Terms and conditions

Current as of 12 October 2026. These terms are the contract between you and Retrace. They are governed by French law, and the French version is the one that prevails.

Retrace analyses second-hand bicycle adverts and tells you when one of them looks like yours. Retrace does not file your complaint, never writes to the seller, and does not go and fetch the bike. You file the complaint, the police make the arrest and return the bike.

1. Who publishes the service

The service is published under the name Retrace. The address and the contacts are in the legal notice.

2. What this document covers

These terms govern access to the Retrace website and application, the free Record plan and the paid Search subscription. You accept them when you create an account, and again with every order.

They are written for private individuals. Professional use (rental, shop, fleet, insurer, local authority) needs a separate written agreement.

The privacy policy and the legal notice form part of these terms.

3. What Retrace does

1. You register your bike: photos, description, serial number, marking number, distinguishing marks.
2. If the bike is stolen, you declare it stolen on its record.
3. Retrace analyses the adverts published on the marketplaces it covers, and compares each one to your bike, component by component.
4. When an advert looks enough like your bike, Retrace alerts you by email and SMS, with the advert and the next step.
5. Retrace gives you a comparison report and a guide to the steps to take, country by country.

4. What Retrace does not do

This is the most important part of this document.

• Retrace files no complaint in your name. Filing a complaint is free and personal. You file it, online or at a police station.
• Retrace never contacts the seller. No message, no call, no meeting, no purchase, no approach under a false identity. Retrace does not carry out the private investigation activity regulated by article L. 621-1 of the French internal security code, and offers no investigation, surveillance or person-tracing service.
• Retrace does not recover the bike and does not go anywhere on your behalf. Only the police can seize the bike and return it to you, after the procedure.
• Retrace is not the police, not a lawyer, not an insurer, not a court expert. The information about procedures is practical guidance, not personalised legal advice.
• Retrace has no link with the marketplaces named. No partnership, no affiliation, no representation. Their brands only say where the service looks.
• Retrace does not guarantee that your bike will be found. The obligation taken on is one of means: analyse the adverts on the sites covered, compare them seriously, tell you quickly.

5. Your account

The account is for adults with legal capacity. One account per person, under a real identity.

You are responsible for the accuracy of your information, for keeping your credentials private, and for everything done from your account. Tell us at once if someone else gets in.

You can request account closure at any time, from the account or by email. An account deletion request made through your account immediately stops searches and alerts and requests subscription cancellation. If cancellation is still awaiting confirmation, the account is retained until it is completed. Account deletion does not, by itself, trigger a refund or limit your rights under article 11. Statutory retention is explained in the privacy policy.

6. What you declare when you register a bike

• The bike is yours, or you are acting with the owner's agreement.
• The photos are yours, or you have the right to supply them.
• What you say about the bike and about the theft is true.
• You are not registering someone else's bike in order to follow that person, or for any purpose other than finding a bike stolen from you.

A false theft declaration ends the contract, with no refund. Reporting to the police a theft that never happened, or claiming it from an insurer, is a criminal offence in France (articles 434-26 and 313-1 of the criminal code).

7. Your photos and content

Your photos and text stay yours. For the duration of the contract, and for the retention periods set out in the privacy policy, you grant Retrace the right to host them, display them in your own space, process them technically (resizing, cropping, computing visual signatures) and pass them to the providers that run those steps, for the sole purpose of operating the service.

Nothing is published, nothing is sold, nothing is used for advertising. No unlawful content, and no photo taken in breach of someone else's rights.

8. Plans and prices

Prices are in euros, including French VAT at 20 %. No hidden fees.

One subscription covers one bike. A second bike needs a second subscription.

Prices can change. A change is announced by email at least one month in advance, applies only to later periods, and you can cancel free of charge before it takes effect.

9. Ordering and payment

Payment is by card, in a form served by our provider Stripe from its own domain. No card number reaches Retrace, its logs or its servers.

The first week is charged when you order, then every week on the same day. The order is firm only once Stripe confirms the payment.

If a charge fails, it is retried over a few days. Without payment the search is suspended. The record, the photos and the file stay in your garage.

Every payment produces an invoice, sent by email.

