So sadly common, among naive Canadian shoppers:
Tracey L.:
I wanted to post about my experience this week at Canadian Tire. We bought a bike for my son's birthday on June 2nd at the new massive Canadian Tire in Edmonton. It wasn't an overly expensive bike ($100), but for what he'd be using it fore, we thought it was a good enough deal. We spent nearly $180 by the time we bought him a helmet, bell, lock etc. Tuesday night, after we got home, my husband had to spend hours tuning it, as the gears kept shifting. Wednesday, my son rode it for the first time and within a few blocks, the chain had fallen right off. Wednesday night, my husband spend another fair amount of time fixing the chain again. Thursday night, my son rode it again and the pedal fell right off and broke. At this point, we decided that perhaps it wasn't the right choice and wanted to return it. I pulled the receipt out of my wallet and noticed on the receipt that pre built bikes were non refundable. At NO time where we told this at the point of purchase from the cashier, however upon phoning the store today we were told that once we left the store with the bike, it was non refundable. They offered to fix the chain if we brought the bike back and when my husband asked if this offer was good every week because the chain and bike mechanisms are SO bad, that's what it will take...we were told no. Of course not! Should I have checked the receipt before leaving the store? Perhaps - but how many people actually do that? Did the cashier tell us about this policy at any time? No. This was a cheaper bike, I get that, but $100 is still $100 and now my son has NO bike. There are no words to express how angry I am. We had already picked out the bike we were going to exchange it for at Canadian Tire. Now Canadian Tire has lost a customer for good on top of the extra cash they would have made from the difference on another bike. Well done Canadian Tire on some great customer service.