Building a vintage bike from the ground up takes some time and money. Hunting on eBay only to get sniped at the buzzer is common. I was therefore quite pleased when I received a Dura Ace HP-7410 headset for my PR-6000 as a Christmas gift from my parents. I’ll admit I had shot them the link to the eBay auction back in November of ’09 but it was just one of those suggestions that I had forgotten about.
Lucky me, I got it for a Christmas gift. It was supposedly NOS (new old stock) and came in the Shimano box taped shut with the Shimano tape. Can you guess where I’m going with this one? 😉
Since I wasn’t ready to actually build the bike I set the box with my other parts… that was until a few days ago when I opened it up to discover the following…
Yes, that was literally all that was in the box. It was definitely bring your alcohol to work day in Japan on the day the Shimano crew boxed this headset! I wound up with two upper races, no lower race, no lock nut or washer etc. To add salt on the wound, this was $96 worth of parts I couldn’t even use. I discovered that the headset came from a retailer just up the road in Minnesota called Crosslake Sales. At the time of writing this, I’ve sent them an e-mail explaining my saga but since it took so long to discover I don’t really have a leg to stand on unless they have customer service above and beyond anything I’ve seen before. Fingers crossed?
Stay tuned… to be continued? 😉
*** UPDATE: Feb. 10th, 2010 ***
I think I just found an eBay seller with “ROCK STAR” customer service! Not only did I get a response from them in the evening (after biz hours) but they have offered to give me a refund if I return the headset. Keep in mind, I received this as a gift on Dec. 25th but it was purchased on eBay back on Nov. 21st of 2009. The problem wasn’t discovered until early Feb. 2010. The fact that Crosslake Sales is willing to work with me on this one is nothing short of amazing to me. Two big thumbs up to them!
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