Hey Roadie72,
Thanks for sharing what happened, really sorry to hear you had this experience!
Let’s talk about fake bikes concern first. Counterfeit goods are a strictly forbidden on buycycle. If we catch wind of something like that, the user gets blocked straight away, and our buyer protection has your back. This means if you were to buy a bike that was listed as original but turns out to be a fake, you wouldn’t lose your money.
Regarding our reviews:
All of our 7840 reviews on Trustpilot are fully verified, which means Trustpilot ensured that these are authentic. No AI or fake reviews to be found here. We care about our customers and want potential new users to have an accurate impression of how others felt about their experience with us.
Now, regarding your specific order:
First of all, this is of course far from the kind of experience we want our customers to have. As a marketplace, we do everything we can make sure that both you, as the buyer, as well as the seller are fully protected. As a buyer, you can check the bike before any money goes to the seller and raise a claim in case anything differs from the description/photos. As you did, we also encourage everyone to use the chat with the seller to check if the bike is as described and to evaluate potential risks.
Our policies are in place for a fair balance between seller and buyer interests.
I get that even though the bike was declared as a crash bike, you didn’t expect any structural damage, and most likely the seller was not aware of the this themselves.
To protect you as a the buyer in cases like this, you have 48 hours to check the bike once it has arrived to make sure everything is okay.
Unfortunately, since you informed us about the damages 10 days after delivery and you already having actively confirmed the bike is okay and as described, raising a claim was no longer possible in this case.
If there is anything else I can help out with, please feel free to reach out to us anytime!
All the best,
Boris from buycycle