So on your average week I’ll be contacted by a few people who have been fortunate enough to have found their bike for sale but the police aren’t being as helpful as they could be. That’s business as usual for me and we have a few tricks up our sleeves to encourage the police to act but one case that occurred last week really stood out for me as a demonstration of why services like mine are needed and how big of a let down the police can be (once again their are fantastic officers in nearly every force but occasionally the system really lets victims of crime down).
The text of our email exchange is below, some details have been removed to protect identities. Essentially Surrey Police failed to connect a found bike to a reported theft even though it was found less than 100 yards from the original crime scene and the owner provided a frame number.
Dear John,
I found a condor bike in a hedge a month ago. its worth thousands of pounds and the lock and tool kit were still intact, so it was obviously stolen
I took the bike home for safe keeping and contacted surrey police who refused to collect it. I therefore made a found-property report and was told that the police would check their records and contact me if it was reported lost/stolen.
Having heard nothing for a month, yesterday I went to condors in central London and attempted to trace the owner via the frame number. This was not possible, but they recommended your site.
I looked at your site today and found that the bike had been reported stolen via a local shed burglary the day before I found it and the police had failed to put two and two together (no surprise there”). I contacted the owner via your site today and the good news is that he is coming collect it within the next hour.
Well done to your site
Regards
REMOVED
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Hi <REMOVED>,
That’s fantastic, which service did you use and could you give me the frame number?
We need results like this to show the police that our services are useful.
Kind Regards,
John
Stolen-bikes.co.uk And the frame number was ct071955
He was very happy to collect his bike and bought me a good bottle of champagne
Surrey police phoned me yesterday to tell me that they had not been able to trace the owner (you couldn’t make it up) I told them that it had been stolen the previous evening 100 yds from where I found it. I even gave her the crime reference number
Sent from my iPhone