Pocket Bike Canada Review

[Weldangrind]

I wonder what the Mounties will say.

[jaloos]

My next correspondance with Pocket Bike Canada.

It has come to my attention that your company has decided to cancel this order. I find this very underhanded and unscrupulous. I am in the process of determining the legality or your decision. I am confident that I will find that your decision violates consumer law and that you will be liable.
I have already lodged a complaint with the Lower Mainland Better Business Bureau and sent an email to BCTV’s Consumer Alert representative and CBC TV’s Marketplace and I will also be filling a complaint with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs.
My next step will be to obtain council and look into filling a claim in small claims court. In the event this happens I will also be pursuing all court and council expenses.
It is entirely up to your company how far this matter needs to go. I strongly suggest you honor the original sale as your actions will undoubtedly be a lot more costly than the amount you stand to lose at this point.
Advise me of your intentions regarding this matter, if I receive no response I will continue on my pre described course of actions and you will be notified by the appropriate agencies.

[jaloos]

They may need one of these buttons soon.

[jaloos]

New update:

After sending them the last message my IP has been blocked and all I am getting over my internet be it computer or cell on wifi is "page not found 404"

Funny though the same phone on bell cel network gets on just fine.

[Bromicon]

Wow, for them to actually IP ban you instead of trying to resolve it... cowards. I can't believe a company can be so stubborn over $400. They should just give in already instead of trying to run away from it and get into more legal hassle. It's going to cost them a lot more for a lawyer than the $400 they want so badly.

Keep in contact with them through another internet connection (or even a proxy should work).

[jaloos]

LOL yup makes no sense to me either.
The boy paid through bank e transfer as well and rather than rejecting the payment they were going to let his money sit in limbo till the 30 day expiry period ended. Of course that wasn't going to happens so he had to pay 3.50 for a stop payment and now they have a record of him stopping payment.

As far as IP banning me its all good I have other access and their email unless they want to change that, I can use any of the ten email aliases I have.

It is gonna be very hard fro them to run from the BBB and Consumer Affairs Canada though. Hopefully the CBC or CTV decides to run a story as well.
Either way they will not run from the bad publicity I will bring down on them.

On the plus side the kid shelled out some extra cash and picked up a X35 instead from somewhere else.

[Weldangrind]

Originally Posted by jaloos

On the plus side the kid shelled out some extra cash and picked up a X35 instead from somewhere else.

We're gonna need pics!

[amwilkie]

Good to see you picked up an X35! I can speak from my own knowledge of the criminal code and civil law in a situation like this and unfortunately there isn't much you can do.

The RCMP will not get involved in civil matters. Even if you purchased it and they didn't send you the bike, it would still be a civil matter and the Police would not get involved.

As far a civil action, you have no argument in small claims court. When a product is advertised online it is advertised as an offer to buy. The sale is not completed and the offer has not been accepted until payment is received by the seller. Businesses do have the right to refuse service. The same can be said for products that you purchase in store. If you take it to the till and the sales person notes there is a pricing error they can refuse to sell you that product at that price. This is not to say that some businesses wouldn't honor the mislabeled price to uphold good customer service. Some States may have laws regarding this and may protect consumers for in store purchases, but as far as I know BC doesn't have laws forcing businesses to honor a pricing error. There was a similar case where a few people purchased 2 speakers for $99 from the Future Shop online store. It turned out to be a pricing error and the ad should have been for 1 speaker only. Future Shop eventually did honor the offer, but only to maintain good customer service, They were not legally obligated to.

The only thing I can think of that would be against the law would be if mislabeling prices was being used as a business practice to lure customers in. Then again you would need to prove that is common practice for them.

I agree what you encountered doesn't seem very honest and is poor customer service on their part. Your best bet would be to report it to the BBB and Consumer Protection BC http://www.consumerprotectionbc.ca/c...lving-problems

[jaloos]

amwilkie you have some very interesting points.

I have a couple main points as well though.

Before they decided not to honor the sale the bank had already sent the email money transfer. It was already sitting there as full payment monday morning when they opened up. All they had to do was punch in the answer to the security question. The money was as good as theirs. They were sitting there with it when I was called and in his own words "you can pay the difference or we can refund your money" Money cannot be refunded if it was never accepted. If I had agreed to it they would have gladly typed in the 6 letter word and the money would have been instantly in their account. Furthermore if they did not want to honor the sale they also had an option to return or deny the transfer. They did nothing of the sort, they let the money sit in limbo for what would have been 30 days (bank default time out) if the boy had not done a stop payment on it at a cost of 3.50 to himself. Does Walmart make you wait up to 30 days to get your money back on a returned item or is your cash recieved on the spot.

Also the matter of due dilligence. In march we bought a 125cc dirt bike from them and noticed on the following day the price increased by 100 dollars. They did not pursue or back out of the sale at that point. I am not sure if this can be argued as precident or not. My point here is if 2 months ago an item was purchased and after the fact you noticed the price increase on the item is it not due dilligence to check the rest of you pricing.

Their website does not list any type of sales contrct, conditions of sale or any of the usual "fine print" that retailers use to enable them to cover themselves in multiple situations including this type of instance. There is absolutly nothing, not a word.

I have checked and the retailer is obligated to provide the customer with all pertinent information and for lack of a better word contracts.

