bxcsvc24a

curious as to what we should do next .

will try not to mention the name of the bike company, but it is a well known one. was looking for a particular model from this bike company and with the whole covid thing going on , trying to find this particular bike at the dealer we normally use is hard......but this dealer also has other bike shops and i checked on another one that was in a different city and on their site they said they had it. i called to see if in fact they did and they did and I said that I was interested in buying the bike and could they hold it for me ? he said that with a $200 deposit he could. fair enough. i gave him tha card number over the phone to give the deposit and said that I would come out that afternoon and pay the balance off. I drove out there after work, which was just a few hours later.....paid the remainder balance ( $22xx ) in cash and went home.

the wife goes to the store the next day and goes to get somethings and the card is denied and so the wife tries again and is denied again....and this amount was for a gallon of milk . of course she is wondering why she cant get this gallon of milk as we have money in the account and because she is upset, a lady behind her pays for the milk. she calls me while I am at work and asks me how did I pay the remainder of the bike off....and I told her that I used my money and it was cash. she told me that the bike put a hold not only for the $200 deposit, but also for the total that was due on the bike......so whatever money we had spent on groceries , bills, etc....some would clear, but after that we had negative funds in the bank. I called the bike shop to explain what happened and he insisted that it was not their fault, and that we should contact our bank....and I said our bank is the one who contacted us about the negative funds and that this has your name all over it. the manager / guy in charge said that this was our issue as there was no way that they could have done something like this..........but after he looked more into it, sure enough, the employee that took the deposit over the phone is the one who messed up. our bank account was a negative $1600 and had over draft charges of $273... the bike shop made up a " fake trade in " for the $273 in charges for us as that way he could hide their mistake and the higher ups wouldnt see it.......the rest of the money was back into our account after waiting 5 days.

while we werent of course happy with the situation and how it was handled, we called down to one of the other bike stores that this company has and we got the address of the owners of the company. we sent them an letter 2 weeks ago and we have yet to get a response from them ..

with that being said.......do you let it go or do you contact the main bike company as doesnt this chain store represent the main company ?

rogerm3d

Do you have receipts for the deposit and paying off the bike that show methods of payment for each? It sounds like the person that was took your cash was trying to pocket some extra money. Charging an extra 2K to a credit card doesn't sound like a mistake, and the fact that he tried to blame the bank and also work out a deal without telling the boss tells me that this shop has done this before. If the shop is a chain I would absolutely make sure that someone higher up knows about what is happening. That way if it's a first time problem things are done to prevent future problems, and if it's happened before measures will be taken to maintain a good shop and to keep you as a customer (I wouldn't be very encouraged to go to a shop that is that shady about things).

bxcsvc24a

it is a chain....and we have sent them a letter letting them know what happened, how things were handled and we have not received a reply back from the owners of the chain store., which the letter was sent over 2 weeks ago.

this is why i am asking....do you let it go OR do I contact the main company that the chain store represents ?

Kat12

Yeah, it sounds fishy to me, as well. I can't think of a way they would enter your credit card number "by accident"-- wouldn't they have to pull up the transaction for the hold and then add the additional amount? (I've never worked a job involving point-of-sale where we did hold charges, so forgive me if I'm not 100% certain how they work and maybe it's easy to screw this up, but even if you had paid the balance by credit card, wouldn't they have just swiped your card again?) I'm a bit surprised though that your bank expected the overdraft charges to be paid, though, rather than just waiving them, since they were incurred due to an error that wasn't your fault.

I'm not sure if you should expect to hear back from the owner (though "I'm sorry that happened," at least, would've been nice), but I wonder if those employees are still working there... Or, maybe they're still investigating what went on and dealing with the employees...

FBOATSB

Incidents like this have happened many times here. Sounds like you have been reimbursed, or "made whole". Still a huge hassle. Credit card companies, once they know about, will tell you to stay out of it and let them handle it. You should of course cancel/reissue your card at once. This is par for the course.
edit: You should at least consider posting the city and street where this shop sits so local to you people can avoid.

bxcsvc24a

Kat12 according to the manager, the associate went to enter the $200 hold and "the system automatically reverted to the full sale amount". Initially, the manager said there was no error on their end and then said "oh I see what happened". Then the associate put the hold for the $200 (after he already put the hold for the full amount of the bike)...had they just said to me when I got to the bike shop that day what had happened (because according to the manager the associate backed off the full amount transaction "immediately"-although my bank disputes that timing) I would have just deposited the cash into our bank account that they used for the hold and none of the other transactions would have caused overdraft fees and my wife could have paid for the gallon of milk. They were not honest about it. The manager was not intending to cover overdraft fees until I continued to push the issue.

