any advice on avoiding stolen bikes

Whoever had the bike stolen in the first place should count themselves very lucky that the Police are actually bothering to look into it. My experience with being the victim of a bike theft (a one-off Zaskar Carbon 4X ex team bike no less) is that they take your details and a couple of photos of the bike as a formality, wait a week and then file it in 'unsolved' (basically what seems to be a big black hole into which anything the Police deem as unimportant or too much hard work gets dumped and forgotten about). This is regardless of the fact that the victim (me) had given the Police a very good idea of who actually nicked it, and given them the details of the company they worked for, and the van that they used to take it away in...

However, that's just my experience.
 
i am not a dodgy person or indeed a criminal i thought sharing this may infact stop this happening to someone else i thought like many had pointed out give the police the receipt and they would take the recently purchased bike and go get the real criminal not the case they looked at it put it in an evidence bag and proceded to take everything else in my bike/parts collection and as someone else kindly said perhaps they thought my laptop was stolen i had bought that new and had the receipt so my point i have been chasing my tail trying to get across is this could happen to any other unsuspecting buyer/seller im not really sure why i feel i should have to justify myself to anyone as like i say i have had bikes stolen in the past but in my experience i was even more inconvenienced when the bike i purchased happened to be stolen. imagine having all your bikes and parts taken not actually knowing when they would be returned or if indeed they would at all
i couldnt just file an insurance claim and move on !!!
 
grover1979":1qgmclb2 said:
i understand the explanation ect my point is infact this
i feel this story should have been shared with others so that perhaps someone else would not be put through what i was. and with the joys of internet nowadays it is easy for criminals to pass their wares many miles away from where they were stolen. the fact i decided the bike was not suited to my riding style decided to flip it for a small profit had i not done this i would still be riding it right now and possibly for many years undetected as a stolen bike it may have then been sold to another unsuspecting buyer and so on my point is how many of you could be riding about on stolen bikes and if the same was to happen you too could find yourself in this situation no one is exempt from the law i thought a receipt would proove it was bought in good faith obviously not the case
Click to expand...
What I'm struggling with, is why they wouldn't just contact you / come 'round for a chat, first - check out some details.

Seems in this instance, they went for the nuclear option first, pre-emptive strike, and would have probably needed some red-tape organising. As somebody else in the thread went to detail about what would have had to be arranged to do all of that, I'm not getting why just a single claim of a stolen bike would make them do all that. So with that in mind, I can't help but think there's something you're not telling - 'cos I'm not buying that's a typical response.

You may think that's suspicious minds, and you may think it's unfair - but something just seems off - whether that's because you haven't disclosed something pertinent, or whether it's some true anomaly and conspiracy, I can't say, but something doesn't add up.

Having said all that - I'm done, I'm out - I've said my piece.
 
you are entitled to your oppinion perhaps they did think i had a house full of stolen goods the fact of the matter is i didnt so unless you have been in this situation or are indeed a police officer i do not think you can pass judgement or comment on this one
who knows perhaps it may happen to you sometime
 
maybe if you talked to them in the same manner in which you writethat is with no puncuation then that would explain why they may have become irritated and gone to such extreme lengths as you have detailed and arrested you and taken your bike collection and parts and laptop and made you spend the night in the cells and made you feel like a criminal did you get any of your stuuf back by the way ;)

(the wink smiley is intended to indicate that I am using a slice of sarcasm to lighten the mood a little, and that I am not being an arse)

G
 
yes i did get my bikes laptop and phone back after many agonizing months. I mearly put this on to warn others that the person selling you that dodgy bicycle may not be the stereotypical junkie type but may infact seem genuine and actually know what they are talking about with bikes. I had always thought i had sense when it came to buying and selling bikes. I think the lesson in this one is you never really know what you are getting into unless you actually see an original purchase receipt. How many people have that?
i know one thing for sure that is the only way i will ever buy a used bicycle ever again hope that punctuation was a little better for you.
;)
 
i get your point but that was probably part of a bigger picture ie somebody was caught selling stolen bikes/parts police had taken computer/other means of sale and contact and whilst trawling their transactions found most to be stolen/iffy and therefore contacted buyers of goods from that person as i was the one found to be selling said item i would have been the first point of call and infact the police thought they may be entering an alladins cave of stolen goods which they were not so perhaps the initial reason for the heavy handed approach. I think the fact i had pointed them in the direction of the person i had bought from should speak for itself .
like i say how many of you may be unwittingly using stolen bikes/parts and they may keep doing the rounds for ever.
as i say it has really opened my eyes to the secondhand bike market an expensive lesson albeit
 
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