[pdxdbo]

A quick heads up for those considering business with OEMConcept aka Anthony Pitoscia

I recently received a set of 763 reps from OEMConcept and wanted to share my purchase experience which was less than ideal. To be clear, I received the wheels I ordered and they look great. However, they ended up costing me $100 more than I was quoted and the communications and evasion I encountered make it seem intentional.

I reached out in early August and was told the wheels were on back order and it would be a couple weeks before they came in. I asked for the cost to purchase and have them shipped to my zipcode and was quoted "I can get you the set of 19's for $829usd shipped!", a 20% portion of which I needed to pay upfront to secure my set.

A month later (about twice as long as I was initially told but not a deal breaker) I received an email from them that the wheels were in and would be shipped out soon and I was pretty excited for them to arrive.

My excitement was tempered quite a bit when the UPS guy showed up at my door and demanded $105.35 in fees to complete delivery of the wheels. I didn't understand why I would need to pay that, and the first delivery driver was clueless so I immediately reached out to OEMConcept but my email was ignored.

The next day UPS shows up again and this driver is able to articulate the situation, that the wheels are from Canada and customs fees are due. This was a complete surprise and I reached out to OEMConcept again and was again ignored. An interesting wrinkle here is that UPS only accepts 2 forms of payment to a driver: cashiers check and money order. Another day without a response from OEMConcept so I go get a cashier's check and take receipt of the wheels, this was on 9/23.

OEMConcept never bothered replying to my inquiries until yesterday, after I filed a Paypal dispute for the additional fees lacking any other option. Suddenly, Anthony has the time to reply and has a detailed explanation of the situation. Plenty of details that were omitted during the purchase process. Where was this explanation when I ordered the wheels or when I inquired why UPS was at my door asking for an extra hundred bucks?

Then he went on to state that he would tell this to Paypal who would rule in his favor because this is how it is and if I was smart I would drop my claim since it will be ruled against me, and that will count against me, and possibly place my Paypal account in jeopardy. I replied that I'll be pursuing the dispute with Paypal and that I would share with them his attempt to coerce me into dropping the dispute.

This whole thing could've been avoided with some forthrightness about how much the order would cost and better communications by OEMConcept.

In summation: the wheels are nice, the business is shady. If you purchase from them expect an extra +$100 in fees when the delivery person shows up at your door. Fees that they go to great lengths to avoid disclosing until after you complain to Paypal.