Recovery Description

Found it on eBay a few days after it was stolen. It wasn't listed under the real name (Jamis Ventura), instead the name had been subtly changed to James Adventure - which had the intended affect of not being returned in my search for the real name. Instead it was hidden away on page 20 when performing a much broader search for 'bike' in the greater London area. Initially only stock/manufacture photos were posted but after a day or so they put up some genuine photos of my bike. At this point we informed the police who put us in touch with the bike recovery unit (can't remember the exact name) However these guys seem to be pretty understaffed 2 years ago (hopefully they have more people working that section now!) so were unable to take on any direct investigation (ie getting it back) until after the weekend. I feared that in the space of a few days the bike would have been sold, so against the police's official advice, we decided to meet the seller to buy it back (in a busy location during the day...) When the guy turned up with the bike my girlfriend called 999 to report a theft in action while I looked over the bike and stalled as much as possible. The local police, who we informed before hand, were able to get there in a few minutes and made their arrest and seized the bike - which was returned to me an hour or so later after going through some paperwork. It's a shame that I felt I had to put myself into a dangerous situation - one that could have turned out far less successfully than it fortunately did - but hey, it worked for me and in hindsight I would do the same again I think.