10. Term, renewal, cancellation

Search is an ongoing service billed weekly. The subscription renews automatically each week until cancelled, on the terms disclosed when you order and subject to your statutory rights.

You can cancel at any time, without reason and without charge, from your account’s subscription page through the function required by article L. 215-1-1 of the French consumer code, or by email to contact@retrace.bike.

Using the account control stops searching and alerts immediately and requests subscription cancellation. Your account shows whether cancellation is confirmed or still awaiting confirmation from the payment provider. A stopped search does not, by itself, mean that subscription cancellation has already been confirmed.

Your bike record and photos remain available for as long as you keep them. Ordinary cancellation does not automatically refund the current week or its remaining days. It does not limit the withdrawal right in article 11 or your statutory guarantees.

11. Withdrawal and refunds

A 14-day period, regardless of weekly billing. You can withdraw without giving a reason within fourteen days of the initial conclusion of your Search contract (articles L. 221-18 and following of the French consumer code). The day the contract is concluded is not counted. If the period ends on a Saturday, Sunday or public or non-working holiday, it extends to the next working day.

An ordinary weekly renewal on the terms already disclosed does not restart this period. This does not limit any fresh right or extension required by law. In particular, missing mandatory withdrawal information can extend the period by twelve months after its original expiry; if that information is supplied during the extension, the period ends fourteen days after receipt (article L. 221-20).

Starting before the period ends. Before payment, your express request to start immediately is recorded through a specific checkbox, separately from acceptance of the terms. Placing an order or using the service alone is not an express request.

Retrace provides an ongoing search service rather than delivering a digital file. Starting the service, completing a first comparison or reaching the end of the first week does not, by itself, fully perform the contract. The exception for fully performed services can apply only under the conditions of article L. 221-28, 1°, including prior express consent and acknowledgement that the right will be lost once the contract is fully performed.

Refund amount. If you expressly requested an early start and received information about its cost on withdrawal, only the service actually provided up to the time you communicate your withdrawal remains payable, in proportion to the agreed price. The refund is the total paid for that subscription minus this amount, calculated from the service time actually provided. Payments already taken for a new week are included in this calculation.

For example, ten full days of service at €3.89 per week, with two payments totalling €7.78, cost €5.56. The refund is €2.22. Without an express early-start request, or without the required prior information about this cost, nothing is payable for the service provided during that period (article L. 221-25).

How to withdraw. Use the online withdrawal function, email contact@retrace.bike or send the model form in the annex. Any unambiguous statement is sufficient. Include your name and information identifying the subscription. Send the statement before the period expires; it does not require support approval.

The online function lets you provide or confirm your identity, the relevant subscription and the email address for the acknowledgement, then confirm withdrawal. An acknowledgement on a durable medium is sent without undue delay, including your statement and the date and time of submission (articles L. 221-21 and D. 221-5).

Payments and the calculation are reviewed manually. Any refund due is made without undue delay and no later than fourteen days after we receive your withdrawal, using the same payment method. Another method requires your express agreement and must not involve any fee. Receipt of your statement does not mean that an instant refund has already been issued.

Outside withdrawal. Ordinary cancellation, finding your bike, an absence of alerts or results, closing your account or deleting a record do not, by themselves, entitle you to a refund of the current week. These situations do not limit your statutory guarantees or other refund rights.

Duplicate charges and billing errors are corrected, and amounts wrongly charged are refunded. A lack of conformity gives rise to the remedies in article 16, which may include a price reduction or termination with a refund under the legal conditions. If Retrace terminates through no fault of yours, the part not provided is refunded (article 18).

The Record plan is free, so there is no payment to refund. You can delete the record or close your account under article 5.

12. Alerts

Alerts go out by email, and by SMS when the resemblance passes the threshold that justifies interrupting you. They are sent as soon as the advert has been analysed and compared.

No delay is guaranteed: the analysis depends on the marketplaces, their protections, their availability and ours.

An alert is not proof. It is an advert to look at. There can be misleading resemblances, and missed adverts: a repainted bike, missing or blurred photos, a site that has become unreachable, a hand-to-hand sale.

