Bicycle destroyed - what are my rights

Hi Everyone,
I recently gave a loan of my bike to my new flatmate.
The saddle was too high for her so she broght it to the local sports shop to get it lowered. The genius at the shop cut the frame of the bike to lower the saddle - ruining a 600 quid triathalon bike in the process. I was wondering what my rights as a consumer are? I went down to complain and he was very aggressive and asked me to leave the shop or he would call security! At no time did he ask for permission to structurally modify the bike.
Thanks,
R

Did he ask your friend's permission to cut the frame? Whatever about the stupidity of cutting the frame of a (presumably obviously?) expensive bike how was he to know that she was not the owner of the bike and, if she assented to the alteration or at least didn't object, that he had the go ahead to do so?

Your flat mate is who you need to pursue. She may pursue the shop if she has grounds to do so, but YOU gave the bike to HER.

Not the best start to the Flatmate relationship. I don't suppose you can write off the 600 euro as a cost of a really great story about one persons stupidity?

-Rd

Ask your friend to write down what was said and what happened.
A solicitor should give you an idea if its worth pursuing without charging you a fee...ask him/her first.
Then maybe the Small claims Court.
The aggressive response you got deserves to be punished.
Good Luck!

tolkarovers said:

Hi Everyone, I recently gave a loan of my bike to my new flatmate.

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As is said above, whether you're comfortable with doing it or not, it's your flatmate who you need to pursue.

tolkarovers said:

The saddle was too high for her so she broght it to the local sports shop to get it lowered.

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In this situation, you have zero rights with regards to the sports shop here. Any work that was done was as a result of a contract, written or verbal, between your flatmate and the guy in the shop.

You're a third party in this, unfortunate perhaps, but you have absolutely no rights whatsoever in this situation.

To resolve the situation, you'll have to speak to your flatmate to get them to sort it out.

Any solutions mentioned above, such as Small Claims Court etc, will have to be pursued by her.

You describe yourself as the consumer here, but you're not. It's unfortunate, but that's where it will stand in the eyes of the consumer laws.

It depends on whether your flatmate agreed to the proposed action. If she did, the shop can't be blamed. Your problem is with your flatmate.


If, however, other means existed by which the saddle could be lowered (and that these could/should have been done instead, then there may be a case to answer. however, the contract (insofar as one existed) is between your flatmate and the shop. It is your flatmate, therefore, who would need to take any action that's possible.

However, if she was made aware in advance of the shop's proposed solution and if she effectively gave them the nod, i don't think she'd have a very strong case. Via the Small Claims Court, however, for a relatively small outlay, it might be worth pursuing.

Ok, wait a minute. It is quite common to have to cut the seatpost down to size if you are making a radical saddle height alteration on the bike. As long as thats all thats been done then I dont really think you can complain. However, I cannot really undertand his reasoning behind modifying the frame itself. The ony reason I can imagine for doing this would be to ensure clearence on a full suspension bike where the seatpost may come into contact with the frame at its lower settings or something. Once again, you'd be modifying the seatpost and not the frame. Also, your bike is a Tri-athalon racer type so I think thats impossible. What reason did he give for cutting it?

If its just a seatpost that was cut for her size then buy another for yourself :

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Categories.aspx?CategoryID=214&CurrentPageIndex=0&SortExpression=PRICE_ASC

How did you get on in the end, tolkarovers ?