A good email.
Imagine if he’d been that responsive to customers in the past.
I really hope for the sake of those they owe stuff to that they can pull this out of the fire. And if they can do it they deserve support.
Hell, I’ll even go down to see them and let Jordan take the first swing.

(gah, trouble grabbing image URLs… never mind)

Apart from a new email address, what has changed?

They’ve been talking about stepping down for a while. If its a manager, rather than an investor, how are they going to pay them?

Jordan saying he’ll deal with the refunds personally, Who was responsible for doing them before?

Whats in place to stop the same thing as has happened with Marino happening with the 150 frames?

Personally accountable? To whom? They won’t answer questions from industry journalists, unless they like/write them, they block people on insta who say things or ask questions they don’t like, they are a limited company. who are they accountable to?

fair play if they get everyone refunded (theres a dozen or so on PB demanding it) so ill reserve judgement until they all get their money back, but for now is same email, different day

That our company is held under such scrutiny by the press

Really? Heaven forbid the press read the forums/listen to friends and then ask questions. Its not as if the scrutiny was exactly high either.
Hannah’s article was, rather conveniently, immediately countered by that puff piece interview in pinkbike.
Even the Marino article in pinkbike came across rather bland and vaguely optimistic.
So out of recent articles I would rate it 50/50 scrutiny vs PR.

Apart from a new email address, what has changed

At no point in that email does he say it isn’t our fault. Even if he still thinks it, to at least not explicitly say it is a big step forward, but yeah until frames or monies start arriving with folks it’s just peace in our time.

Doesn’t fully blame them, but…

we’ve reached a bit of a stalemate with our supplier,

… implies that It’s not all their (sicks) fault.

we’ve reached a bit of a stalemate with our supplier,

I recently reached a bit of a stalemate with the barman at my local. He wouldn’t provide me with my beer until I paid him. Luckily for me, I had sufficient funds to pay him, so I resolved the stalemate there and then.

P1ss, hot air & a lack of contrition..

3/10.

I very much doubt they can turn it around – they just don’t seem smart enough.

Doesn’t fully blame them, but…

we’ve reached a bit of a stalemate with our supplier,

… implies that It’s not all their (sicks) fault.

Having worked somewhere “this sort” of thing happened it’s conceivably not. We (at the time) were a healthy business but like a lot of business realtively little liquidity vs liability. A rumour went about the industry we were far from healthy and very suddenly our 90 days credit with 2 main suppliers became 30. That really hurt and very nearly turned a healthy business into a dead one, forcing us to sell huge amounts at a loss or near to in order to liquidate stock fast and pay bills. We never really recovered from it (difficult to explain to folk that £10 to £2.50 to £10 pricing shift so you’re then stuck at very small margins for a long time) over the next 12 months or so and then 2008 came along and we (like a lot of folk) fell over.

I’m not suggesting that this is the same thing but, people worrying they’re not going to get paid can sometimes be the very reason they don’t. (the difference here of course is sick had most of the monies up front so should be very liquid)

The address on their email:

Sick Bicycle Co.
193 Tarring Road
Sick Bicycle Co
Worthing, bn11 4hn
United Kingdom

Was that the shop that they’ve closed or a new one?

That’s the tattoo parlour.

You’d hope for some word of apology to customers for being royally **** around, but no, it’s all about how humiliating it has been for Jordan.

I very much doubt they can turn it around – they just don’t seem smart enough.

If they were, I’d say they wouldn’t have found themselves needing to turn it round in the first place.

That’s the tattoo parlour.

DrP last week said it was shut with a For rent board outside?

I’d say they wouldn’t have found themselves needing to turn it round in the first place.

Indeed, cash up front from customers before you order with suppliers actually takes some real effort to screw up

That ^

That is there issue, not acknowledging their problems. The “look over there!” tactic.

Good lord this is painful, I’m almost feeling a bit sorry for these guys but the continued effort to put on a front is going to prevent them ever properly owning up to the situation. The problem is if you sell your brand on the basis of your personality then it’s going to be personal when the brand doesn’t deliver.

To be fair, they _are_ doing everything possible to keep their brand afloat. It’s just all the wrong sort of thing.

