Halfords not taking responsibility of missing information in PDI form !

Anonymous_me2

We had placed an online order for a bike and included bike build service too. When we had collected the bike, we were presented with a PDI form that was partially filled with missing Frame number from it. The frame number of the bike was part of the receipt, that was supposed to be filled by staff and signed for. Nither it was filled by the staff in the branch nor we were guided or advised to get it filled up (ourselves) when we collected the bike.

The last Tuesday we had our bike stolen and as soon as we noticed the theft had reported it to the police including the video of the potential culprit captured in one of the cameras. To claim our bike back we are required to provide bike frame number to police. To get the number we looked at our receipt/ PDI form for the frame number. To our disappointment, the information was missing from the receipt. Immediately we contacted customer service, and we were assured that this information should be available from the store that we requested bike build service and collection from. We did receive a call from the store and to add on to our disappointment, the response we got was that it is the customer's responsibility to take a note of frame number and the store has no records of this.

We completely understand that if the bike was ordered online and delivered to a home address or to be collected from the store without build service, it would be customer's responsibility to take care of building the bike and to note necessary information of the bike and purchase (because we feel while building a bike and going through the guide we would have definitely come across the frame number ). However, in our case, we had ordered online but selected bike build service and collection from a store, so we did not have any box or guide related to the bike. All we were given from the store was a ready built bike and a receipt with missing information signed by a member of staff. We again called customer service and spoke about the response that we got from the store. However, after a number of calls and an email we were at deadlock from Halfords.

I called in today to CS and after 40 min of call and discussion with the manager, an agent responded to our email saying

"We are not obliged to note down the frame number of the bike on the PDI form given with the bike and it is the customer's responsibility to keep a record of this information."

Not sure who owns legal the responsibility to make sure the Pre Delivery Inspection form is complete?  I am trying to understand that if staff can fill up all the details around one field (Frame number) but not just that one then what's the point of having it as apart of the section that is meant for staff? Also, the field should not be part of PDI form if it is customer's responsibility?

Please advice?

Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post.

bap98189

The form is just a checklist to ensure the Halfords staff do what they are supposed to. There is no legal responsibility on Halfords to ensure it is complete or even to issue one. I would bet a lot of bike shops would just do the job without any paperwork. and You have no comeback here. If you didn't keep a note of the number you can't blame Halfords for that. 

Take the form to the police station and explain what has happened. If you have a photo or a good description of the bike chances are they will return it to you.

Herzlos

Unfortunately the time to query the missing frame number was when picking up the bike.
Did you do anything to the bike that might satisfy the police that it's yours - added any bottle cages, mud guards or anything?

[Deleted User]

Herzlos said:

Unfortunately the time to query the missing frame number was when picking up the bike.
Did you do anything to the bike that might satisfy the police that it's yours - added any bottle cages, mud guards or anything?

The frame number / serial number of the bike is on the bike, usually under the bottom bracket, would take 2 seconds to find it as it's required to register the bike with the manufacturer for warranty, for insurance etc. Halfords may have slipped up but the owner would have been able to check this upon picking it up.