13. The report, and what you do with it

The report compares your bike and the advert, component by component, with the photos and the signals it relied on. It is not a court expert's report, not proof of theft, and not an accusation. The person selling is presumed to be acting in good faith until a court says otherwise.

By using Retrace you undertake to:

• not write to the seller, not meet them alone, not pay them anything, and not report the advert to the marketplace before you have seen the police;
• not publish the advert, the report, the seller's username, photo or profile, on social networks or anywhere else;
• make no threats and accuse no one publicly. A false accusation to the authorities is a criminal offence (article 226-10 of the French criminal code), and a public accusation can be defamation (law of 29 July 1881);
• hand the report only to the police, your insurer or your lawyer.

Breaking these undertakings is your sole responsibility and allows immediate termination of the contract.

14. Prohibited uses

• Registering someone else's bike to locate, follow or watch it.
• Using the service, the adverts or the report to identify, profile or harass a person.
• Extracting or reusing a substantial part of the service's data, including the adverts analysed and the bike database (article L. 342-1 of the French intellectual property code).
• Automating access, probing, bypassing a technical limit, reselling access, creating fake accounts.
• Declaring a bike stolen when it is not.

15. Availability and changes

The service is provided as is, with no commitment of continuous availability. Maintenance windows, outages and changes happen.

The list of marketplaces covered can change: a site can close, change its rules or block access. If an important source becomes unreachable for a long period, we will say so, and you can cancel free of charge.

16. Legal guarantee

You have the statutory guarantee of conformity for digital content and services (articles L. 224-25-12 and following of the French consumer code). You can request that the service be brought into conformity free of charge. In the cases provided by law, including refusal, unjustified delay, an unsuccessful attempt to restore conformity or a sufficiently serious defect, you can obtain a price reduction or termination with the corresponding refund. A minor defect does not allow termination of a paid contract. This guarantee remains available after the withdrawal period and can be invoked by email. It does not automatically provide a full refund for every incident.

17. Liability

Retrace owes an obligation of means.

Retrace is not liable for: the outcome of your complaint, decisions taken by the police or the prosecutor, the behaviour of a seller or a third party, the content of adverts, the unavailability of a marketplace, a bike that is not found, or the consequences of any contact you made with a seller against article 13.

For any damage for which Retrace is liable, compensation is limited to the amounts paid for the subscription over the previous twelve months.

Nothing in this article limits liability in case of fraud, gross negligence or personal injury, nor the legal guarantees.

18. Suspension and termination by Retrace

In case of serious breach, fraud, unpaid charges or a false declaration, the service can be suspended and then terminated, after a formal notice by email left without effect for fifteen days. Suspension is immediate if the fraud is obvious or if the security of the service requires it.

Unless you are at fault, the unused part of the subscription is refunded.

19. Personal data

How your data is processed is described in the privacy policy.

20. Intellectual property

The name Retrace, the site, the application, the texts, the visuals, the code and the databases are protected. You receive a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use them, limited to the term of the contract. Any reproduction, extraction or reuse beyond that use is prohibited.

The marketplaces' trade marks belong to their owners.

21. Changes to these terms

These terms can change. Subscribers are told by email at least one month before a change takes effect, and can cancel free of charge until then. For free use, the published version applies.

22. Complaints

Write to us first: the address is in the legal notice. We answer within fifteen days.

23. Miscellaneous

Force majeure. Neither party is liable for a failure caused by an event of force majeure within the meaning of article 1218 of the French civil code.

Evidence. The service's logs are evidence of connections, orders and alerts sent, unless proved otherwise.

Transfer. The contract can be transferred with the business; your rights stay the same and you can cancel.

Severability. If one clause is held invalid, the others remain in force.

24. Governing law and courts

French law applies. In case of a dispute you can bring it before the court where you lived when the contract was made, the court for the place where the damage occurred, or the court for the publisher's registered address (article R. 631-3 of the French consumer code).

Annex. Model withdrawal form

Send this back only if you wish to withdraw from the contract.

To Retrace, 5 parvis Alan Turing, 75013 Paris, France, contact@retrace.bike

I hereby give notice that I withdraw from my contract for the following service:

• Ordered on: ...
• Consumer's name: ...
• Consumer's address: ...
• Signature (only if this form is sent on paper): ...
• Date: ...