Am I a “patronizing (sic) so and so”…?

I took delivery of my new bike a couple of weeks back (MEKK Potenza 5. A fantastic piece of kit – but with the same obvious problem as most of the bikes on sale today.

White bar tape…!

And as everyone knows – it gets grubby very quickly.

So I thought I would have it changed – to red – the bike is black and red.

Then I thought, what about a bit of bling – matching red brake hoods !

But brake hoods in red are not easy to find… but a diligent search of the net found a pair at Discount Bicycles (http://www.discountbicycles.co.uk) of Park Hall Rd, Dulwich.

I eagerly dropped them into the shopping cart, along with some red bar tape.

But then I thought, just before I flashed the credit card – I’d better check that they reasonably matched in colour. So I sent the following email:

“Hi Guys

I have a couple of items in my shopping basket…
1 x pr One23 Brake Hoods for Shimano 105 – Red
and
1 x roll One23 Bar Tape – Red
Quick question – are these two items the same colour? – the same tone of red?
Many thanks”

I received the following message back:

“Hi. Thank you for your message.
I am not based in the warehouse and so I can not check. Also I am uncomfortable in giving this sort of subjective advice and so I can only say that in my opinion they are similar.

Kind regards. Henry Obuabang.

Sales Dept.”

I didn’t think that was overly helpful, so I replied:

“Henry

That’s not exactly the best customer service is it…?

Ask somebody in the warehouse…? Walk to the warehouse…?

Check with the manufacturer…?

The question is simple – are they the same colour red from the same manufacturer….?

Or is one a deep pink and the other a maroon… both of which could be classed as red.

I’m not asking that they are exactly the same pantone colour – but as they are going to be next to each other, they need to be at least as close as possible.

Rgds
Customer with money to spend….

Paul Ashbury”

The reply came this afternoon:

“Hi. Thank you for your message.
Perhaps you may want to shop elsewhere you patronizing so and so

Kind regards

Henry Obuabang”

So my question is – am I a “patronizing so and so”

Or as a customer – have I a right to reasonable customer service…?