Hoi from Bucks...

[Therapor]

what's that big mother of a hill that goes from the M40 jct 4 down to the town centre? .... always fancied riding that on the roadie (mega hill training on the way up though!!)

ah yeah, in Wycombe that goes from the town centre up from the fire station. No idea on the name, but I've driven it in a car a few times

 

[Andrew Brown]

Hello and greetings

 

[Therapor]

I rang the LBS yesterday to confirm delivery today, hung on the phone for 10 mins while the guy tried to check the records, he then asked if they could ring me back, 20 mins later they had apparently spoken to Giant and there was a delay with the order and it would arrive a week today, but I have the sneaking suspicion the LBS had messed up the order so we'll see if it does actually arrive next week. A seven week lead time seems a little much for what should be an off the shelf size.

 

[Therapor]

I finally got the bike on Monday!

Ordered the bike on Friday March 22nd, put a £60 deposit down, and was told to expect a delivery date of April 18th.

I then receive an email from Halfords that evening (it was their cycle to work scheme) saying ‘we have now ordered the bike’, knowing I had already placed the order direct at the shop I ring the shop back on the Saturday to both confirm my order and to make sure only one bike is arriving for me.

I ring the LBS on April 17th to confirm everything is set for me to pick up the bike the following day and after 10 minutes of checking I’m told he’ll need to ring me back. 20 minutes later I get a call to say he’s spoken to Giant and the order has been delayed by a week, so I should expect it on April 24th. At this point, given his tone of voice and obvious difficulties in finding the records, I assume the order has been messed up and he’s now placing a new order…

I ring the shop back the following week, again a day before the scheduled pickup date, just to confirm it’s there and everything is good. I this time speak to the owner who again starts rifling through paperwork and AGAIN can’t find any trace of my order!

So to summarise, not only had the bike not been ordered when I was in the shop, nor when the Halfords order wasn’t processed, nor when I rang the following day, or the time I rang to arrange pickup, or the second time I rang to arrange pickup!

I arrive at the shop on Monday after confirming it’s there ready for collection and am told my Halfords account hasn’t been activated… They check on the system and nope, they can’t release the bike…. Fortunately I produce a printout of an email from Halfords saying “your account is now activated” and suddenly they see it on their system!

This is all for a £600 bike, which by their range of bikes is cheap, but it’s 600 quid!

Terrible service, and that’s when I am trying to spend money, no wonder small businesses are collapsing left and right.

I should probably also say I wasn't offered any form of compensation for all of this hassle or delay.

/Rant over

 

[Andrew Brown]

It does beggar belief that they could be so blasé about what eventually will be a fairly large wad of cash. It's not a carbon weapon but it's still more than some bits and bobs!