I wanted to report my experience with HPC. It has been less than perfect
In the beginning, when I was looking to buy a bike from HPC, they were very pleasant with helping me decide on motor size, battery, etc. I had many questions, and after a few phone calls, they asked for an initial deposit of $200. Since I was seriously considering buying a bike from them, I didn't see a problem with it. What they didn't tell me was that the $200 was for a custom paint job and non-refundable. They held onto my deposit for an entire month before eventually refunding it (more on that later).
They have been extremely difficult to get in touch with afterwards, but to be fair they have a relatively small staff and were preoccupied with the Interbike event last week. However, I only needed a few simple questions answered and was ready to go through with the purchase. Had we been able to connect, confirm the bike build, and negotiate a final price, it would have been a done deal. Instead, weeks later they build a bike using components unbeknownst to me and attempted to charge me for their labor/bike at some arbitrated price. This seemed unfair and I was no longer comfortable with doing business with them, so I asked them to refund my deposit while I consider it. At that point, they told me that the deposit was for a custom paint job and refused to refund it. They said "no refunds" and continued to press me for compensation on their labor (they wanted to charge me an additional $750 if I don't buy the bike). Of course I refused to pay since I did not authorize them to build the bike. Heck, I didn't even know what components they were using to build the bike! Apparently, they just made that decision for me.
Since they already labored to build the bike, they were very eager to sell it (understandably) and offered me upgrades to higher-end bike components in order to complete the sale. It was very tempting (as I think HPC makes great bikes). However, I became worried that if I ever had any issues with the bike and had to exercise their warranty, the type of resistance/lag I would run into with HPC during the warranty process. In my interactions with them, I felt that they were a little aggressive and seemed to care more about retaining their profits than helping a customer.
In the end, after numerous emails back and forth, they did the right thing and refunded my money. However, I am a little sad in the way things turned out. I would've loved to have purchased a bike from them, and promoted them to a couple of my friends that are also looking to buy an ebike.
In hindsight, I believe the whole thing started with a misunderstanding, was exasperated by their slow response time, and ended very badly due to their aggressive approach with me towards the end. I don't necessarily think that you will have/had a similar experience as I did, and I am not telling anyone to not consider them as a merchant. I think HPC bikes are overpriced, but they are no doubt good bikes.
