Dick's Sporting Goods
Reviews and Complaints

The nightmare began when I foolishly decided to purchase a bicycle for my girlfriend's birthday from www.Dickssportinggoods.com on April 16, nearly three weeks prior to her birthday party on May 2. A reasonable amount of time for handling, shipping and assembly, I thought.

I was very wrong.

The troubles began when I attempted to use the "Bill-me-later" option on your website, lured by 90 days of free interest. I had used "Bill-me-later" only a few weeks earlier to buy myself a bicycle from another sporting goods site, so I figured it would be convenient to use it again. However, this was not the case - The purchase was declined immediately, with absolutely no reason given from Dick's web site. After calling Dick's and speaking to a customer support representative who seemed to care little about his job and even less about my issues with my purchase, your rep promptly distanced himself from the issue and told me to talk to Bill-me-later directly.

After working with Bill-me-later for a number of days (with absolutely no help from Dick's), we finally got the issue resolved and the order went through. The issue was with Dick's website, which was down for some reason and prevented the order from going through. Regardless, I finally got the confirmation email from Dick's on April 23, a full 6 days after initializing the transaction.

The bicycle and all of my other ordered goodies arrived on-time a week later, around April 30. This was great, as I had plenty of time to assemble my girlfriend's bike before she got into town that weekend.

Except...the boxes that my merchandise was shipped in were nearly destroyed. The box that held my girlfriend's helmet was ripped apart and partially crushed, but fortunately the helmet was intact. Not so much for the bicycle box and it's contents, which each apparently received the same fate. The large bicycle box (which cost me around $25 for shipping!) was completely ripped open, with large gashes torn into all sides of it. There is no excuse for shipping something in this condition, especially when an object inside has so many small parts that could have fallen out.

The bicycle itself was in terrible condition. The decorative stickers were applied wrinkled and crooked, and the rubber on the handles, as well as the paint, was scuffed and marked. The pre-installed gear-shifter sat crooked on the right handlebar, totally misalligned from the rubber handgrip. The whole thing looked like it was put together using slave labor.

It also looked incredibly cheap, like a trinket from a gumball machine. This wasn't the most expensive bike available, but if I was looking for bargain basement prices and quality I would have bought a used bicycle. I expect a new product that I buy to at least look new!

All of this would have been tolerable if the bicycle had come with a seat, which it did NOT. I now had a partially assembled bike for my girlfriend's birthday with no safe way to ride it.

Upon calling Dick's Customer Service, they once again distanced themselves from the situation by suggesting I call the manufacturer, Huffy. Dick's made it clear to me that their "brick-and-mortar" locations have nothing to do with www.dickssportinggoods.com, and in fact don't even carry many of the same products, nor do they support them.

The Dick's Customer Service reps that I spoke to were completely uninterested in the fact that I made my purchase through THEM, not Huffy, and not only were they unwilling to check to see if they had another bicycle that they could quickly send me, they wanted nothing to do with calling Huffy, something that they felt was apparently was my job. Nice punishment for doing business with Dick's. They were gracious enough to give me the customer support number for Huffy. This saved me five seconds on the internet, compared to the hours of time I had already spent attempting to complete this tiring transaction with them.

The actual bicycle seat finally came about a week later. I was excited, thanks to Huffy's responsive product support. The seat matched the bike and looked decent compared to all of the other flaws and scuffs that were present from the moment I opened the box. A little tweaking here and there and some boyfriend TLC would have been just what the bike needed, except...the shipped seat post was the wrong size.

Nearly a month later and I STILL did not have the complete product that I had originally ordered from Dick's. Fortunately I was able to borrow a seat and seat-post from my father that fit the bike, so my girlfriend was able to ride the bicycle, but it still looked like a mismatched, used bike made of spare parts, and my father was now out of a bicycle seat.

I called Huffy directly (by this point it was apparent that Dick's has no interest in helping me or standing by it's products or customers) and Huffy promptly sent me out a new seat post for the second time. It arrived just last week.

