Trek Vapor 3 Helmet Liners and a Tale of Poor Customer Service

Here’s the tale:

I bought a Trek Vapor 3 helmet last year. After using it for a few months, I went to wash the helmet liners because they had accumulated a lot of sweat and grime–as will any piece of cloth that is on athletic gear that comes into contact with skin. The helmet liners fell apart–they must have been held together by water soluble glue–rendering the helmet useless. I complained to Trek customer service and, instead of fixing the problem, they just made me mad.

The Disintegrating Trek Vapor 3 Helmet Liners–After One Wash

My original email to Trek customer service:

I have to say that I am very disappointed in the Vapor 3 helmet I purchased from Trek.

After several months of use, I took out the removable pads inside the helmet to wash the grime and oil out of them. They detach by velcro, so I assumed they were made to be removable and cleanable.

To my surprise, when I washed the pads, the cloth on either side of the foam fell off.

How was the cloth attached to the foam? With water-soluble glue? However you attached it–you made the wrong choice. A helmet liner gets sweaty and needs to be cleaned. Any part of helmet that gets sweaty, should be washable without it falling apart.

This is a complete and utter disappointment. The helmet is now useless without the helmet liner. It was a total waste of money.

I am requesting you send me a new set of helmet pads/ liner to replace the defective ones you shipped with the helmet.

On second thought, better send about 10 sets in case the new ones dissolve when I get them sweaty.

My mailing address is:

John Berns
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Din Daeng, Bangkok 10400
Thailand

Trek Vapor 3 Helmet - With Disolving Helmet Liners

To which they replied:

Thanks for writing and riding Trek bikes. Trek warrants each helmet for a period of one year from the date of purchase against manufacturer’s defects in materials and craftsmanship. We also offer a one year crash replacement policy. To exchange your helmet, please send it along with your original sales receipt to:

Trek Bicycle Corporation
Attn: Helmet Crash Replacement
801 W. Madison Street
Waterloo, WI 53594

You can also take your helmet, along with your original sales receipt, to your local Trek dealer and exchange it there.

Well, I think they could have done more. After all, the product should never have been put on the shelves. Why should I have to PROVE that there is a problem with a product they must know has a serious problem?

Here is my rather long and angry response:

That’s a rather ridiculous offer and it angers and offends me that you even suggested that.

To start with, let me tell you why you should care that I am upset.

To begin with, the Vapor 3 is a defective product by design. You should already know that fact and be willing to take a customer at his or her word and fix the problem–a customer that is sold a defective product should not have to make a concerted effort to convince the company that made the product to make right.

Furthermore I am a long-term Trek customer. I have owned 4 Trek bicycles and currently own two bikes; a road bike and hardtail mt. bike. I have a Trek Vapor 3 helmet (that is now unusable), Trek gloves and other assorted Trek gear. I am a customer that spends money buying Trek products. That’s a probably the best reason a company can have to care.

Here’s the problem:

You guys made a seriously flawed product. Athletic headgear that is made to be in contact with a sweaty part of the body and that falls apart when you wash it is just plain flawed. Somebody in product design or manufacturing really screwed up on this product. It never should have been shipped. Period.

Now, you are telling me I should jump through hoops and send you the helmet so you can see the problem for yourself before you fix the problem? That’s not just wrong, it’s stupid.

Why your request is impractical to the point of being ridiculous:

I live in Thailand; you should already know that if you ready my complaint, I put my address in there. Do you know where Thailand is? It’s half-way around the world from the address you gave me to return the products to. Now, I could send you the helmet by air courier–that would cost more than the price of the helmet. I could send you the helmet by surface mail, but that’s still probably half the price of the helmet and it would take months. My head is too valuable to go unprotected in Bangkok traffic for months. And why should I shoulder the costs of fixing a product that was flawed to begin with? I am already pissed that I got a crap product–why insult me more and tell me I should waste more time and money proving to you that the product is flawed? I mean–you guys must know this is a problem already, don’t you? Shipping you the helmet requires a great deal of effort on my part, requiring time and effort to package the helmet and take to a shipper. More of my time than the helmet is worth, I am afraid. Hell, the time I spent writing the original email was time wasted that I should not have had to waste. This email is even more time wasted.

Take to the bike shop I bought it from? It’s impractical, it’s rather far and the time and expense to get there is more than the helmet is worth.

Besides–I have no clue where the receipt is.

What do you think this is? A shady ploy to bilk you out of a set of helmet pad / liners? Sorry, I have more important things to do than to try and swindle Trek out of $0.59 worth of helmet liners.

But if you are still convinced this is a shady scam, see the attached photo: the liners are really falling apart. There, now that I wasted 5 minutes snapping a photo will you believe I am not trying to scam you out of fifty nine cents worth of helmet liners?

My suggestion, that you just ship me a few of the helmet pad / liners was a pretty simple solution to the problem. They weigh about 5 grams and it would have taken somebody 5 minutes to put it in an envelope and email it to my address. Problem solved. Customer happy. And it would have required less effort or expense then you receiving a damaged helmet from me and re-shipping it back.

It would require a little initiative on your behalf and a company that supports service reps that are willing to take some initiative to satisfy an unhappy customer. Well, obviously this is not the case.

Now you have a customer (me) that has a useless product (the helmet) and a very, very poor image of Trek Bikes.

With a little effort this situation could have been avoided. Instead, either through wrong-minded corporate policy or general laziness, you squandered an opportunity to build lasting good will and a give a good customer had one more reason to stay loyal to your brand.

Oh–and you would not have had a customer telling as many other people that he can that he thinks your products and customer service are sub-par.

http://www.johnberns.com/2008/04/16/trek-vapor-3-helmet-liners/

– A Former Trek Customer

That’s this blog post.

I don’t understand most company’s policies on making good on customer problems. They often force the customer to go to great lengths to achieve recourse which, at least in my case, further aggravates me. Not only did I get a crap product, I get a run-around to remedy the situation. Now I have a crap product and a company that I feel is jerking me around. Pffft. Why bother? That’s the last time I will buy their product.

Bye Bye Trek! It’s Been Nice Buyin’ Your Products–Until Now!

Now, it a company hears my complaint and takes immediate action (and I even told Trek what they could do and the cost of it is mere pennies by my estimate), they could have made me very happy with almost zero effort on their part.

But alas, they just alienated me.