championchip entering scam?

[Brogue]

Racetec rocks!

[madmarc]

The Cyclelab entry service fee is more e than xpensive that of CC. Ask an organiser. What does ASG charge per entry. Most of these charges are added to the entry fee.

 

Just a point on your comment.

If i remember the dunblane in March was done by cycle lab and the entry was R 120.00 with no additioanl costs. so why now R 190.00. with additional entry costs because CC is doing the online entries.

 

Going back to my earlier post on the organisers response on the high entry fee. - "CC made the recomended entry fee R 190.00 as it is the going rate"

[Solis]

I really think the explanation in RED is good as it makes sense. What I am reading in most of the responses is that even if the event organisers charge the cyclists R50-00 more to cover their costs, it is fine, as long as we do not know what it is made up of? When I entered for both the Carousel and the Kremetart, the "service fees" were shown to me, so it was my choice to enter or not. I asked myself what the options are not to enter and "save" this additional cost? Option 1 - do not enter and miss out on a fabulous day. 2 - Get in my car, drive to a cycle shop, pick up an entry form, fill it out, scan or fax it to the organisers and do an EFT payment for the "advertised" cost. Oh no, sorry, the bank charge me for EFT, but that is fine. In this country it is fine to pay a service fee to the banks, but not to anyone else (does not make sense).Let alone all the fuel, time etc. Much cheaper to pay someone for their service to make my life easier. 3. Call the event organiser and ask him to fax me the entry form and go through the same process as in option 2. Come on guys, be fair. At least we can see what they charge us and not like (shall I say "all the other companies") others that we do not know what we are paying for their service. The reason why an entry is costing me R220-00, is because it is made up of service providers fees, else it would be free to enter. In my mind, ChampionChip is still tops and my preferred timing company.

[chris_w_65]

Remember the other company Losing Time that used to compete against CC? Oh, wait a moment - they are still around but they changed their name.

[madmarc]

Remember the other company Losing Time that used to compete against CC? Oh, wait a moment - they are still around but they changed their name.

 

Haha "Losing time" got to love it.

But in terms of cycle event timing they are the biggest when you compare the amount of events they do against other timing companies.

[madmarc]

I really think the explanation in RED is good as it makes sense. What I am reading in most of the responses is that even if the event organisers charge the cyclists R50-00 more to cover their costs, it is fine, as long as we do not know what it is made up of? When I entered for both the Carousel and the Kremetart, the "service fees" were shown to me, so it was my choice to enter or not. I asked myself what the options are not to enter and "save" this additional cost? Option 1 - do not enter and miss out on a fabulous day. 2 - Get in my car, drive to a cycle shop, pick up an entry form, fill it out, scan or fax it to the organisers and do an EFT payment for the "advertised" cost. Oh no, sorry, the bank charge me for EFT, but that is fine. In this country it is fine to pay a service fee to the banks, but not to anyone else (does not make sense).Let alone all the fuel, time etc. Much cheaper to pay someone for their service to make my life easier. 3. Call the event organiser and ask him to fax me the entry form and go through the same process as in option 2. Come on guys, be fair. At least we can see what they charge us and not like (shall I say "all the other companies") others that we do not know what we are paying for their service. The reason why an entry is costing me R220-00, is because it is made up of service providers fees, else it would be free to enter. In my mind, ChampionChip is still tops and my preferred timing company.

 

I agree with what you are saying. But the issue here is...What contribution did CC have on the inflated entry fee total of over R 200.00 directly from each online entry and indirectly from the organisers as part of the entry fee.

If i understand CC ressponse, the only income or profit they realise is the additional charge they levy on top of the advertised entry fee.

I find this hard to believe, and i have it on good authority that other amounts (fairly large amounts) are charged to the organisers who obviously recover this as part of the entry fee, in so doing, you the cyclist is paying a lot more than what they are telling you for their services.

 

Which begs another question. How does CC propose to provide seeding information to the organisers so that we can be seeded properly. Their results on record are not used by any race organiser for seeding because they demand to be paid for the information. So none of our races we do can count towards proper seeding if it's not timed by CC. Should an orgniser agree to pay them, then that fee will be lumped onto the race entry and you will pay again. So when do we stop paying!!!!!!

Effectively we are paying a company to create their product (data base) which they then sell on at huge profits, these same profits are then claimed back from the very same people who paid to create the products in the first place. WTF!!!!!!

 

What i would like to know is what % of my entry fee goes towards the timing company, and is that information free for any race organiser to use for seeding purposes, because thats the only value i get back. I don't need an official time on a certifcate, I have a R 4000 Garmin that gives me my time. But if i pay for it, I at least want that time to count towards my seeding in the next race irrespective of who the organiser or the timing company is, wothout having to pay again.

[chris_w_65]

I agree with what you are saying. But the issue here is...What contribution did CC have on the inflated entry fee total of over R 200.00 directly from each online entry and indirectly from the organisers as part of the entry fee.

If i understand CC ressponse, the only income or profit they realise is the additional charge they levy on top of the advertised entry fee.

I find this hard to believe, and i have it on good authority that other amounts (fairly large amounts) are charged to the organisers who obviously recover this as part of the entry fee, in so doing, you the cyclist is paying a lot more than what they are telling you for their services.

 

Which begs another question. How does CC propose to provide seeding information to the organisers so that we can be seeded properly. Their results on record are not used by any race organiser for seeding because they demand to be paid for the information. So none of our races we do can count towards proper seeding if it's not timed by CC. Should an orgniser agree to pay them, then that fee will be lumped onto the race entry and you will pay again. So when do we stop paying!!!!!!

Effectively we are paying a company to create their product (data base) which they then sell on at huge profits, these same profits are then claimed back from the very same people who paid to create the products in the first place. WTF!!!!!!

