Originally Posted by
Thulsadoom
Okee-dokee. I’m back. Gee, isn’t this fun?!?!Let’s play a game. We’ll call it “Hmm”.
After I filled out the consignment form, the guy says to take a picture of it with my phone so I have a record. I don’t generally take pics with my phone because it’s just a little flip phone with a small screen and takes horrible pics and I’m not a big picture-taker anyways so I told him: “Nah, that’s OK. I’ll just trust you.” So, admittedly, I had no legal recourse in the event they sold the bike and blew me off. But I betcha everybody else takes that picture, considering our phone-obsessed world. Now, funny thing, this just happens to be first time they’ve “screwed up” and not contacted someone after they sold a consignment bike! Coincidence? Hmm.
So I read the official bike shop explanation as to what happened. Thank you Kai Winters. But frankly, I have some concerns. So I'm supposed to come into the shop periodically and check on the status of the bike? Why? Was I naturally to assume they might sell the bike and need for me to remind them it was mine? It was only there a few months. They can’t keep track of this stuff on their own? Seems woefully disorganized but that’s me. They took the bike in November and sold it in March. Hmm.
Mr. Winters states that the bike shop policy upon sale of a consignment bike is to mail out a check to the consignee. They don’t call and say: “Hey dude, we sold your bike. Do you want to stop in and get your check or do you want us to mail it to you?” No, they just mail it out and assume the check gets to you. Really? No call? No text? They don’t need confirmation you got paid? Hmm. Shaky.
When I showed up on a Tuesday morning in May and the bike was gone, I asked the guy: “Whatever happened to that little bike I brought in last fall?”
“What bike?” The guy asks.
“That little Specialized…something or other.” I told him.
“A Hotrock?” He asks.
“Yeah, that one.”
“What size wheels?” He asks.
“I believe they were 24” I say.
“Geez, I don’t really remember. I don't know if I have records from that long ago. I’ll get my wife to check.”
Did he remember the bike? Did he not? Hmm. Who knows.
So I didn’t hear from anyone Tuesday afternoon. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday.
Friday morning I remembered the whole thing and I get a little hot under the collar. I’m thinking: if you’ve got a bike shop, and you think there’s a chance in hell you’ve sold someone’s bike and not contacted them, wouldn’t you make it a high priority to sort that out ASAP? How long would you leave that hanging out there? Three days? Really? Hmm.
So it's still Friday morning and it dawns on me that I’m almost certainly being blown off. So I go on-line and leave a negative review for the shop. About 4 hours later I get a call and he says that Golly, he found the receipt and I can come on in and get my check! Another coincidence? Or did it take me leaving a negative review for him to finally decide to have a look? Hmm.
I could probably sit here and come up with more Hmms all day but I should think that’s enough.
Bottom line is this: they took the bike in on consignment, sold it and never contacted the consignee in any way. When the consignee finally checked in and asked about it, it took them three days to check into it. And that’s best case scenario. So either the shop is chock full of ineptitude or someone is full of crap.
Whatever. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter. I got paid for the stupid bike and I doubt I’ll ever go into the place again and I’m quite certain it’s not going to make a huge dent in their revenue. No hard feelings and I wish them well. Heck, probably nothing like that will ever happen again and the shop will do very well and sell lots of bikes and everybody will be happy and we’ll all ride bikes together in paradise.
You started 7 sentences with the word "so."