Re: [NTLK] OT: Need someone in London

~~~ On 2006/08/07 21:41, Heiko Cultus at ching@gmx.de wrote ~~~

> Hi,
> It is way off Topic, but i am looking for someone in London. I want
> to buy a Mountainbike and I found a webpage of a shop in London, WC1A
> 1BS, 73 New Oxford Street, with real low prices for Cannondalebikes.
> But I don't know if I can trust this offer. Maybe someone could look
> or know, if there is really a bike shop and contact me?
>
> best regards,
> Heiko from germany
>
>

Dear Heiko,

You didn't tell us the name of the company or store you're talking about.
And there's no link to look at. So, the following is a lot of "maybe
maybe", built out of a little data.

I'm in Oxford rather than London, but that's a part of London I know because
of its proximity to places I visit a lot. I couldn't remember a bike shop
in the area that would be *73* New Oxford St. There are shops in that area
but I don't recall a bike shop. So I got curious, and we did a few searches
to see if a shop selling bicycles might have moved in recently.

That post code goes a wide variety of addresses on and around New Oxford St.
So I looked some more. It includes a lot of different kinds of things, for
example, there's the head office of a global pharmaceutical company
(http://www.maynepharma.com/Global/contactus_324.asp), a couple of pubs, an
umbrella shop, a church, a computer retailer, a camera shop, a bunch of
restaurants and food bars, some car parks, and ...well, you get the idea.
There are a lot of different shops and offices. But I found no bicycle
retailer in WC1A 1BS.

The address itself, OTOH, was untraceable so far, not only as a bicycle shop
but as *anything*. That doesn't prove that there is nothing there, just
that so far, the various resources at my disposal (it's too late for me to
go to London and look) turn up nothing at number 73.

Are you dealing with a bike shop or some kind of general catalogue store
that also sells bicycles? I suppose there could be some kind of mail-order
business (reputable or otherwise) in one of the office blocks on New Oxford
Street. Without the website or company name it's hard even to look.

For now I'd say, proceed cautiously. Is there any ID on the company's
website that says it's legitimately registered as a British company, and
that you could check at Companies House?

Otherwise, the saying is, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is
...

And if I come up with more or better information I'll write to you off-list
to avoid too much [OT] traffic.

Shalom.
Christian

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