 

What i would like to know is what % of my entry fee goes towards the timing company, and is that information free for any race organiser to use for seeding purposes, because thats the only value i get back. I don't need an official time on a certifcate, I have a R 4000 Garmin that gives me my time. But if i pay for it, I at least want that time to count towards my seeding in the next race irrespective of who the organiser or the timing company is, wothout having to pay again.

 

I heard the one timing company was started by the organizers of the big race in CT. They now use this as leverage to "force" you to enter events timed by them so you can get a good seeding for that race and of course for the big Jhb race - almost a way of forcing themselves in and squashing the opposition. When they started off they were shocking but have definitely improved.

[Tumbleweed]

The mail advertises the race and not the cc service which is the entry facility. That is what you pay not to stand in line on the morning of the race. You can rock up and ride. We must surely pay for a service.

 

But that still doesn't explain why they omit the full cost of entering the race by using the site. Why could this not be included on the mail?

[BAMF_SS]

Does anybody have the resources to provide a comparison between the different timing companies?

[HappyMartin]

I think the explanation makes sense. I think the charge is not excessive for the service.

 

Pity Colin chose to respond in such a patronizing fashion. Perhaps he didn't mean to come across that way but just happens to have poor communications skills. Perhaps he was just in an irritated mood that day.

[Tumbleweed]

I think the explanation makes sense. I think the charge is not excessive for the service.

 

Pity Colin chose to respond in such a patronizing fashion. Perhaps he didn't mean to come across that way but just happens to have poor communications skills. Perhaps he was just in an irritated mood that day.

 

From what I have heard, he's in that kinda mood most days.

 

Fact remains, he isn't disclosing all the relevant info. That's wrong.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Tumbleweed

[ChristovdB]

I am really shocked to read what was posted on this site. First of all, the header is very misleading in my point of view! I am a ChampionChip Timer up North and try and provide the best professional service to our clients (which are the event organisers and you the cyclists (and others using our service)). I think what Colin explained is quite clear and we thought it is an open way of showing the costs we charge for using our service. Nothing wrong in charging for a service. I do not want to bore you with detail, and would just like to clear something about the results for seeding: After each and every race, we provide the event organisers with a full set of results for what ever purposes he want to use it. Our view is that the event organiser pays for the service, hence the results belong to him. If he wants to pass the results onto someone else for "general" seeding purposes, it is up to him to do so. We do not send any results to anyone else, as the results belong to the event! So we do not "charge" for results as stated in some of the responses. We have already been paid for it. With regards to the e-mail promotions we do, when you bought your chip, you indicated on the form that we could send race information to you via e-mail or SMS. If you agreed, we use your e-mail address and once again provide a service to the event organisers to do some promotion for his event by sending out these e-mails. In general terms it is called advertising, and this is quite a low cost wise way of advertising an event. The cost of such an e-mail promotion was mentioned somewhere above, but no mention of how many e-mails were sent out for that amount. I can tell you that there are probably in the region of 30,000 e-mails that goes out to certain regions and cyclists to advertise the event. We are proud of our product and service, and will deliver this service to the best of our abilities to you and the event organiser!

[Butch Cassidy]

Over the years Colin took so much abuse from cyclists which resulted in him having this type of reaction to this type of thing.

[Tumbleweed]

I am really shocked to read what was posted on this site. First of all, the header is very misleading in my point of view! I am a ChampionChip Timer up North and try and provide the best professional service to our clients (which are the event organisers and you the cyclists (and others using our service)). I think what Colin explained is quite clear and we thought it is an open way of showing the costs we charge for using our service. Nothing wrong in charging for a service. I do not want to bore you with detail, and would just like to clear something about the results for seeding: After each and every race, we provide the event organisers with a full set of results for what ever purposes he want to use it. Our view is that the event organiser pays for the service, hence the results belong to him. If he wants to pass the results onto someone else for "general" seeding purposes, it is up to him to do so. We do not send any results to anyone else, as the results belong to the event! So we do not "charge" for results as stated in some of the responses. We have already been paid for it. With regards to the e-mail promotions we do, when you bought your chip, you indicated on the form that we could send race information to you via e-mail or SMS. If you agreed, we use your e-mail address and once again provide a service to the event organisers to do some promotion for his event by sending out these e-mails. In general terms it is called advertising, and this is quite a low cost wise way of advertising an event. The cost of such an e-mail promotion was mentioned somewhere above, but no mention of how many e-mails were sent out for that amount. I can tell you that there are probably in the region of 30,000 e-mails that goes out to certain regions and cyclists to advertise the event. We are proud of our product and service, and will deliver this service to the best of our abilities to you and the event organiser!

 

Answer one very simple question:

 

Why is the cost of the online entry not included on the e-mail?

[Butch Cassidy]

I think it is because the e-mail advertises the race. The small print on the entry site can maybe be forwarded to the start page. Something like this right at the top.

 

"Please note you are about to make use of the Championchip race entry service. Cost for this service is R 7.50 and an amount of 4% of the total amount spend on entries."

 

The question is will it be necessary as after this thread we all will know how it works.

 

Some service providers charge as much as R 35 @ entry excluding vat which is just slapped onto your entry fee.

[Tumbleweed]

I think it is because the e-mail advertises the race. The small print on the entry site can maybe be forwarded to the start page. Something like this right at the top.

 

"Please note you are about to make use of the Championchip race entry service. Cost for this service is R 7.50 and an amount of 4% of the total amount spend on entries."

 

The question is will it be necessary as after this thread we all will know how it works.

 

Some service providers charge as much as R 35 @ entry excluding vat which is just slapped onto your entry fee.

 

Sorry, but I don't think that is good enough. If you advertise a race, full disclosure should be included on the mail.