Here it is, June 4th - over a month and a half after initializing this transaction with Dick's Sporting Goods, and my girlfriend STILL has not seen her completed birthday present. She will be back in town on June 21st, where she will finally get to ride her completed bicycle. By the time she does, it will have taken two full months of embarrassment, frustration, anger and an INCREDIBLE amount of wasted time to get to this point. This was her first birthday with me as her boyfriend, and due to these issues I was unable to give her a gift even worth using. This is unacceptable.

My experience with www.dickssportinggoods.com and Dick's Sporting Goods in general has been absolutely horrendous. I don't understand why I would ever do business with these companies ever again.

I bought a Mountain Bike for my sons birthday. First of all the purchase transaction itself was made unnecessarily difficult. I waited 30 minutes for them to inspect the bike, and filled out more paperwork than I have to buy a car. A few hours later when I went to give the bike to my son, I discovered that one of the tires was flat. Some inspection! Happy Birthday son, heres your bike you cant ride. I tried filling the tire but by the next morning the tire was flat again.

Two days later when I tried to return the bike, the store manager refused to exchange or refund the bike even though I had the receipt. When I insisted that I receive a new bike or refund, I was told company policy would not allow him to do that. I pointed out the posted refund policy that promises refunds with receipts. I was told they had the right to limit or refuse a refund regardless. The best they would do for me is put a new tube in the tire. No matter how much I insisted I did not trust the quality of that bike, they simply refused to refund my money. I was excited to see this store come into our area just a few months ago. I would not buy a golf tee from that store now.

I set up a 'Wish List' on Dick's Sporting Goods website, supplying my real e-mail address but making a point of un-checking the boxes that would sign up for what amounts to spam. I then printed out the wishlist and went to the brick-and-mortar store in Christiana, Delaware to look for the items that I found online. This has prompted two complaints regarding this company and their business practices.

Complaint 1: This has to do with the online version of the business. Even though I specifically UN-checked the opt-in boxes, I *still* ended up on their e-mail list. So, I tried to unsubscribe. At the bottom of each e-mail is a link to click to unsubscribe. Clicking on this link takes you to a webpage that states you have been removed from the list but that it will take two weeks to fully process. I did this no less than five times in that two week period. After two weeks passed, I called "Customer Service" and spoke with a real, live person who said that it would take two weeks. I waited *another* two weeks, again clicking the unsubscribe link multiple times, and called "Customer Service" a second time. The rep who answered stated that she would remove me herself. I then asked for the phone number and/or e-mail address of the Information Technologies department, but was told the only way that I could contact them is through an online form. The rep suggested that I double check my "account" to verify that the boxes are unchecked (they are). While I was there, I changed my e-mail address to a ficticious one. In response to that, I got a confirmation e-mail that my address had been changed and it was sent to my real address! I then found the Helpdesk form on the website and filled it out, but received an automated reply to call "Customer Service". This morning, I received yet another piece of spam. I did receive a response to the online form, but one must change the subject of the e-mail in order for a real, live human being to read it. For those who need it, send an e-mail to [protected]@dickssportinggoods.com and put "Customer Service Follow Up." in the subject.

Complaint 2: This one involves the brick-and-mortar store. Armed with my wishlist printout, I walked into the local store in search of two pairs of shoes. Neither brand was carried in the store let alone the specific model. I picked out two different pairs, one costing $80 and the other costing $120, and proceeded to wait in a conspicuous spot for the attention of a sales person. Apparently this was the day that half of the high school soccer team needed new cleats, and both sales persons were busy. One would think that the manager would discover this and send more people over to help being that there were no visible customers in the rest of the store. Not. I stood there for a full twenty minutes being ignored. I put the shoes back, never to return again.

After these two experiences, I will never shop at Dick's Sporting Goods again and I will warn all of my friends to avoid doing so as well. I got MUCH better service from www.shoebuy.com who had both the brand *and* the model I wanted and delivered them to my door in less than one week.

Leigh

Location: Online as well as Christiana, Delaware