People selling C2W bikes on eBay

[Chicken Chaser]

Ive been pondering over the purchase of an MTB to be a stablemate to the roadie this last month, and I was quite taken with a Boardman Pro or a Cube Ltd. Having browsed eBay for the last month, it does seem apparent that being popular C2W bikes, there are a lot of them turning up on eBay without seeing a dusty floor never mind any singletrack. Some are even still boxed. Reading one advert on eBay this evening, the guy has blatantly stated that he reckons he will pay 41% of the total cost of the bike, hence buying it and then selling it under asking price but still making a gain.

Am I right in thinking this is completely wrong and that theyre actually selling something which doesnt belong to them? Is this scheme turning into something of personal gain of which people are starting to realise as a backhanded money maker?

[anonymous-user]

I have noticed this too.
But 41% is overly optimistic.
There are some drawbacks, if they lose their job they will have to pay in full.
Illegal as you say, they dont own it for at least a year if they pay 25% etc etc
Or 3 more years if going for the deposit option.
I dont know if C2W note frame numbers, would be interesting if the new owner reported it stolen!

But it does go on a lot..

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 2nd November 20:44

[Chicken Chaser]

Ive been tempted with one which is in my town, but I think its a bit of a risk, especially as you mention about the circs in case of a theft and insurance claim.

Might be prudent to go with the new one from the dealer.

[snowdude2910]

My scheme paperwork says basically if the bike is lost/stolen or disposed of before the end of the term I am still liable for the payments until the end of the term and the disposal charge so I'd have thought that selling it would be the same as if the bike was damaged (eg. wife reversed over it) and you took it down the tip I don't think they'd have any comeback on you. Quite alot of people probably don't buy them with the intention of making money out of the scheme but buy them and then find they don't have the motivation to actually ride it to work (in this case you should in theory inform your HR department who will start taking the payments after tax but who's going to be stupid enough to do that really?)
Mine runs out around xmas time and my allez sport would probably still sell for @£300 on ebay so i am tempted to just sell it on and take out another scheme with another allez meaning the use of the bike for 18months would have cost me around £70

[GreatGranny]

But don't you have to make a payment at the end of the term?

With our scheme at the end of the 12 months you can either buy the bike outright, hand it back or sign up for another 31 months with a one of payment (5 or 7% of purchase price) and no other payments in that time. At the end of the 31 months the bike is deemed to be practically valueless and you take over ownership. Also the rules on VAT has changed.

[snowdude2910]

GreatGranny said:

But don't you have to make a payment at the end of the term?

With our scheme at the end of the 12 months you can either buy the bike outright, hand it back or sign up for another 31 months with a one of payment (5 or 7% of purchase price) and no other payments in that time. At the end of the 31 months the bike is deemed to be practically valueless and you take over ownership. Also the rules on VAT has changed.

I think it varies from scheme to scheme ours is £35 disposal fee weather you hand back the bike for them to dispose of it or you pay the £35 and the bike is then yours

[_g_]

Chicken Chaser said:

Am I right in thinking this is completely wrong and that theyre actually selling something which doesnt belong to them? Is this scheme turning into something of personal gain of which people are starting to realise as a backhanded money maker?

Yes. I got my boardman with a receipt dated the day I collected it! I got it at over £200 off and they basically got a negative-interest loan.

But then, the scheme when I was doing it myself had stated that at least half the use of the bike should be to and from work and few people actually managed that (to be fair, I think I did in the end, but that certainly wasn't intentional :P.)

[Gizmo!]

_g_ said:

Chicken Chaser said:

Am I right in thinking this is completely wrong and that theyre actually selling something which doesnt belong to them? Is this scheme turning into something of personal gain of which people are starting to realise as a backhanded money maker?

Yes. I got my boardman with a receipt dated the day I collected it! I got it at over £200 off and they basically got a negative-interest loan.

But then, the scheme when I was doing it myself had stated that at least half the use of the bike should be to and from work and few people actually managed that (to be fair, I think I did in the end, but that certainly wasn't intentional :P.)

Ours says you should cycle to work at least once a week.

Apart from the folder crew, no-one does

[WeirdNeville]

The minute they sell it it's theft.
And the buyer is handling stolen goods (if they know about it)
And if that was their intention when they filled out the C2W paperwork it was probably some flavor of fraud.

not a smart move, anyway.

[_g_]

WeirdNeville said:

The minute they sell it it's theft.
And the buyer is handling stolen goods (if they know about it)
And if that was their intention when they filled out the C2W paperwork it was probably some flavor of fraud.

not a smart move, anyway.

Except that so far no one's got done and it doesn't look likely they will.
So actually probably a smart move on their part.

Probably a hell of a lot more likely to get busted for doing 35mph on the way to work in the car.

If it's fraud, it's presumably just as much fraud everyone that buys one with no intention of fulfilling the conditions laid out, but keeping it for their own use.

[WeirdNeville]

_g_ said:

Except that so far no one's got done and it doesn't look likely they will.
So actually probably a smart move on their part.

Probably a hell of a lot more likely to get busted for doing 35mph on the way to work in the car.

If it's fraud, it's presumably just as much fraud everyone that buys one with no intention of fulfilling the conditions laid out, but keeping it for their own use.

Risk your job for £100 profit? Doesn't sound like smart business sense to me. al lthe contracts I've seen for C2W make it very clear that the bike remains property of the company, and you are not permitted to sell or alter it. They also specify that it must be insured in many cases.

[mad4amanda]

I think C2w scheme days are numbered because of abuses like this as only a very small number of bikes on the sceme are genuinely used for cycling to work. HMRC are aware of this and have already drastically reduced the benefit of the scheme and a contact who works for what must be the biggest supplier of bikes says its under review.

[anonymous-user]

It wouldnt be a huge surprise if HMRC instructed companies to carry out an audit & inspect C2W supplied cycles which were still under rental... Now that would be interesting!

[Soop Dogg]

I know that when I got my bike under C2W the T&C's said that it should be your main form of transport. If it stopped being your main form of transport, you would lose your entitlement to the tax reduction.

So far this year I've used NON-bike transport to get to work on just 3 days.

I've lost a lot of weight!

[_g_]

WeirdNeville said:

Risk your job for £100 profit? Doesn't sound like smart business sense to me. al lthe contracts I've seen for C2W make it very clear that the bike remains property of the company, and you are not permitted to sell or alter it. They also specify that it must be insured in many cases.

Things have moved on since I got mine in 2006 and since I was looking to try and do it again in 2008.

Of course it's more than £100 profit - depending on the tax bracket, I expect several hundred and in the form of a loan too.
And...

Jimboka said:

It wouldnt be a huge surprise if HMRC instructed companies to carry out an audit & inspect C2W supplied cycles which were still under rental... Now that would be interesting!

It would be a huge surprise to me. At least from what I was reading before the general consideration was HMRC would never look in to this on the basis they KNOW the scheme isn't going to be used exactly as they say (ie mostly used for commuting) and it'd basically be the death of the scheme if people feared they would get investigated.
Never minding that in a lot of the borderline cases it'd be incredibly hard to prove what was going on.

I'm not advocating people doing it and I certainly wouldn't do it myself - but mostly because there's no chance you'd find me in that position and not wanting to ride the bike .

[Gizmo!]

I suspect a lot of the cases would be "borderline".

But I can't see them discontinuing it - it costs so little in the grand scheme of things and it's doing wonders for the bike shop industry.