SendBike transport service

[DNOMcRae]

In case you were thinking of using SendBike to transport your bikes to Europe I would like to share with you our experience. We contacted SendBike in August 2023 to organise delivery of two bikes to southern Spain for a six week cycling holiday including a return to the UK and insurance for loss and damages. They promptly took payment and arranged a pickup and return dates for 4th January 2024 (pickup UK) and return from Spain 16th February 2024 using DHL as the courier. We also provided information required for custom clearance in Spain i.e. passport numbers, contents and addresses etc. The bikes were picked up on the 4th Jan. and delivered to Barcelona on the 8th January 2024 at which point it all fell apart.

The first indication that something was amiss was when we received an email from DHL on the 9th Jan. requesting information on the contents of the boxes and the purpose of our visit. We replied stating that SendBike was given this information to pass on to DHL who promptly replied that they had not received any information about our bikes. When we asked SendBike about this they told us to deal with DHL ourselves as they would not talk to SendBike about the shipment (so what did we pay SendBike for?).

I won’t bore you with the details of the next 5 1/2 weeks of email traffic between us and DHL but suffice to say our bikes never left the Barcelona customs facility and we had to incur an extra cost of hiring bikes to salvage what remained of our ruined holiday.

We returned to the UK on the 19th February and our bikes were delivered back to our UK address on the 21st February but with damage to one of the bike boxes. We then contacted SendBike to arrange a full refund as they failed on their promise to deliver door to door our bikes. We also requested compensation for the damaged bike box via the insurance we bought from them. This has now been over 2 weeks since we complained and requested the refund with no success. They have not acknowledged their responsibility in any of this, furthermore they keep passing us on to different people in their company (we are now on the forth) who simply request the same information over and over again.

So if you are going to use SendBike you will basically pay them to ring up DHL and arrange a pick up date. If things do go wrong you are on your own and as far as compensation is concerned forget about it. I sincerely recommend you find an alternative to using them.

[yoav]

Brexit has basically killed this business model, irrespective of this company's poor business practice. I would travel with my bike, every time, no matter how inconvenient. Or arrange hire at the destination.

[DNOMcRae]

Yes, very true, we certainly would not be doing this again.  Since we tend to go away for 6-8 weeks, hiring 2 decent bikes can be very expensive.  I think we will buy them in Spain next time while we are there and arrange a storage option at our friend's place.