Cycle to work scheme payments?

Aretnap

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Excellent you stayed at the same company for 5 years while renting your bike. For many people that won’t be the case.

I didn't actually - I left the company not long after the original 12 month hire period was up. Nobody asked for more money or for the bike back. I suppose technically I had to pay the outstanding payment for the extended hire scheme in cash rather than through salary sacrifice - however as the outstanding payments at that point were zero this wasn't something that caused too many problems.

Plenty of same year bikes on sale at rates equal or better than the savings from the rentabike to work scheme according to Evans Cycles.

And there's no reason why you can't get an even bigger saving on them by getting them from Evans through the cycle to work scheme. There is nothing in the scheme that says it can only be used on bikes bought at full price; indeed the one that Evans runs says explicitly in its FAQs that bikes which are on sale or on special offer are eligible for it.

Talking of Evans Cycles..... last year they went bust. Guess what turned out to be Evans biggest asset according to the Administrators? Yup, all the cycles they owned via their “Cycle to work” scheme. If Mr Ashley hadn’t stepped in then all the rent payments would have been ignored and people would have had to buy the cycles from the administrator or hand them back. Don’t forget the Adminstrator has the right to deduct the value direct from salary.

Where did the administrators say that? According to the Administrators report, the biggest asset was "stock" at just shy of £8 million, as you would expect from a company with a warehouse full of expensive bikes. There was of course money outstanding from companies which were making use of Evans' in-house scheme, most of which has now been repaid, some of which has been written off. Bicycles owned by Evans itself (presumably leased to Evans' own employees) don't even feature in the report.

Yes your employer going bust and the administrators playing hardball is one area where the fact that you don't actually own the bike is a disadvantage (in virtually all other cases your employer doesn't want your bike and, unless you work for a second hand bike shop, would have no use for it, so they're hardly going to refuse to let you take ownership at the end of the scheme). However it's not a huge risk - most companies don't go bust, especially not in any 12 month period - and in my case the risk of my employer going bust was negligible, for various reasons.

Also, to be honest, if the best horror story of things going wrong that you can offer is "some people nearly had to pay for their bikes twice, but in the end they didn't", well forgive me if I'm not particularly terrified.

King_Nothing

I don't think your sums are correct. When I did it a few years ago, I paid a repayment each month for a year that totalled more or less what I borrowed, then at the end I could either buy ownership of the bike immediately for a higher fee, or continue to "rent" it for another couple of years (with no extra payments per month) for a much smaller fee, and pay nothing at the end to "take ownership", you don't pay the same repayment for the whole 3 or 4 years.

PasturesNew

Personally I'd rather spend £100-200 on a bike and know it was completely mine from day 1 - and not have to worry about keeping my job + worry of theft of a pricey bike, etc.

This seems to me to just benefit "professional cyclists" on high incomes.

Even £100-200 on a bike, to me, would be "a considerable life fortune that could be spent on a little holiday and a 2nd hand £50 bike instead".

Takmon

vacheron wrote: »

Not sure where you are coming from on this? The scheme is called "Cycle to work" not "Instantly obtain full legal title to a bicycle".

And while the scheme did not suit my particular situation, I can say with certainty that 100% of the 23 people who signed up to the scheme at our workplace knew what they were "getting themselves into" and many of those are are willingly and happily "getting themselves into" it again with enthusiasm this year.

So I would like to know where your 99,9% figure has come from as there would need to be 22,977 misguided people just to offset the 23 non-misguided people in just our small company!

Are you really sure 100% of people know exactly what the scheme involved?. When I have spoken to people about the scheme a lot of them are surprised when I told them that they are renting the bike and they could not be offered ownership at the end or the term.
Most people thought you were guaranteed the bike at the end (because that is what has always happened) but the terms and conditions say otherwise.