Re:
Unfortunately it's reached the situation where I can see that happening. Was promised the chance to collect in person this week with the assurance that the frame would be in their shop by Wednesday; still nothing.
And...a phone call to EB yesterday revealed that they were waiting to get the frame back from the enamelling workshop and that there was a delay "due to it needing tapping out". Now, I was told back on Jan 25th that the frame was all ready for collection and duly paid for it in full, so have they let slip that the work was never actually done by January? May not have done themselves any favours there...
There was another case in The Guardian a few years back: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/dec/17/raleigh-classic-cycle-repair-deposit-lost
Much obliged - I'll try to remember to post in here if/when it reaches a conclusionYeah, he seemed like a genuine fellow. But never answered emails and I always fobbed off by his side kick when I phoned. Before I finally picked mine up, I called twice during the week answered on the morning to remind them that i was coming and to confirm it was ready. When I got there it took 5 minutes to find and they hadn't refitted the head badge (or sourced and fitted the Ken Russell Tour of Britain decal they'd promised). I then had to hang about whilsthe fit the badge.
I just remembered that he's on here aa gibbo1982
Good luck!
Well, this is the curious thing, isn't it? From what I can gather he's phoenixed the company once already, since when he's ostensibly had this habit of arbitrarily holding customers' bikes/frames (ghosting for months on end); had it been just the once, the creditor explanation would have been understandable.It's a shame when established businesses like this go to the wall, they generally end up owing a lot of creditors and if your frame had been sub-contracted out to one of them and Gibbons can't afford (or has more pressing creditors to pay) then it will probably never get done. My grandparents had a watch repair store that went to the wall around 2010, they had watches needing collection going back to 1985…! Unfortunately it's only when people hear of an impending closure that they are interested to get their stuff back.
Good luck anyway, but I wouldn't hold my breath over any monetary compensation.