One thing we insist on is that the only bike that comes in with a customer is the one to be worked on. If someone has two bikes then the other gets to wait outside. Staff for a given shift get an enclosed area to stuff their bikes into, but everyone else (including volunteers) has to keep their bike outside in the rack. We even put a note on our webpage asking folks to bring a lock with them, since they cannot keep their bikes inside while waiting for stand space.
Two reasons for this. 1) our shop gets quite crowded during the busy season, and so we need to reduce clutter. And 2), as in your case, a bike can get mistaken for a donation or for sale (though the latter rarely happens because all our For Sale bikes have worksheets on them).
We've never had a case of someone claiming that a donated bike was theirs, but we did have an incident where staff recognized a customer's bike as very similar to one posted in our shop as stolen. I approached the fellow and pointed this out. He made a call and then said "I just talked to the guy I bought the bike from and don't like the answer he gave me. Please keep the bike and contact the owner". So that one worked out well for us.
One incident was rather funny: a customer, under permission from a staffer who should've known better, had left his bike in our rear room leaning against our As Is shelf while he volunteered in the main room while he waited for stand space. One of our other staff, working on the As Is bikes, grabbed that for his next one and started in on it. Got the front brakes redone before the customer came back and started looking for his bike. Once it was all sorted out the big laugh was that he'd brought his bike in to work on the front brakes! So he made a cash donation for the unintended free work, and said he'd be back to learn about brakes when his rear ones needed fixing.
Mark Rehder - Coordinator re-Cycles Community Bike Shop http://re-cycles.ca
On 2015-07-03, at 1:33 PM, Andrew Shooner wrote:
We're in the midst of a nasty situation where a new visitor parked her bike in our Donated/To Be Assessed pile, then left it there for a week. It was a good bike, and it sold quickly. Fortunately we know the buyer, and we're probably going to get it all sorted out.
Does anyone use a bike check-in or claim ticket process to avoid this sort of thing? We've also had some issues with visitors either claiming a shop bike was theirs, or ownership of a visitor's bike coming into question (one visitor claiming another stole it). It seems like some way to check a bike in could help, but we don't want to add much drag to our shop process.
Any ideas?
Andy
Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop Lexington KY
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