*** ADVANCED SPORT TOURING (AST) – BEWARE!!! . . . I REPEAT – BEWARE!!! ***
If you are thinking about buying anything from this company, think twice, and if you still decide to go ahead anyway after reading my comments below, then you really need get your head examined!
I bought a new Concours 14 in 2012 and then came across some of the accessories that Advanced Sport Touring offered. I thought it was great that someone who owned a Concours 14 was coming up with unique accessories to improve/personalize this motorcycle. I bought a few items back then with no issues. However, I made a deal with the owner (Ryan Niquette) for two items in early 2014. He shipped the main item (Adjustable Touring Pegs) and said that the other item ($50 grip covers) was temporarily out-of-stock. Subsequent follow-up emails by me were answered with an assortment of excuses (supplier problems, changing suppliers, incorrect items received, yada-yada-yada). The end-result was that I never received the other item and he stopped answering my emails. What a disgraceful way to do business!
Here’s the part where I should really get MY head examined:
Against my better judgment, on June 6th I placed a $325 order with AST for Passenger Peg Lowering Brackets and Passenger Mini Floorboards. I had looked around and couldn’t find any others that were an exact fit for my bike, so even though I knew better, I caved in and ordered them. Initially I received an order acknowledgment with no mention whatsoever of any backorder situation, so I expected to get them in a few days, and certainly within a week. After waiting several weeks and hearing/receiving nothing, I sent three (3) separate emails requesting a status update. I also checked the website and my order wasn’t even shown as being in existence. It wasn’t until after I had mentioned in my third email that I planned to contact PayPal that I finally received a response. This was on June 21st and I was given an apology, lame excuses for the delay (training new employees, waiting for items, yada-yada-yada) and this offer, “I'll throw in a free set of Helmet Locks for the trouble”. I was told that the order would ship on June 25th. Of course, not surprisingly it didn’t . . .
Having had enough of this nonsense, I finally contacted PayPal on July 7th and filed a dispute (> one month after order placement). Almost immediately I received an email from Ryan and he made some excuse that my other emails “were found in his SPAM bin”. I had sent those emails as responses to his original order acknowledgment email, so anybody who knows anything about SPAM filters would know that it is highly improbable that my emails would have ever gone into the originator’s SPAM bin. It was simply a load of crap, plus he had already acknowledged receiving my previous email on June 21st when I had threatened to contact PayPal. Lies . . .lies . . .lies!
As a result of my irritation over this whole matter, I was prompted to do a little research into Ryan Niquette’s Advanced Sport Touring company. Here’s a few things that I discovered that members/potential customers should know:
• Check out Advanced Sport Touring’s rating with the Florida Better Business Bureau (
http://www.bbb.org/west-florida/business-reviews/motorcycle-part-suppliers/advanced-sport-touring-in-hudson-fl-90209893/complaints ). AST has an “F” rating with the BBB (and that’s only because they don’t rate G-Z). I read about 20 of these complaints from the past year or so and almost every one of them was very similar to what I had experienced, even down to the same flimsy excuses. Also, almost all of the complaints mentioned the same thing; that he doesn’t ship orders and won’t answer emails or phone calls. Keep in mind how many more dissatisfied customers (like me) never thought to file a complaint with the BBB. I was amused to read that someone else was also offered free helmet locks “for the trouble”. It must be the standard ploy to try to appease irate customers.
• If you look on EBAY and Amazon you will no longer find any products advertised from Advanced Sport Touring. Coincidence? I think not. My guess is that he was likely booted for the same types of nonsense that he has pulled with me and others. One C.O.G. member who complained to Amazon about his unfulfilled AST order mentioned that they had encouraged him to send in feedback about the seller. I think it’s safe to assume that Amazon probably had enough of him, as did EBAY.
• If you look for Advanced Sport Touring’s page on Facebook you will find that it was taken down. It’s really not hard to figure out why . . .
• I read many other postings on the C.O.G. forum from members complaining about the same exact experiences, so I quickly learned that I was far from alone. Here’s a sample:
http://forum.cog-online.org/index.php/topic,52725.msg379196.html#msg379196 . On the topic of AST, one rather amusing comment made by a C.O.G. member jokingly said something like, “it seems that one out of every five people on this forum has an okay experience with them”. That’s 20% okay . . . with 80% regrettable!
• I even had to laugh when I read comments between a few C.O.G. members indicating that maybe someone should go to his shop (it’s looks more like a storage unit) and check on his welfare.
Because I was jerked around by this guy (again), I have now educated myself as to what a ****-poor reputation AST has, especially with many of the Concours owners in this group (it kind of falls in that category, “you don’t s*** where you eat”).
I don’t know (or care) what this guy’s problem is, but he has proven himself to be a very unreliable, unscrupulous, and unethical “businessman”. However well-intentioned he may have started out, his business model has been very poorly executed, to say the least! I would suspect that maybe he hasn’t been paying his suppliers, so therefore he can’t fill orders in a timely manner. If Advanced Sport Touring had done business reputably like 99% of the other companies out there, you would not be reading this, but Ryan Niquette fully earned this posting. Frankly, I will be surprised if the Advanced Sport Touring company is even around much longer, based on the way things seem to be going. It’s too bad, because it seemed like this guy has a modicum of talent.
Anyway, hopefully this information will prevent others from experiencing the same unnecessary and unappreciated aggravation that I did. However, if you still go ahead and purchase anything from Advanced Sport Touring, I wish you good luck (you’re going to need it!). Oh, and don’t forget to go get your head examined!
And yes, the last order that I will ever place with Advanced Sport Touring finally arrived on July 13th, FIVE (5) weeks after being placed and I’m quite sure only because I had involved PayPal! In keeping with AST’s fine tradition of disappointing its customers, the order did not include the aforementioned free helmet locks which were offered “for the trouble”. Just more of the same exemplary “customer service” from Ryan Niquette . . .