I’ve been watching Joe Lycett’s consumer program on Channel 4 recently & what struck me in every case where there was wrong doing by a company none of them ever actually said sorry.

They admitted they weren’t good enough, they would do better etc – but no one seems to be able to say, shit – apologies for that, we messed up, let us make it better.

Sick are another example – the problems are theirs, have come about by their actions or inaction’s, even looks like t-shirts & hoodies don’t make it to the customer’s in some cases, but in every big communication they have never once said sorry.

That Hitler video!

“How can I be seen in public without a bike? Stalin has a carbon Chameleon!”
“I wanted some of their Titanium handlebars, but it turns out they’re weaker than Poland”

🤣🤣🤣🤣

If you have a delayed frame, or, you are awaiting a refund, please email frame.orders@sickbicycle.co with your order number. Let me know what action you would like me to take, You will receive a ticket number, and confirmation, of action and I will be personally dealing with these. I feel having just myself tasked with this will allow better ownership and faster resolution.

Strange way of doing things, surely the ordering system is robust enough that it is easy to track such minor things like “Where is the frame?” !!

CaptainFlashheart
I recently reached a bit of a stalemate with the barman at my local. He wouldn’t provide me with my beer until I paid him. Luckily for me, I had sufficient funds to pay him, so I resolved the stalemate there and then.

Indeed.
That said, I’ve mocked them when the mocking was good, so must now take it on the chin and acknowledge that that email’s actually not bad.

Am wondering who they’ll get to manage it though, given the… problems. Does this turn into one of those old TV gags: walk round a building, ask someone to hold one end of a piece of tape; walk round the other side and ask someone else to hold the other end, before walking rapidly away?!
Or are they desperately looking for a buyer for the firm?

Strange way of doing things

Not if your goal is to delay having to make refunds or pay suppliers to get delivery as your bank account is empty…

The email sent out is still just stalling, full of good intentions but lacking action.

We know there’s about 12 customers waiting on refunds? Let’s assume it’s half an hour each to issue refund and paperwork – so one working day or one long evening at a computer. All of a sudden there’s 12 folk going ‘yes, I got my refund’ on the internet.

Instead, months later, we have a company going ‘honest we can sort this’ and ‘just get in touch, I can sort it’. But with no timescales and no seeming action.

Let’s be brutal: the Sick! bank account is empty, likely overdrawn. They’ve maxed any credit they had. Thier main suppliers just pulled out, and another is likely waiting on a payment they can’t make to release the frames. They’re sat on dead stock that is flawed, damaged or unlisted. I’d bet that even the clothing sales have all but ceased. PayPal won’t deal with them or account suspended. I bet trading standards are in touch. I bet courts are sensing letters. Just dealing with all that means your day is full.

They’re still working full time at other things to provide a roof over thier families heads, Sick! it’s just an evening distraction.

In two months since this thread started has anyone had anything refunded or correctly delivered, other than a t-shirt?

Taiwanese frames……. so that’s

Taiwan
China
UK
Peru
USA (for FTW)

GMT +8 through to GMT -5, for one tiny company to deal with

I would genuinely love to see their books. I just can’t comprehend how, when all the frames are pre-paid you can run into trouble unless you’ve been utterly negligent or shafted from on high.
Back at the outset this was a hobby so no salaries to meet. They had a commercial premises, I’d assume with some storage, so limited cost implications for handling the product when it arrives. They’re not building in house, it’s just a paper shuffling exercise as a business for the frames, so you’ve no liability for stock, you order your packing once frames are on the water so you’re not holding lots of empty boxes, you only order what you’ve sold and you cream off the return at the end after you’ve paid to pack and ship.

Getting bigger, causes problems with cash flow, but so long as your sales are all “cash up front preorders” that’s not a problem. You may need more storage but their “drop” model means you only need to hire a storage unit for a few weeks as a drop comes in, no lengthy tenancy agreements. You might need a few people to pack boxes but that’s agency staffing for a few days and so on. You might find that your healthy margin isn’t by the end of it as you’ve not accounted for the additional costs properly but you certainly shouldn’t find your self in a position where you can’t meet the first of your commitments, maybe you’ve no money left to pay the carriers to ship the boxed product at the end but not no money to pay bill number 1.

