Blasted Scooter

One of the first posts I ever wrote on this blog was about my scooter... then I told you about the time someone tried to steal it... and now I'm writing to tell you we sold it.  (sad face)  Sold it, gave it away, were ripped off, I'm not really sure how to word it.  After someone tried to steal the scooter, we were bummed, and not exactly in the mood to pay for the repairs (and of course some how the damage didn't fall under insurance).  But when summer rolled around we decided to go ahead, do minor repairs, and then get rid of it.  The minor repairs were necessary to sell it, but those repairs turned out to cost €95.  In order to actually get the scooter running properly they wanted and additional €240.  There was no way we were going to pay that just to sell it, we left the scooter at the shop for a couple weeks while we debated what to do.  My husband was ready to give up, he said we should just give the scooter to the shop (they resell 2nd hand scooters) and call it even.  We'd make nothing and lose nothing.  This was hard to accept (we paid a lot for the scooter) so I went in search for an alternative.  I came across what I thought was a great website/service, ikwilvanmijnscooteraf.nl  (Wow, was I wrong!)

This company helps you sell your scooters to dealers/garages instead of privately, they promised us €150 for the old beat-up scooter.  It wasn't much, but it would cover our costs and we'd make a little profit.  We picked up our scooter from the shop and anxiously awaited for the appointment the middleman had arranged.  Unfortunately, everything after that went wrong.  Turned out we didn't have part of the registration we needed, which costs us an extra €35 and on top of that it was really difficult to get a hold of the buyer (Garage Schneider from Schiedam).  According to the contract with the middleman we had to make an appointment within 2 days with the buyer and we were also required to follow through with the sale, a breach of contract would cost us €300.  Of course I started growing nervous when it was difficult to make the appointment, I didn't want to break the contract.  Eventually the documents were in order and the garage was on its way to pay cash for the scooter.  But when they finally turned up, they claimed the scooter was in worse condition than the middleman had described and they were only willing to give me €50 instead of €150.  This left us with no option, if we decided not to sell it would be a breach of contract, so basically they ripped us off.  Both companies only profited, it inevitably costs us €80.  We would have been better off just calling it even with the first shop.  Of course I filed a complaint at ikwilvanmijnscooteraf.nl they put us in a horrible situation, and you know what, they never even bothered to respond to the complaint!  I would never recommend either company to anyone, they willingly set us up and didn't follow through with their promises.  I was sick to my stomach by the end of it, but at least the scooter is out of the way and we no longer have to pay insurance on something we're not even using.