thuythieu

New member
Hi All,

What a disappointment in return/exchange policy on bicycle at Canadian Tire store.

On Thursday August 9, 2012, I bought a bike from a Canadian Tire store (#326) for my daughter. We discovered right away the annoying squeaky sound from the rear tire when we tried it out for about 1 hour ride and took the bike back to the store the next day.

After the lengthy long wait line up at the Customer Service counter, they offered to repair the problem which can take 1 or 2 weeks to do but I insist on making a simple straight exchange since they have 3 more same bikes in stock on that day.

The store manager explained it is their policy on bicycles to "repair under warranty" only, there is no refund or exchange option on bicycles. I showed him the big red sign they have at the bicycle section, which reads "ALL BIKES HAVE A STRICT 7 DAY RETURN/EXCHANGE POLICY. BIKE MUST BE IN RESALE CONDITION" and he said that only applies to brand new bikes (never ridden), that my bike was ridden on the road, and that he cannot resale it as new to other customer.

I tried to explain to this manager that when I paid for a new bike at their store, I expect to have a new bike that works as advertised without any problem. First of all, they should never given me a defective bike at the time of my purchase, and I have noway to tell if the bike has any problem without trying it out. I will happily accept the repair offer if the bike malfunction is due to normal wear and tear but all I insist was a simple exchange of a defective bike for another bike they have in the store. Not only I wasted time to bring the bike back to the store and argued with the store manager but I feel they have treated me unfair with their rediculous policy.

I took the bike to another Canadian Tire store in town (#419) and spoke to the store manager overthere. He said he would honour the exchange policy had I purchased the bike at his store (for good will), but I must go back to the store where the bike came from and deal with them.

I sent an email to their Customer Service at their website but it went unanswered.

I finally made a third trip to the store and asked them to repair the bike because my daughter is not happy with that squeaky sound but I SWEAR I will not shop again at Canadian Tire.
 
Indeed, a large number of the complaints at this site and the Canadian Tire facebook page seem to be about defective bicycles.

Sure, some stores (as you discovered) will ‘go beyond’ the bare minimum policy that Head Office requests of its dealers, but you can never know which store is a ‘good one’, and which one will try to screw you over. And a good store can start cutting back on service at any time, without warning.

People at this site try to get the word out to unsuspecting customers, but there are still many unfortunate consumers like yourself who think Canadian Tire has similar policies to the other major retailers. It’s only when something goes wrong that customers find out the ugly truth - Crappy Tire has the worst policies of any major retailer in Canada.

For items that we no longer want, for products that fail to live up to their claims, and for defective products, Canadian Tire always has worse policies than their competitors.

Indeed, their motto isn't, "Bring It On" ..... It's really "Don't Bring It Back".
 
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