Evans Ride to Work scheme - consumer rights when I've received a faulty bike?

lissliss

Hello and apologies in advance for the long post!

Before Christmas I ordered a bike worth £900 from Evans Cycles under their Ride to Work scheme (my employer only offers the scheme with Evans and not other bike shops). Since then I've experienced the most ridiculously bad customer service from them:

• the bike took almost a month to arrive. I ordered on 20th December, got a dispatch notification between Christmas and New Year and then...nothing. In the New Year I contacted them to find out where the bike was and was told it had been damaged by the Royal Mail and they would be in touch within the next two days about a replacement. After a week I had heard nothing so I contacted them again and was told the bike would be delivered on Saturday 18 Jan as I was on holiday for the five days preceding this
• during my conversation with them about the new delivery date I asked Evans to make sure the item was not delivered to a neighbour. Long story short I live in a rough part of London (there are crack houses on my street) and most parcels that get delivered to neighbours are never seen again. However, I returned home from holiday on Friday 18th to find a handwritten note shoved through my door telling me the bike was at my neighbour's house. Luckily it was the one neighbour I trust so it turned out alright.
• on inspecting the bike i found lots of scuff marks and some serious damage (flaking off paint) to the pannier rack. The charger box (it is an e-bike) had been opened and was missing a UK plug (it should have come with both an EU plug and an EU plug)

After I contacted Evans to tell them about the issues with the bike, they first offered me a £30 gift voucher! After I insisted this was a laughable offer, they said the best they could do was to exchange the bike for another similar model that costs £100 less. I would have been happy to take the exchange to get this over with but they said that the £100 difference in cost between the two bikes would need to be refunded to me in Evans gift vouchers because I had purchased under the Ride-to-Work scheme. Apart from the fact I never want to deal with Evans again after this, I literally have no use for the vouchers as I have all the bike equipment I need.

I have tried looking for terms and conditions of the Evans bike scheme but all I could find was some basic information at https://www.evanscycles.com/b2b/ride-to-work-employee which doesn't mention what happens when you receive faulty goods.

I have already made two months' salary sacrifice payments for the bike under the scheme as it took so long to deliver, which complicates matters further.

TL,DR version: I ordered a £900 bike from Evans under their Ride-to-Work scheme and it arrived faulty. They want me to accept a different bike worth £100 less and to make up the difference in Evans gift vouchers. I just want a non-faulty bike and the £100 back in cash.

Can anyone help? I'm really at the end of my tether!

Aylesbury_Duck

I think it's a little complicated when it comes to to refunds. You've paid for the bike before taxation, in other words the payments are taken from your salary before you're taxed, effectively lowering your taxable salary. As such, if they were to refund you the £100 difference, you'd be "up" on the deal because you'd be getting £100 cash for much less than £100 in salary deduction. That's why you can't have the cash. It isn't them being difficult, if they were to give you the cash if would be a tax fiddle.

I think you have two options. Accept the voucher or ask your employer to cancel the scheme and unwind the payments you've made to date.

AndyMc.....

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

I think it's a little complicated when it comes to to refunds. You've paid for the bike before taxation, in other words the payments are taken from your salary before you're taxed, effectively lowering your taxable salary. As such, if they were to refund you the £100 difference, you'd be "up" on the deal because you'd be getting £100 cash for much less than £100 in salary deduction. That's why you can't have the cash. It isn't them being difficult, if they were to give you the cash if would be a tax fiddle.

I think you have two options. Accept the voucher or ask your employer to cancel the scheme and unwind the payments you've made to date.

While you're explanation of the tax is correct, I'm not sure refunding in vouchers rather than cash is correct when it comes to the tax issue.

Aylesbury_Duck

Possibly not. Maybe OP has no choice but to unwind the payments and cancel or start again?

My thinking is that with the scheme, I believe you are permitted to buy accessories through it and the Evans voucher would permit that. I suppose the problem is that you are supposed to define your total spend at the start so the salary deductions cover the whole lot.

dj1471

Ultimately it will come down to what the terms of the scheme are. You don't have any consumer rights because this is a business-to-business transaction between Evans and your employer.

Can't they repair the damage?

Your employer should have an account manager they can escalate to, so you could try going that route:
https://www.evanscycles.com/ride-to-work-apply/help/r2w-service-commitment

lissliss

AndyMc..... wrote: »

While you're explanation of the tax is correct, I'm not sure refunding in vouchers rather than cash is correct when it comes to the tax issue.

I know next to nothing about tax but I also can't see why they can't take the £100 cash hit. I am still paying for the bike after all.

lissliss

dj1471 wrote: »

Ultimately it will come down to what the terms of the scheme are. You don't have any consumer rights because this is a business-to-business transaction between Evans and your employer.

Can't they repair the damage?

Your employer should have an account manager they can escalate to, so you could try going that route:
https://www.evanscycles.com/ride-to-work-apply/help/r2w-service-commitment

Thank you for pointing that out, I had assumed that I would have the normal consumer rights but I can see what you mean! To be honest I don't want to cause a hassle for my employer (I work for a small company) so I think I will try and get the bike repaired by Evans and the charger replaced.

Aylesbury_Duck

lissliss wrote: »

I know next to nothing about tax but I also can't see why they can't take the £100 cash hit. I am still paying for the bike after all.

It's worth getting to understand the basics of tax. It applies in this case but more importantly, a basic understanding of tax helps to understand pensions which are much more important.

Evans can't give you cash because of the tax rules, it's not about them "taking a hit".

A basic and simplified example:

You earn £30k and pay 20% tax on everything over £12k, so you pay 20% of £18k which is £3,600.

You buy a bike through the scheme, costing exactly £1000. The £1000 is taken in twelve monthly instalments from your salary in the tax year. However, it's taken before tax, so your new taxable salary is £29000. You pay tax at 20% of £17k (remember you get the first £12k tax-free), which is £3,400.

So you see, without the bike you pay £3,600 tax in the year.
With the bike you pay £3,400 tax in the year and have a £1000 bike. In other words, the bike only costs you a net £800. It's price is £1000 but it saves you £200 in tax.

If they refund you £100 cash, that cash has only cost you £80 to buy. That's why it's not allowed. What's to stop me buying a £1,000 bike and taking it back for a full cash refund, knowing it only really cost me £800? The tax rules.

AndyMc.....

lissliss wrote: »

I know next to nothing about tax but I also can't see why they can't take the £100 cash hit. I am still paying for the bike after all.

I can't see Sports Direct doing that, can you?