"Stolen" Canndonale HT at Costa Mesa Swapmeet?

[kanga]

Originally Posted by Smirnus

FROM MTBR: READ IT AND EAT ME!!! Hopefully no one else will ignore their instincts because common sense may not be politically correct.

6 Days Ago #1 El Caballo
Blanco
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 954


What to do when your bike is stolen: some things I've learned
EDIT: I've recovered my bike, so some combination of these things can work!

Since my recumbent is such an obvious bike, it's been sighted several times on the road to recovery. Based on this, I can offer some advice:

First, spring into action IMMEDIATELY. The longer it's out there, the less chance you have of ever seeing it again.

1) Call police and report it stolen the *second* you realize it, even if you don't have the serial number with you. The thief might still be riding or wheeling it around, and the police might see them. They'll give you a case number: call later and add the serial number to the case file. Sometimes the case officer will have email and you can send them a picture of the bike, which helps a lot. If not, print/copy one and take it down there yourself to add to the file.

2) Call local bike shops *immediately*. Don't just call the ones that deal in used bikes: thieves will sometimes take it to random places on their way to wherever. In my case, the thief walked right by the Bent Spoke (used bikes, whom I contacted right away) and walked into Tip Top (new bikes only) with a *videotape* of my bicycle, asking "how much is a bike like this worth?" I can't make this up.

3) Post a stolen bike alert in the "bikes for sale" section on Craigslist and put up physical flyers in the area where it was stolen. Offer a reward with no questions asked. Sometimes this works, especially for unusual bikes that are hard to sell, but you have to actually follow through on it. If it does work, stifle your curiosity. Just pay the tax, take your bike, get out of there, and be glad you got it back.

4) Thieves want money, fast. In the East Bay, this means they will often go to the flea market *the next morning* to sell it, usually for pennies on the dollar. Go early: they open at 7 AM and hot stuff tends to get sold in the first few hours. My bike was reportedly gone at 9 AM.

Ashby (Saturday/Sunday)
Laney (Sunday, maybe Saturday also? I get conflicting info)
Oakland Coliseum (Tuesday-Saturday)

I was told by many bike shops that Ashby and Laney were the hot spots, but I hit Ashby in both the morning and evening and I didn't see anything that looked too sketchy. Maybe it's been cleaned up, or maybe I was just there on a good day.

Laney, OTOH, was FULL of hot bikes and other merchandise. I saw probably 6-7 bicycles that were obviously stolen. It's the guys with a booth that looks like the contents of an apartment that are suspicious...when you see someone selling a DVD player, a couple car stereos, some CDs and DVDs, a cell phone, a computer, and a Tommasso with full Ultegra...

Note that the guys that buy and sell low-end bicycles are generally legit. Talk to them and ask them if they've seen your bike. Offer them a cash reward, no questions asked, and leave your *cell phone* (i.e. not your home phone where they can reverse lookup your address). The thief will usually sell a $1000 bike for about $50, so even if you have to pay off the vendor too you're coming out way ahead. If you talk to enough of these guys you will have the flea markets covered. That's how I found out what happened to my bike, though since I went to the wrong market the day it got sold I wasn't able to get it back that way.

The Coliseum evidently also has a lot of hot merch, because that's where my bike went.

5) The advice I got was "stolen property flows downhill towards the Oakland flats", and it's true: my bike was seen at MLK/Ashby on Thursday, 50th/Telegraph and 34th/West on Friday, and was probably sold at the Coliseum on Saturday morning.

6) Start trolling Craigslist and Ebay in case someone is dumb enough to post it up right away. Usually people are smarter and wait a week or two, but you have to check just in case.

Remember, if you post a reward with no questions asked, you may have to pay someone to get your own bike back in a sketchy transaction. This will rankle you, but it'll be a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing your bike.

If anyone has any good advice to add, please let me know and I'll revise.

I'll add to this...

The NationalBikeRegistry.com web site allows you to register a stolen bike "after the fact" for 99 cents. Many law enforcement agencies will look up a bike on that registry if they recover one in an unrelated arrest.

Also, using google alerts to notify you of any new web pages or postings with the keywords you specify (specific to your bike/frame/etc) will send you an email. This may help if it shows up on craigslist or ebay, or other for sale sites.

[ferrit66]

A recent post on ridemonkey (paging 911) Found a stolen DH bike. The guy who discovered it was on craigs list and remembered a thread posted back in the day. Nothing worse than theives. Especially bike theives. Unfortunately the owner can't do much because he didn't have the serial numbers. So make sure you take the numbers down.

[RacinJason]

Its racist to talk about race. That why I always leave it out and put it in the suspicious man/woman format.

The bottom line is it could have been one of my bikes. Thanks for keeping your eye open for the community. I don.t want people to be afraid to speak up.
I have recovered 3 bikes from friends helping friends. It works .

[station]

Originally Posted by RacinJason

Its racist to talk about race. That why I always leave it out and put it in the suspicious man/woman format.

The bottom line is it could have been one of my bikes. Thanks for keeping your eye open for the community. I don.t want people to be afraid to speak up.
I have recover 3 bikes from friands helping friends. It works .

you're right. I was being jaded.

[ferrit66]

Smirnus was right to post no doubt about it that's why i looked at the post. I know i would be thankful if i had a bike recovered this way. Hope i never have to. Just bad choice of words in my opinion but with good intenet behind it.

The only thing to do in this situation is try to get a closer look at the bike and see if the numbers are messed with, if they are, Then call the cops, they have to respond and question the person.