Anyone managed to get their Stark deposit back?

If I remember correctly, if you cancelled the order you lost your $100. 

I just considered it a sunk cost, their BS made me move on. Will wait til a big brand comes out with one...sucks too, be a perfect bike for 80 acres in the Adirondacks without attracting tresspassing quadtards. They fvcked around too long.

https://starkfuture.com/en-us-CA/terms

When did they promise you a specific delivery date they did not come through on?

I got a few things here. Apparently Stark thinks it’s OK to wait 3+ years when they can’t deliver and not expect a refund. They have warehouses full of bikes but cannot deliver. Worst business model I have ever seen. A chargeback should be a slam dunk regardless of what Anton say’s.

Seen plenty of them out, what reason did they give for not getting you one if you ordered on day 1?

Don’t worry, it won’t be Starks fault. If you haven’t noticed nothing ever is.

It was clearly stated as a non refundable deposit on day 1. Super shitty if you pre-ordered one and still hadn't gotten it though.

It might be their fault for the delays and I agree they did a terrible job planning for US deliveries with the dealer laws etc.....but that doesn't change the fact it was a non refundable deposit and no dates were ever guaranteed.  Shitty?  Yeah.  Otherwise it's their business. 

FWIW, I personally didn't buy one that was reserved specifically for these practices and it being a "one off" company that could disappear tomorrow like Alta.  I'll wait for Honda.

You mean the Stark didn't refund the "NON REFUNDABLE $100 DEPOSIT" I cant believe you even tried 

For anyone wondering, it was made abundantly clear that the deposit was non-refundable during the purchase process, this wasn’t some small print scam hidden within 10 pages of legal disclosure.  OP acting like he’s owed the return of his deposit when he chose not to receive his bike is absolutely ridiculous. 

YEP, 100% correct.

So you paid a clearly non-refundable deposit, knowing one day you'd have to pay the rest before you got your bike. About a year ago, when others were having their bikes delivered, they asked for the rest of the money to PROBABLY SHIP YOUR BIKE, and you are trying to say it's their fault?

Dude, I get the process and delayed delivery dates were frustrating, but it sounds like YOU failed to hold your side of the contract, not them. 

Idgaf about the $100...the constant rolling delivery Windows, local dealer getting some, other people, etc. The early on crew seemed to have gotten fvcked for whatever reason. You'd think these jerkoffs would have had some sort of localised dealer invite for demos or whatever for those near by that pre-ordered. It was, still is a clusterfvck in my opinion. I chuckled when I got that text this past week saying it's ready. No thanks, hey if crowd sourcing got this whole thing to happen, that's ok. 

What part is he wrong about, though?

Everybody that got that message and sent the payment , got heir bikes. There were a few people that it took a little longer to get after they paid than it was supposed to take. But all of the people that posted on here that paid for their bikes got them. Might have been a guy that asked for the funds back after it was taking longer. But I do not remember if he ended up getting the money back or the bike. He had posted that they sent him tracking info or something after he had asked for a refund. 

 Yah it sucks that it took a longtime and they did some things 6hat I would hope they would do differently if they had a chance to redo them.  But there was also the chance that they went under and nobody ever got bikes and they made that clear when they were asking for the $100 to hold the bike.  

  I got to ride one the other day . Only for about 15 minutes . I kept it on a lower power setting that was supposed to be similar to a 125 power. I was riding on trails/dirt roads with some small jumps. It was also setup for a shorter person. With the suspension modified so it was shorter. I'm 6'9" . I really want one. I will get a hand brake if and when I get one. Removing the seat to install the graphics was a surprise. 9 bolts to hold the seat on. And the entire shroud/seat/fender combo had to come off.  But I LOVE it. I hope I can ride it again and use a better camera mount to capture the ride so it doesn't look and sound like its rattling apparat.

Sucks they have done some of the things they have done and You will miss out on getting one. Nobody heard me while I did that 15 minute ride. I had a camera mounted on the bars that was cracked and rattled. And it was making more noise than the bike most of the time.  

[Sasquatch mode]

I think there's a misconception about the $100 non-refundable deposit for preorders. In my opinion its main role was to gauge interest from potential customers so the company could get to funding rounds showing something a bit more tangible than Facebook likes. Hence the ridiculous-for-the-vehicle-price-but-not-so-insignificant-non-refundable amount. I mean $1.8 million in bank is cool but the 18 000 preorders must have been a great asset to get the $50 millions from Eicher in December 2022. It was substantial proof there were a good amount of people ready to bet $100 on an unknown startup company to deliver a product they could not find anywhere else.

How you feel about said company being 1 to 1.5 years late on deliveries entirely depends on the expectations you had when you decided to give them your hard-earned money.

