Shop sells customer’s bike

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The following story from Sweden is funny in a way though I’m sure the ladies involved were not exactly laughing at the time. Having cycled to a second-hand charity shop in Gävle in eastern Sweden, two friends found that the charity shop had sold one of their bicycles while they were inside shopping.

Ulla Öderyd and Eveline Olsson had parked and locked their bikes in a bicycle stand outside the shop but after spending just under an hour in the shop they found that the bike that Ulla had cycled to the shop on was missing.

Ulla’s initial thoughts that the bike had been stolen were dispelled when one of the shop’s staff told her the bike had been sold by the charity shop’s manager. He had broken the lock on the bike to get it free.

”I asked them; ‘Do you sell locked bikes?’ I didn’t get what they were saying,” Ulla told local paper Gefle Dagblad.

Expensive bike

The bike in question was worth 5,000 Swedish Kronor (£475) and had been lent to Ulla by Eveline. The charity shop sold it on for 350 kronor (£34).

It turns out that Ulla and Eveline had parked their bikes in a stand that featured bikes for sale and was not supposed to be for customer use. There were no markings on the stand to say that bikes on the stand were for sale.

Happy ending

The story ends well though. After hearing about the incident, the person who had purchased the bike from the charity shop brought it back to the shop. The bike has now been returned to Eveline.

The charity shop has been very apologetic for the part it played in the bike being sold. It sent flowers to Ulla and a gift voucher for 500 Swedish Kronor (£50) to make up for the distress of the whole incident.

See also

Fashion houses jump on the cycling bandwagon
A step in the right direction

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