Complaint Against Green Commute Initiative Escalated to Trading Standards & Court Claim Filed

Herzlos

Good luck in court then, please let us know how you get on. 

Okell

CycleClaimant said:

Herzlos said:

The way I see it from here, your alleging that:

Their negligence in not vetting your puchase properly means they provided you with an illegal bike, and as such when it was stolen the insurer won't pay out the cost of a new replacement. Thus you are owed £3000. 

They will likely claim that:

The onus was on you to ensure the bike was legal and that you breached their contract by selecting an illegal bike. 

That you didn't inform them of this until 18 months later at which point the rental part of the contract was due and the agreed nominal value was £1. So at most that's all they owe. 
That giving you £3000 would amount to betterment and that at worst they should be providing you with (or the cost of) an 18 month old equivalent bike. 

That the contract was with your employer and not you, so you've no standing to even bring it up. 

I think even if a judge did side with you, they couldn't attribute 100% blame to them since you picked an illegal bike, so you'd be awarded some proportion of the figure, at a percetage decided by the judge. 50:50 maybe?

... their Managing Director admitted to me in a private email that their internal checking process should have rejected the non-compliant model, but failed...

What exactly do you mean by a "private" email in this context?

Why is it "private"?

If they've admitted that they were wrong, I don't understand why they are refusing to reach some sort of mutually agreeables settlement with you...

CycleClaimant

Okell said:

What exactly do you mean by a "private" email in this context?

Why is it "private"?

If they've admitted that they were wrong, I don't understand why they are refusing to reach some sort of mutually agreeables settlement with you...

It was in the very first email I received from GCI after I got in touch with them to tell them what had happened with the theft and rejected insurance claim etc.

He said, and this is a direct quote, I've just added the bold, "If you can provide me with your order number I can investigate what was actually entered into your order. If you had entered “WAU X Plus Tourer (Off-Road Derestricted)” the order would have been rejected."

In my response I attached the Hire Agreement and Salary Sacrifice Agreement, both of which were written up and issued by GCI, and both of which use that exact wording for the bike in the "Description of goods" sections.

Like you, I thought that would then surely lead to them offering some sort of settlement or resolution. Instead, he didn't even acknowledge or reference this in his response, and still hasn't in any correspondence since.