Bike purchasing scheme?

[Robtor]

Today as I left the office and got on the god awful bike i've started using (has been sitting in the shed for about 15years) a collegue said that there's a scheme with Royal Mail where to encourage people to cycle to work,they will buy the bike, and take small amounts from your paycheck to pay it back. (At no interest)

Does anyone know anything about this scheme?

[Big Daz]

https://www.cycle2work.net/employees/auth/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

username - rmguser
password - rmgbenefit

[Tank]

I got a boardman the other week through the scheme, execllent idea well worth it!

[calpsy]

So your hiring the bike is that right ??

Is there an option to buy it after the hire time ?

[Robtor]

From what I gather from reading the website (not 100% sure), after 18months you pay a £35 final fee and if you want to keep it, £9ish tax.

Looks pretty good to me.

Edit:

What will happen at the end of the hire period?
The bike and safety equipment is provided by Royal Mail Group Limited and there is no automatic entitlement for you to take ownership of this at the end of the hire period. Royal Mail Group will charge you a £35 collection/disposal charge at the end of the period. If Royal Mail Group chooses to give you the option to purchase the equipment at the end of the hire, there may be a tax liability which for a £500 bike will be no more than £9 for a basic rate taxpayer

Taking home £3.93 less per week for £500 worth of bike, yes please.

[MisterSitter]

I got a Boardman last summer. They stop £5 odd from my pre tax wages each week. The bike is mine, the ownership will only ever become an issue if you leave and don't pay.

[Indy]

From what I gather from reading the website (not 100% sure), after 18months you pay a £35 final fee and if you want to keep it, £9ish tax.

Looks pretty good to me.

Edit:

What will happen at the end of the hire period?
The bike and safety equipment is provided by Royal Mail Group Limited and there is no automatic entitlement for you to take ownership of this at the end of the hire period. Royal Mail Group will charge you a £35 collection/disposal charge at the end of the period. If Royal Mail Group chooses to give you the option to purchase the equipment at the end of the hire, there may be a tax liability which for a £500 bike will be no more than £9 for a basic rate taxpayer

Taking home £3.93 less per week for £500 worth of bike, yes please.

I did a few sums a year or two ago and found that the deal didn't appear as good as it looked.... well to me anyway.

I found that I could get a last years model at a really good discount (30%?)... I wasn't limited to an arbitrary max cost imposed on me by RM, or a specific 'in the scheme' supplier also the pension situation being a bit worrying etc and RM would deduct IN FULL all outstanding payments from your final pay in the event you left RM before you'd finished the payments.

[Robtor]

Yeah you're right about if you leave RM early, it's a bit of a pain, but otherwise it's a very good deal imo.

10% off store prices, fine that's ok but if you shop around the internet you could easily beat that. However, because the money is deducted before we are taxed, the saving is far greater, infact 78 payments x £3.90 = £304 total, on products that are already 10% off. Ontop of that, the fact it's such a small amount that you'd barely even notice it going is a big help too.

[Indy]

Yeah you're right about if you leave RM early, it's a bit of a pain, but otherwise it's a very good deal imo.

10% off store prices, fine that's ok but if you shop around the internet you could easily beat that. However, because the money is deducted before we are taxed, the saving is far greater, infact 78 payments x £3.90 = £304 total, on products that are already 10% off. Ontop of that, the fact it's such a small amount that you'd barely even notice it going is a big help too.

So £304 for a bike with an RRP of??

[Robtor]

£550.

Though actually after 78 weeks you need to pay a £35 charge making the total £339.

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

You also need to realise that these schemes expect the hirer of the bike (the person having money deducted from wages) to insure the bike during the salary sacrifice. If the bike is damaged or stolen during the hire period, you will owe Royal Mail (or any other employer offering the scheme) a replacement bike or the costs to repair said bike.

The employer is not obliged by law to "sell" the bike to the hirer, even after all the salary sacrifices have been made.

The bike is only officially yours once the employer has agreed to "sell" the bike to you and has given you the "deeds" to said bike.

There's lots of threads about these schemes at bikeradar.com's forums...

[BettySwollocks]

I'm on my 2nd bike through the scheme (Boardman mountain bike sport),
u might like to have a look through this thread http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communit ... =1&t=27480" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

[Indy]

You also need to realise that these schemes expect the hirer of the bike (the person having money deducted from wages) to insure the bike during the salary sacrifice. If the bike is damaged or stolen during the hire period, you will owe Royal Mail (or any other employer offering the scheme) a replacement bike or the costs to repair said bike.

The employer is not obliged by law to "sell" the bike to the hirer, even after all the salary sacrifices have been made.

The bike is only officially yours once the employer has agreed to "sell" the bike to you and has given you the "deeds" to said bike.

There's lots of threads about these schemes at bikeradar.com's forums...

Thats a little 'bleak' isn't it! Maybe from an contractual point of view your correct but I would say that in practice if your bike was stolen then you''d just have to keep paying for it and the only time RM would show any concern was if there wasn't enough money in your final wage packet to clear the debt if you left RM early.

It would be more costly for RM to not sell the bike to you than take it store it and sell it separately so I don't think that anyone needs to be too concerned on that front