Signed up to the bike to work scheme. Got a voucher for 900 English quids with which to buy a boardman CX team. The bike has gone up to 999 in the time it took for all the paper to come through. Now the voucher won’t buy the bike and I’m not allowed to top up the voucher. Utter, utter gits!

Steal one. Their security measures are a bigger joke than their staff members. And stock.

They don’t stock them in any of my local stores, so stealing isn’t an option. Besides I refuse to let Halfords turn me into a petty thief.

At what point are they allowed to put their prices up?

u should be able to get it at the price stated on your quote from them if not speak to managet if hes a noob them head office 100 is allot to hand over when u dont expect to they should honour it ok.

they were still 899 in Halfords Llandudno when I looked on Weds.

buy a bike for £900 which isn’t a Boredman

the new ones are the 2011 – 12 range

Get a Voodoo instead.

err…….if you hate halfords why were you willing to give them £900?

just tell your HR and they will give you a voucher for the difference

Houns, I don’t see how talking to a tyre will help. IGMC…

@fastindian… Because my employer uses them for cycle2work. Crap choice, I agree, but it’s them or no one. If anyone can point me to a CX bike that halfords do stock for 900 quid then I’m willing to look.

@ scxc. At any point in a free market, legally speaking. On the other hand if you hike prices mid range and run a cycle2work scheme so ineptly that it makes these issues inevitable at what point are you a crap bike shop?

Cycle2Work don’t control the bike prices and won’t know about the price increase until it happens let alone at the time when you ordered your voucher

As i mentioned above, explain the situation to your HR department they will in turn get in touch with C2W and the issue should be sorted for you

Edit

or you could just b*tch and whine and moan on

I used my Halfords voucher at Leisure Lakes, might be worth a call to see if they still accept them.

Thanks for the (obvious?) advice Houns, though perhaps less for your sarcasm.

Obviously I have to now cancel the agreement and begin the process again or not bother. Cycle2work is Halfords scheme. The fact that the arse part of the company doesn’t know what the elbow is doing is entirely Halfords fault. Moreover, the fact that you can’t secure a bike on the web to prevent this sort of thing is Halfords fault. The process on the web says get your letter, THEN go in store and order your bike. It’s a crap system. To add insult to injury Halfrauds have hiked their prices mid range – its not a new bike, new spec or new season.

If this is just a b*tch to you, then switch off. To me it’s a legitimate beef. Let’s agree to disagree on that.

On One/Planet X do (or did) accept Halfords vouchers.

You won’t struggle to find a CX bike in their range!

Good call on planet x mboy. The CX team equivalents are still 999, but they may let me top up…..

On One/Planet X do (or did) accept Halfords vouchers.

You won’t struggle to find a CX bike in their range!

They will also charge you £100 to accept the cycle voucher, which is several orders of magnitude worse than ryanairs £6 card fee, and wipes out most of the bike to work saving.

FFS! I just ordered a £900 voucher, will get it at the start of January.

Guess I’ll have to get on the phone to our HR bods….

You could just hold on a while. There’s a good chance that the price hike has taken place so that, just before Xmas, they can say that there’s 10% off when, in reality, the price has just returned to what it was before.

Call me cynical, but it has happened before.

beluga – yeah, fair point…..

Was thinking the same thing beluga: a cheeky price hike during the cycle2wok period just before Chrimbo for a popular commuter bike.

Err, cycle2work goes on all year – there is no December “peak”

@druidh. Not necessarily so in practice. Different employers give you windows to apply. Liverpool city council’s scheme ends Early December.

Aye – but one employers timetable doesn’t give Halfords a chance for a wheeze get-rich-quick scheme!

Likewise, the window for my firm’s scheme ended on Wednesday and we get the flex benefits we chose (including cyclescheme vouchers) at the start of January.

Yeah, fair enough, it is overly cynical to say a national price has been arranged to conspire with a local c2w window. And the price hike may have come from Boardman’s end (changes in componentry costs etc.). I just think there must be a way to avoid this kind of frustration for the customer who orders in good faith.

I used to work in a bike shop and we had to have a policy of not ordering the bike until we had the voucher – due to the number of “no shows” we’d get. I guess that some folk were actually losing their job between seeing us and getting a voucher but others – who knows?

halfords used to be able to get any bike. a friend at work got a specialized full sus and another got a killer bee for him. might be worth asking if they can get any other bikes.

Just hope I can get another £100 sorted with my HR dept as I got the voucher to buy a Boardman team CX specifically – there’s no other bike I want to buy at the moment.

that happened to me..

Took so long to sort voucher that price went up. Phoned Bike to work lot, moaned, got the £50 topup that I needed for free.

Already phoned c2w who basically tried to pass the buck, saying our administrator should have told me to get my local store to hold the bike. This is boll**ks as my branch doesn’t stock em and they won’t order one in without seeing the voucher 1st.

They don’t stock them in any of my local stores, so stealing isn’t an option. Besides I refuse to let Halfords turn me into a petty thief.

Downloading music makes you a petty thief, nicking a £900 bike puts you firmly in the mid range for me 🙂

CX Boardman in my local Halfords has been £999 for months

Likewise, the window for my firm’s scheme ended on Wednesday and we get the flex benefits we chose (including cyclescheme vouchers) at the start of January.

+1, our benefits scheme runs until 12th Dec. imagine it’s quite common, so all benefits run for calendar years. Doubt Halfords are price fixing because of it though.

halfords used to be able to get any bike. a friend at work got a specialized full sus and another got a killer bee for him. might be worth asking if they can get any other bikes.

Only by nefarious means, basically another shop selling Halfords their stock, and you buying a second hand bike. Spesh won’t honour warranty stuff from Halfords, as they are the original owner. I’d be very wary of any shop doing that.

I completely agree with Morpheus and think he is an awesome guy – in fact a shining beacon of consumer righteousness in the face of evil corporate skullduggery

Crack on winged warrior of fiscal fortitude! God’s speed!

Have you tried speaking to the manager at Halfords?

They’re not all bad.
The same thing happened to me, but when I stood there with the letter and explained they dropped the £80 extra the bike had found in 3 weeks!

A sale is a sale, most will help if they can.

When I had a Cyclescheme bike I had to have written Quotation first .. prices all down in writing before voucher issued .. does this not happen with Halfords?