Roboscooters

First the good:
Millard is very pleasant to talk to, I decided to purchase from him based on his nice personality and especially his word on being there after the sale for customer service, clearly stated both on the phone and on his website. He helped me choose a machine that I absolutely love and made sure it got here fast, all the way from China. It’s a fabulous little machine, simple to operate and a very convenient way to get around. Light weight and easy to stow, even in the trunk of a compact car, and costs much less than a full size segway.
The bad:
It WAS a great way to get around… when it still ran.
My machine had issues from the beginning, nothing serious at first but then additional little things cropped up. Millards post sale «customer service» consisted of simply giving me the email of the manufacturer at the first sign of trouble.
Their customer service is in some remote province in China, accessible via email in the evening (USA time) by someone who’s first language is NOT english. Customer Service/​Tech support has to go through the Sales dept who seem unable to accurately describe faults or fixes to actual tech support, and then accurately transfer the answer back. Think of the childrens game of «telephone» and then add a language barrier. After a couple dozen emails spread over several months, I’ve come to the conclusion that the primary goal of Customer Support (actually sales) is to not lose any money on «customer support».
None of the issues were ever resolved, and then the batteries in the remotes stopped taking a charge after only 8 months, first one then the spare remote soon after. My remotes are sealed units, no way to open them without breaking… and no way to use the scooter. After 2 more months of waiting for a fix there were still no replacements, and definately no honoring of the «Guarantee» which I’ve asked about.
It’s been another month since I last heard from Millard about replacement remotes and I’ve given up. I broke both remote cases open along the glue joints and found the batteries are soldered directly onto the circuit board and are of a type that are so unusual I can only find them from an ebay seller in China. I’ve ordered batteries and hopefully will have a useful machine again. In the meantime, the clock is soon running out on the 1 year guarantee.
At the time I bought mine from Millard, I could’ve gotten it $ 300 cheaper from someone local that was obviously a low mark-​up reseller. Instead I opted to pay more from
that to this day claims to deliver excellent customer support, in my case, giving me an email address in China, which is exactly what the honest low priced reseller told me he would do for customer support.
I have all my emails concerning this machine from pre-​purchase, to one month ago when I last asked Millard for help and will gladly forward them to anyone that doubts this story. Also, this is the only bad review I’ve ever given on ebay, amazon and here.
Bottom line, if you want to roll the dice on getting a good chinese scooter, and you very well may get a good one, buy from the absolute cheapest seller you can find and be prepared to do your own repairs.