiable parts. He cursed me repeatedly.
I filed a complaint with PayPal. They dropped the complaint immediately and said they won't cover anything not purchased from their eBay site. That's new to me. I thought they covered ANYTHING purchased with PayPal funds. Their terms of service say nothing about this but in private emails, they will tell you this. Nothing you can do with such a monopoly that has 150 million account holders and isn't regulated by anyone.
I next contacted Don Grube, who supplies a large portion of the bicycle engine kits imported into the USA from China. His site is grubeeinc.com. On his site, he prominently displays all kinds of bicycle engine kits including those with the parts that I was supposed to get. He also lists 2 different USA main distributors and one USA parts supplier. Barsanco.com is one supplier in Michigan. Emails to them were unanswered. I sent an email to Dennis Foster, the supposed parts supplier in Oklahoma. He said he had no idea where to get parts for the 4 cycle kits and only "did this as a sideline" and that he didn't want to be bothered with it. So the bottom line is, the biggest distributor of bike engines and parts in the world could not tell me where to find the parts I need for the exact same products shown on his site.
As you can see, so far it's a dead end.
Next, I contacted Bird Dog Distributing at http://www.birddogdistributing.com/. They are the ones who supply and dropship bike engine kits for Bryan Semones, who I bought from. I gave them my order information and they said they had no record of it and it meant that he shipped to me directly and by the description of my kit, they said he sold me a premium kit and sent me a much lower priced, lower quality kit that others don't sell but there were still old stock left. Actually, I have concluded that Semones just gathered various parts that were lying around his yard and threw them in a box. He knew that once I received it, there was nothing I could do to fight back and that the money was in his pocket to stay.
After all my checking around, I found Youtube videos of Semones driving to a convenience store buying rolling papers for marijuana. You can find other documented complaints against Semones on the forum motoredbikes.com.
It has now been about 3 months, and I've had a very hard time finding the parts I need because most dealers out there carry very little stock or sell mostly the old, cheaper 2 cycle engine kits. I found one dealer that probably sells the parts I need, but the pictures on their site are poor quality and you can't even tell if it's the right part or not. No problem, I emailed them to confirm. Guess what, 3 months and no replies. The site that never replied was bicycle-engines.com. And guess what again. They are owned by Bird Dog Distributing.
If you are one of the many people who want to motorize a bike to save gas, beware. There are many fly by night dealers out there who will take your money and run. They know another sucker will come along shortly. There are a handful of honest, reputable dealers, but they carry limited stock and parts inventory and some don't bother to reply to email inquiries. They expect you to just order blindly something can cost several hundred dollars. Not a good way of doing business, but it's the norm for the bike engine industry.