If you paid $100 to a startup company thinking it was a dead certainty that the company would thrive, then make the bikes, and you expected to have the bike in your garage by September 2022 (when they were slated to enter into production at the time of December 2021 preorders) of course it sucks big time. There have been numerous setbacks, dates pushed back all the time, especially with the clusterf*ck of US deliveries only resolved by now, lack of communication and so on.

In the end your $100 non-refundable deposit could have helped you save $1000 on the listed price but I understand you got tired of waiting, they were 1.5 years late, that's your decision to make.

The (in)famous 1st customer delivery was 8 months late (May 2023 instead of September 2022) but significant deliveries (500/month) only started by September 2023, that's how I "count" they were about 1 year late for the first deliveries. To put things into perspective the most comparable company, Alta motors, made 1000 bikes total in 3 years. As of early 2024, Stark is making as many every month. Or see Honda that has been developing its CR-E prototype for over 7 years with no production date nor spec sheet in sight. If they ever take preorders for this bike they would most likely not end up being 1 year late for deliveries, but that's a very different proposition to deal with the world leading manufacturer or an upcoming unproven startup.

[\Sasquatch mode]

Took me too long to type this, the real Sasquatch got there first 😁

The hype is over.

Agreed, now they're out there in the real world, no more preorders or delivery shenanigans, bikes are at dealers and on tracks, finally available across the whole US of A, honeymoon period is over, now we'll see if they make riders happy.

Will Colby Raha be allowed to use his Varg in Xgames? 

Maybe the OP thought the non refundable part was a lie considering how Stark does business.

Absolutely, some major freestyle riders have switched to electrics.

Josh Sheehan got 4th at best trick on the Varg last year. This year he'll get some company, keep an eye on Patrick Evans, there will be no shortage of Vargs at the Xgames.

To each his own, but my Stark will get way more hours on it than my mc350. Yeah, they kinda pissed me off too, but the bike is pretty dam good now that I finally got it 2 weeks ago after ordering on day one. My wife can ride it on 10 HP mode, and I can use it as a pit bike with my kids. Way better than the Alta I had as far as ergonomics and suspension.

With as much as Stark has done wrong, they got the most important part right. The bike is amazing!  I think that if they had gotten the deliveries on time, and not had any of the other delays. But the bike was not as good as it is that would have hurt them worse.  Much better to have the people who have bikes be very happy with them, than to see a flood of used bikes for half price . Of course the bike is not perfect, nothing is. But its a great start.

I know it sucks to have had the delays, if You are like me and have enough land to have a track. But sound would be an issue, I think You really should take one for a ride and see if you can forgive them. Or if You have old injuries that make it difficult to shift or brake with your feet. I feel like I can ride well enough to keep a bike at the right RPM. But my giant feet and being so tall have made it much harder to shift than it should be. Same thing with the rear brake. I can either have the shifter/pedal setup so I can hit it easily while sitting or standing. But almost never in a good spot for both. The little time I rode it I could tell that a lot of the crashes I had could be avoiding by not having to be in an awkward position to shift or hit the brakes. This bike had the foot rear brake on it, but the lack of a shifter was enough to show me that having the hand brake would be another great thing.   

 I'm glad they spent more money on the guys building the bikes than the lawyers that should have seen the potential issues.  

I was too nervous to pre-order but kept tabs on how the Vargs were doing the whole time. Growing pains were a guarantee but now that they are readily available, I felt ready to go for it and I was lucky enough to try a demo to make it would work for me...And it did.

I walked into my local dealer and walked out with a Stark just a few weeks ago. 

I'm not a die hard E-bike guy at all but for me and my current lifestyle this bike is life changing.

I have some property with a small track but it's very close neighbors that do shiftwork and have a young family. I only rode my 250f minutes at a time and only when I knew they were out/away or at least inside their house. Sure I could have rode more, they never complained but I was always aware of how obnoxious it might be if they're trying to sleep or have a kid napping.

In the last few weeks I've put more time on my Varg than my 250f collected in almost a year and it includes motos as early as 7AM and after 8PM.  

It wouldn't have replaced my 250f if my track was in the middle of nowhere or if I planned on travelling to tracks every weekend. As a nearly 40 year old past his prime rider, ripping my backyard track at my convenience is everything I need. Not to mention, riding along side my daughter on her TTR 50 and hearing her giggle and laugh the whole time is pretty rad.

Sorry to hear but not surprised.  Once the major mfg's drop theirs, only way Stark survives would be to be acquired.  They don't have the branding, infrastructure or experience.  

Didn’t tesla start from scratch? They seem to be doing ok 

Not really.  Tesla got it's start putting electric drivetrains into Lotus chassis.  If Stark was buying rollers from another manufacturer and putting drivetrains in them it would be a lot more like Tesla as a startup.  That said, a lot of EV startups who went straight to a unique chassis did not last.  Fisker, Lordstown, Canoo, Faraday Future, Nikola, and more, all had lackluster results for their efforts. 

Zero might be a better comparison, but I feel like their initial offerings were far less ambitious than Stark.