The only way I can see that goes wrong* is you order what you’ve sold, you pay up front, the supplier takes your money and then doesn’t supply (at all) so you’re left holding nothing but a bill. It’s not pocket change so you’re not raising the cash to reorder easily. Wouldn’t be the first time or last that happens, but surely at that point you’d not be trying to bluff your way out? You’d say “sorry”, shut your doors and let the process run it’s unpleasant course.

They’re still working full time at other things to provide a roof over thier families heads, Sick! it’s just an evening distraction. I bet Jordan is about to have a breakdown – not only the financial stress but the personal guilt over saying one thing and being unable to actually lift the weight by refunding and moving on.

That’s the sad fact of all this, the likely price of this is going to be a lot more than missing frames at the other end but (to outward appearances) everything they do is making the fall further and harder. It’s like standing on a bridge in front of a freight train hoping it stops because you’re scared of jumping into the water below.

Or are they desperately looking for a buyer for the firm?

What would you be buying? I doubt there are any tangible assets (there’s no reason there should be before all this let alone now), the reputation is shot, the brand name isn’t theirs to sell and isn’t worth much if it were. There’s outstanding debt by all accounts, no repeat custom and resulting from that, little chance the brand could effectively trade on even with a debt write off. The only way that floats is if all those frames from Taiwan are genuinely in UK stock, largely unsold here and unpaid at supplier so you can convince them to take p in the £ on the debt as opposed to 0.

[quoteOr are they desperately looking for a buyer for the firm?[/quote]

Buy a toxic shit show of a brand that’s worse than dead….. or just start from scratch and do it properly…?

Difficult decision.

It is like the Tory party of the bicycle world.

Jordan keeps reciting his deal and like May he has announced his resignation but not set a date.

Are any of you sure this isn’t some complex play on politics.

Plus of course there’s the (not so) small matter of a CCG against them. I doubt they’re finding that’s a massive help.

Difficult decision.

Has the bloke who brought Ubyk got anything leftover for another investment into a good brandname?
Although that they havent protected the name wouldnt help.

Plus of course there’s the (not so) small matter of a CCG against them

Damn! They’ve got a Clinical Commissioning Group on their ass?! Poor sods.

Eddiebaby haha, I’m in healthcare, either a. Stockholm syndrome. Or b. Keyboard…

It is like the Tory party of the bicycle world

Or Labour, seeing as Sick seem to think they’ve discovered a magic money tree that will give them lots of free stuff

Or Labour, seeing as Sick seem to think they’ve discovered a magic money tree that will give them lots of free stuff

Or the lib dems given they’re being shafted for things that weren’t their fault*.

*only they really weren’t and nick clegg did say sorry.

Has the bloke who brought Ubyk got anything leftover for another investment into a good brandname?
Although that they havent protected the name wouldnt help.

I am personally very surprised the On-one brand owner hasn’t bought into it has form for it.

I am personally very surprised the On-one brand owner hasn’t bought into it has form for it.

The difference I guess is at this point [the] sick are contagious. It’d be more leprous than Lazarus.

contagious. It’d be more leprous than Lazarus.

https://road.cc/content/news/62676-planet-x-bid-and-win-four-jimmy-saville-bikes-auction

So in summary – they took money up front for bikes, spent it on something else, and now can’t supply the bikes that have been paid for by customers.

At what point does it become a matter for the police ? At best they were investing in other parts of the business and relying on continuing sales to pay their suppliers once the bikes were made, at worst fraud.

sick are contagious

Paying all those refunds is taking the contagious

at worst fraud

The longer this goes on with ‘promise we are ok, buy some more from us’ the closer they get to a fraud charge.

Paying all those refunds is taking the contagious

I saw what you did there… 🙂

https://road.cc/content/news/62676-planet-x-bid-and-win-four-jimmy-saville-bikes-auction

In defence of px that is at least a few months before allegations started to surface in public and whilst he was still, by and large, viewed in a positive way so short of being clairvoyant there’s not really much blame there,though it had been reported in Feb 2012 that a BBC newsnight investigation was pulled, it really didn’t go public as such until ITV aired their exposure documentary in October 2012.

But yes in hindsight I imagine it’s not a purchase they’d make again.