How to cancel a bike order from Germany?
 

Hello,

I live in the U.S., and in early July I placed an order for a Tout Terrain Silkroad expedition bike. This week I tried to cancel the order, but I was told that orders can't be canceled. The bike hasn't shipped yet, and it won't ship until sometime in March 2023. Are we not supposed to be able to cancel orders before shipment? Looks like Tout Terrain has a 14 day refund policy, but that's after shipment.


So what are my options? Should I contact my bank and ask for chargeback? Or accept I made a mistake and try to sell the bike after it arrives?

I'd call them up and cuss them out.

You bought and paid for it, so you are pretty much stuck with it. Though you can read up on what ever their return policy is. Likely your purchase obligates you as well as them to abide by the things contained in it.

However you have all the options you want, whether reasonable or unreasonable. Most won't benefit you for getting all your money back, even the reasonable methods. If you used a credit card, then you might see what they are willing to do for you.

Five months from delivery? I'd call my credit card and tell them not to process the charge, or to start the chargeback process.

If the vendor hasn't charged you for the bike, you could cancel the card now and get a new one. (Discover, however, might "help" you by letting the vendor process the charge and providing them your new CC number.)

Yes, five months. My credit card was charged in July, and the estimated delivery is March 2023.

Most others allow cancellation before shipment with no questions asked, others might charge a small fee (usually for custom bikes). I was never told I won't be able to cancel it, and I can't find anything on their site about order cancellation before shipment. I'll call my credit card and see what they say.

Is it custom frame to your specs or just a normal bike off the rack?

https://tout-terrain.de/en/terms-conditions

#3 is worth reading.

I picked a size Medium SILKROAD XPLORE II 275 and I used their online tool to configure it. So I guess not a custom frame, but a custom bike?...sorry i'm new to cycling, and i'm not sure how these terms are defined.

A 14-day return window starting from date of delivery, except in cases where the bike is a custom order to the buyer's specifications..... Assuming I am reading that correctly.

Surely they haven't already started working on it? It's not due to be finished for another five months. Weird.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...25b6d8e9f4.jpg
I waited a year for this after complete payment. If you want the bike, just wait it out.

If you paid with credit card, I would contact them and tell them that although you were charged for the item, it hasn't been shipped and won't be until next year. Chances are you may be out of the window to dispute the charge anyway, but it's worth a shot.

Or not. In February of 2020 I booked and paid for a flight for mid-June. A few weeks before the flight, Delta drastically changed the schedule to make thing unworkable. (I had planned a bike tour.) After I couldn’t reach Delta I filed a dispute with my issuing bank a few days before the scheduled flight and ended up getting my $1,100 dollars refunded. If the OP was not given a delivery date until recently he may be successful.

The really cool thing, besides getting a refund, was that the areas in MT and ID I was was planning on riding through got hit with a big blizzard. At least one of the passes I was supposed to ride was blocked by over 2’ of snow. So it all worked out. :)

The OP doesn't want the bike. Your situation is the exact opposite.

OP will want it after re-reading the sales pitch. "Built to go the distance" and "Boundless reliability for epic tours" are not empty promises, I can assure you.

As I read it, you need to send them a letter.

If you don't hear back from them within perhaps 6 weeks, contact the credit card company.

This isn't really a general cycling question.

i'm sure he just missed the "bought a bike from Germany and want to return it before it gets shipped" forum :rolleyes:

It's about as general as it gets.

The question has absolutely nothing to do with cycling. It has to do with credit card issuers' policies, businesses' orders and shipping FAQs, and the like. The fact that he's trying to buy a bike is irrelevant; if you go back to the original post and replace bike with flat screen TV, or with sailboat, or with yellow cockatoo, the fundamental issues are the same.

Nothing at all to do with cycling.

Every day, this forum seems to be less about cycling and more about peoples' whims and preferences -- and arguing about same. It'd be nice if the moderators actually cared about creating and maintaining a good cycling forum instead of just acting like playground monitors who exist solely to break up fights and send kids to detention. But clicks = ad revenue, so they have an incentive to let the inane threads go on forever.

That is one serious touring bike, with a serious price especially equipped with a Rohloff gearbox.

John

The OP knows what the product is and has had months to determine the bike is not what they want.
Your assurance is worthless here. Your initial post was the exact opposite of what the OP asked about and you seem to still not understand that.
Cool that you waited a long time for your colnago and it's what you want. The OP changed their mind.

It'd be nice if the cranky complainers on the forums would just ignore threads they don't personally deem as worthy of the forum space rather than derailing the discussion. Believe it or not there are lots of cycling related discussions that might not warrant your input or "expertise".

This seems pretty general, and despite your opinion, there's clearly a valid counter-argument that the OP is inquiring about bike industry specific policies related to ordering a custom configured bike, which is very different from a flat screen tv purchase. I agree with the others that have suggested contacting the vendor directly again as well as the credit card company. A chargeback is certainly still possible several months later. I've had to do exactly that when a pre-ordered item was not delivered several months after the promise date. Not exactly the same situation, but 8 months after the charge was processed, Discover had no issue charging back the vendor once I detailed the situation for them.

Wondering what this means:

"For payments by credit card or paypal, the actual sum shall be debited when the invoice is issued and the goods are shipped. The total amount shall be reserved on the customer’s credit card/paypal account as soon as the online order is submitted." (Emphasis added.)

Sounds like they attach some sort of a pending charge to your CC account but don't actually charge the card until the bike is shipped.

I would try and contact the bike company again and tell them you will pursue a charge back if they don't cancel the order and refund the money. If they still refuse, I would ask them for their specific published policy that covers cancellations (not sure on the info provided by OP that it has been made clear). If they can't or refuse to provide it, then I would contact CC company and proceed with attempting to get your money back.

My only experience with a cycling related charge back on my CC was for an item on Alibaba. Short story is they sent me a completely different shifter than I ordered that would not have worked with my setup and then refused to take it back.

My CC company wanted to know if I had already exhausted working out the issue with the vendor. So I provided them with copies of my communications with vendor.

They also needed a good reason why I wanted the order refunded. I had to explain to non-cycling people that the part was not compatible with my bike and how it was different from what was promised by vendor. I'm not sure I saw exactly why OP wanted the bike cancelled (too long delivery time, maybe).

The CC company also wanted a copy of the vendor's policy, which I copied from their website. On their opening page they clearly stated that they would take back anything if the customer was not happy.

I was successful with my refund, but had to do some work to get it. I got my money back and kept the part. It still is no good to me and I will donate to a bike co op. Good luck OP.

wait, you were serious? i was joking. but in all seriousness there are lots and lots of threads that have "nothing" to do with bicycling. here are just a few from the first page of the "General" list:

https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...taff-15-a.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...ike-racks.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...amps-sold.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...itch-rack.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...ake-model.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...ike-mount.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...here-what.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...on-please.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...car-trunk.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...-ve-eaten.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...ercoating.html

did you make the same comment in these?