Two things....First, you get what you pay for.
And second, $252 wasn't even half of average price of a rider's bike when I was last in the bike industry almost 20 years ago.
To reiterate
@evandyk 's point.....I recall many, many years ago interacting with bike courier downtown who had a very high-end carbon fibre bike frame well before they were commonplace. He wrapped his frame in electrical tape so as to disguise what it actually was. He had it for many years. But if you knew, you knew.....
Dan