The bank didn't offer to waive the fees because the "error" was not on their part either...it was all solely the fault of the bike shop, therefore, do not think it is unreasonable they (the bike shop) covered the fees.

FBOATSB the issue isn't that they "stole" our card info per se, it was that I authorized a $200 hold not a $2236 hold...they held both amounts. This then put our bank account on hold for basically 5 days because we couldn't use it, had to wait for the hold of $2236 to be released and the "trade in" deposit the bike shop made to cover overdraft fees to post to turn our account back to the positive where it should have been the entire time. If it were a case where the associate had used our card elsewhere (by taking the number) then yes the fraud could be disputed and the card replaced.

From a customer service standpoint what we anticipated happening by writing to the owners was some sort of acknowledgement about what happened-we aren't looking for any other compensation or anything like that; the purpose of the letter was to make them aware... but do we assume they received the letter, are aware and either ignored it or did something or do we contact the manufacturer of the bike who the shops represent by selling their bikes just so they are aware of it too?

billridesbikes

Sounds like a major inconvenience and the bike ship screwed up big time. S* happens. But at the end of the day they made you whole. I would get on with my life and forget about it, not your job to fix corporate standard operating procedure.

bxcsvc24a

billridesbikes

it was a major inconvenience as we had to wait the 5 days for money to get back into our account.......i would think that if this was to happen to you or anybody else, you wouldnt be to happy either.

if a letter is sent to the owners of the bike shop, dont you think that they could al least take the time and send a reply letter back ? these days, all it takes is one bad post on social media and things can go south for a business pretty quick.....and then the business is trying to do whatever they can to make good graces. that is the point I am trying to make here. So because this company sells Trek bikes and represents them and we didnt get a reply......do we contact Trek and let them know that this is what happened ?

billridesbikes

A very similar thing happened to me many years ago with a well known brokerage house and a $191,000 check that went missing for a few days. And, yes. it really gets the adrenaline going to see two hundred grand go missing even for a short time and margin interest quickly accumulate.

I say let it go. You didn’t get a reply, and that’s your reply. If you want the store to give you free stuff because of this mistake go there and say I want some stuff for my inconvenience. But if you can afford a $2200 piece of sporting equipment it probably isn’t worth your time to do that. I wouldn’t be for me. Somethings aren’t worth pursuing past a certain point and this is one of them. Just saying.

cb400bill

How do you like the bike?

jadocs

Honestly, it doesn't sound like it was on purpose...I do not believe the clerk was trying to get over on anyone. The clerk lacks attention to detail and probably a bit of common sense, but that is human nature for a lot of people these days.

Inusuit

One of the best bits of advice I received was "Don't let this ruin your whole day." We maintain a sufficient balance in our accounts to allow us to access our money even if something like this ties up a portion.

bxcsvc24a

well, I am glad that you have that much money in your account..... and I bet your house is bigger than mine also.

a email was sent to the company about this and they were glad that we did bring it to their attention as this shouldnt have happened and they are going to use this as training so it doesnt happen again. i get that mistakes happen but when you try and tell them that the mistake was caused by them and they deny it.....and then funds are now frozen until it can be corrected, it screws things up.

next time I will make sure I have more than enough money in my account before I decide to buy anything new just incase this happens again.

Inusuit

All three of my bikes were purchased for less than $1200 total which is $1000 less than you committed. What does my house have to do with this?

bxcsvc24a

well I am glad that you got all 3 of your bikes for less than $1200. i bought I fx4 last year and I wanted a bike that was lighter and faster and this is why i decided to get the fx6.. maybe next time I will ask for your opinion on what bike I should get ?

the house comment was because you were the one that says that " We maintain a sufficient balance in our accounts to allow us to access our money even if something like this ties up a portion." . your comment sounded like I shouldnt have bought the bike if I didnt have enough money in my account incase something bad should happen......and because you live in a perfect world, I figured your house was bigger than mine.

Inusuit

I'm done here. Find someone else to take out your frustration.

bxcsvc24a

the issue I have has been resolved......but I dont need someone coming on here saying that they keep enough money in the bank to cover stuff like this or to sit there and say that you got 3 bikes for $1k cheaper than I got my bike. that is why I am giving you an attitude on this.

we could have transferred money from savings account to get us by till the funds were back in the account , but we decided not to do that......my whole point is that the bike shop messed up and when we called them on this , they denied any wrong doing. then they finally did see the mess up, but by that time, it was to late .