cycle to work scheme stitch up! help required

[South Bound]

Count yourself lucky that your employer is part of the scheme, wish mine was :evil:

 

[magicmistertea]

my mate used this scheme, he found a bike he wanted at his LBS , he got halfords to order the bike from his LBS, and then............. he sorted out a deal with the LBS to upgrade a load of bits on it, all with a little extra money, effectively making it a custom built bike , perhaps a bit naughty as it took him well over the cost threshold, but hey its just bending the rules a little bit and now he actually has the bike he wanted.

 

[jonnyboy666]

actually i did discover one thing, and bearing in mind i have done this for customers on cycle scheme myself at the old shop, unless the employer has a consumer credit liscense the bike can't go over a grand by the customer adding money because it brings in to question who owns the bike, because technically it's a hire purchase. but apparently the whole scheme could be dropped nationally if people abuse it which i didn't know about, and by abuse, it means adding money to it. seems silly to me but aparrently that's right.

and southbound i am chuffed they're doing the scheme but not chuffed at how they're doing it.

i'm sorry if i appear bikesnobby but you get that way after a while in the trade!

 

[amt27]

i looked into using this scheme when i bought a new bike, i was going to get my girlfriend to use the scheme through her work, cos i was a student at the time,

she works for a large high street bank and they would only lend (the scheme effectively involves borrowing money from the employer, you pay it back over a year from untaxed earnings) the money if she took out an insurance package from her employer (payment protection insurance, the same as the rip off schemes you get with credit cards) to cover the loan, which i thought was very wrong,

 

[paddy01]

I think there's a point been missed here that was made earlier, if you pick a bike from your LBS and then set up with Halfauds for them to get the bike from your LBS and then you simply pick it up from Halfauds, then the LBS is still getting the sale and hence the money.

 

[kaiser]

Can't you just buy a bike from your LBS? You'll get a good discount, no?

 

[jonnyboy666]

the scheme gets you a tax relief that is way better than trade price. i'm gonna get the grand voucher then push for getting it through my old shop.

thanks for the advice guys

 

[Russell]

Count yourself lucky that your employer is part of the scheme, wish mine was :evil:

Absolutely. Tell you what, if you're that dead set against Halfords, use your own money to pay full price for the bike you want from the shop you want.

 

[amt27]

i've heard people using the scheme to buy bikes for their kids for xmas,

it's badly implemented, should be "prove you cycle to work and we will give you a rebate" scheme,

 

[FluffyChicken]

For anyone wanting more info on this (no I don't work from them, just happend to find it useful when looking in to it)
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/h/option/cycletowork
gives quite good information about the governments cycle to work scheme.