Disclosure of information
46 (1) A supplier must disclose the following information to a consumer before the consumer enters into a distance sales contract:
(a) the information referred to in sections 19 (a) to (c), (f) to (j) and (n) [required contents of contract] and 23 (2) [required contents of future performance contract];
(b) if available, the supplier's electronic mail address;
(c) a detailed description of the goods or services to be supplied under the contract, including any relevant technical or system specifications;
(d) the currency in which amounts owing under the contract are payable;
(e) the supplier's delivery arrangements, including the identity of the shipper, the mode of transportation and the place of delivery to the consumer;
(f) the supplier's cancellation, return, exchange and refund policies, if any;
(g) any other prescribed information.
(2) The supplier must disclose the information required under subsection (1) in a clear and comprehensible manner.

Note section F. And section g where the simple addition of the term "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" would have more than covered the situation.

And as stated before the sale is a binding contract between 2 parties and is refered to as such in many many instances in the consumer protection act. If you go to an auction and bid on something you are obliged to pay for the item right? By raising your hand you and the seller have entered into a contract of sale. By letting my son go through the entire purchase, close the purchase and furnish information on how to make payment, they too have entered into the sales contract.

I managed a retail outlet and was forced to honor a mispriced item myself many many times.

It is not that I am bummed that my kid did not get an unreal steal of a deal on a bike. It is the fact that they feel they can do this sort of thing in the first place. It has gone far beyond a bike.

Either way this thing plays out the bad publicity will cost them many many times more than the simple 400 bucks extra profit they stood to lose. I am a member on several different forums (all dealing with china bikes)
and the majority of them have sections for retailer reviews. They will certainly not fare well in any of them.

They will still have to either answer the BBB or as they aparently have done in the past just ignore them. Either way its a long way to make up for their BBB rating of F

And I guess any legality issues will be taken care of by Consumer and Corporate Affairs Canada as a formal complaint had been filed against them as promised.

[jaloos]

Originally Posted by Weldangrind

We're gonna need pics!

You bet, as soon as it gets here and is given the once over.

[amwilkie]

I hope this doesn't start an online argument.

As I understand it, you sent to money to them, but they did not accept it. Under the eyes of the law the sale is not complete until they accept payment. I agree what they are doing is not very professional, but you need to understand they listed the item as an "offer to purchase". If they had accepted the money it would be a completely different story. It was an a$$hole move on their part to let the money sit there.

Plain and simple until they accept payment and have sent your son a confirmation email stating that payment has been received and the item will be shipped you do not have a contract, there has been no sale.

As far as the disclosure of information you posted. I agree any business should have one posted on their site, but at the end of the day again you have no contract. Quite often online retailers will also email their terms of sale when they have confirmed your order and accept payment. I know GIO Bike did this when I ordered mine. Do you really expect to lawyer up or have a consumer protection group use the courts to compel Canada Pocket Bikes to honor the advertised price because their website does not list their terms of sale including cancelation information? I know for a fact the terms of sale that was emailed to me from GIO Bike went above and beyond the one on their website. I would imagine if you agreed to pay more to Canada Pocket Bikes they probably would have sent you an email with the terms or sales, of course I'm only speculating this. Instead of thinking of it as they canceled your order or contract, think of it more so as they have refused your offer to purchase.


Out of curiosity when you managed a retail store who "forced" you to honor a mispriced item? Unless it was a court order I don't see who or what could compel you to do that.

It's good to have information like this available on forums though. I know I check out forums for a lot of the products I purchase online. This would definitely discourage me from doing any business with Pocket Bike Canada. I hope the BBB, Consumer Protection BC, or the Office of Consumer Affairs is able to do something for you.

[amwilkie]

I forgot to also say in regards to the disclosure of information, I believe what it means by cancelation is more so their policy if you are to cancel not the seller. For instance this could be a policy of a cancelation fee. If they don't have a policy posted and you were never made aware of it via email then they would have no right to impose a cancelation fee. If however they had it on their site under sale terms they could charge it.

[jaloos]

Originally Posted by amwilkie

I would imagine if you agreed to pay more to Canada Pocket Bikes they probably would have sent you an email with the terms or sales, of course I'm only speculating this. Instead of thinking of it as they canceled your order or contract, think of it more so as they have refused your offer to purchase.

Don't worry no arguments started here.

No from our other purchase 2 months ago they have already sent out all the information that they do. The only thing different in the 2 sales is the fact that they won't honor their offer to sell the item.

As a consumer I do not offer to buy anything I shop for retailers best offer to sell an item. It is not a bid system here it is a companies offer to sell me something not my offer to buy something. I would not have given them a price, say an item is retailed at 1500 and I say I would like to pay 1200 that is my offer to buy. In this instance they are setting the price and I am agreeing to their price and terms (provided they actually have any).

At the end of the day I really do not care what happens as far as the bike goes, he bought a better bike elsewhere end of story.

I do however plan on making their life miserable and costing them as many customers as I can. They need to be made aware that consumer need not stand for these kinds of actions and that in doing so it will cost them revenue. Not only any further revenue from myself but from as many people as I can get the word out to. They have already cost themselves as I had plans on buying a bigger quad at some point this summer. I will be doing so but not from them.

The long and the short of it is they are unscrupulous and decietful in their business practices period. Whether it is illegal is left to been seen but they are definatly dishonest and underhanded and people will be made aware of it. The line I have added to my sig will be added to all the forums I belong to.

[jaloos]

I would really apreciate it if a mod could change the thread tittle to

"Pocket Bike Canada Review" so that people who google Pocket Bike Canada will find this thread and be allowed to read it before having any dealings with them.

[Weldangrind]

Do you want this moved to Reviews as well?