Your Bicycle has been stolen, now what do I do?

 All too often you will see posts on social media from people who have had their bicycles stolen asking people to watch out for it. There are some steps you should take before and in the event of, after.

First take a picture of the bike and one with you in the background and the bike in the foreground. Store them in more than one place; your laptop, the cloud, and your phone. Next locate the frame number on your bike. If you turn the bicycle over and look in the spot where the pedals run through the frame (bottom bracket) you will see a serial number. Take a picture of it and add it to the pictures of the bicycle. This is proof that you own the bike. 

Now fast forward to the future, your bike has been stolen,  you go to the police, and they ask you what your bicycle looks like. Unfortunately your answer is “I don’t know, but it is the best bicycle in the world”. Fortunately you have pictures of the bike so you can provide them with them as part of the report. 

Now for the serial number. The serial number is a unique identifier, so if the police recover your bike they will know who it actually belongs to. 

The next steps you take are very important. First e-mail a copy of the report to every bike shop in town and the suburbs with a picture of the bike. While the thief may not bring the bike into a shop, whoever they sold it to may. As long as the shop has a copy of the police report, including the serial number, they will hold the bike as stolen property.

Another step is to register your bicycle with Bike Index, www.bikeindex.org, this is an on-line bicycle registry that anyone, including bike shops, can access to see if a bicycle has been stolen. One other option is to check Facebook and see if there is a “stolen bikes” page. These pages have crowdsourced bicycle recovery with thousands of members watching for it on the streets, Craigslist, and other online sales sites. In Philadelphia that page is https://www.facebook.com/groups/120319078000282. 

Never post your serial number online, except for Bike Index and the police report you send to the bike shops. Bike thieves know about the social media pages and will watch them to see if their bike has been identified as stolen.

While I hope your bicycle is never stolen, I hope that this will leave you better prepared in the event that it does.

Do you know the owner of this bike?

Do you know who owns this bike recovered by the Philadelphia Police?

https://twitter.com/PPDBrianKorn/status/400349403879186433

Karma and the Bike Thief

While I do agree with the police about the risk of taking matters into your own hands. But when in doubt and if the serial number matches, steal it back. I'd just have a few friends slightly out of sight in case of problems.

http://www.adventure-journal.com/2013/08/the-daily-bike-woman-steals-bike-back-from-thief/

Everybody loves karmic justice, or at least a happy ending. Kayla Smith, a Vancouver bartender, had her new Masi road bike stolen from a friend’s house last week. She called the police, who were ineffective. Then a friend saw what looked like her Masi for sale on Craigslist, so she called the police again. Once more, their response was lacking, so she took matters into her own hands

“I called the guy up and made arrangements to meet him in half an hour at the main street McDonalds,” Smith wrote on Reddit under the user name girlgetsbikeback. “When I pulled into the parking lot I still had no plan of attack. I got there and saw the guy with my bike. He was wearing board shorts, a raggy tank top and dark sketchy glasses. I noticed that it was my bike right away because of the RIDE ON stickers on the frame [RIDE ON is the shop where she bought it] and the fact I have a silver handle bar plug on the left and a black one on the right. A description I gave to the police already. Here is where I started thinking on my feet.

“I asked the guy if I could take it for a ride around the parking lot. He was weary and said “yeah but don’t take off…” I said not to worry that I would even think of it! My heart was pounding and I had no idea what to do so I just got on the bike and was like fuck this guy and started to ride. As I was riding away, I called my friend who was driving to meet me as backup. I rode to the adjacent parking lot where she was pulling into as I was riding. We watched the guy start to look for me and he got super freaked out and he suddenly just took off running.”

Smith told Canadian news outlets, ” “I was just gleaming. I literally jumped around like a six year old getting an ice cream cone. It was ridiculous. I was like ‘Oh my God!’ I was doing booty shaking dances all over the parking lot.”

Vancouver police predictably cautioned people not to take bike theft matters into their own hands. “We can arrange those types of meetings. We can do exactly what she did, but with the safety of having the police involved.” said Vancouver Police Constable Brian Montague.

Well, yeah. But you didn’t.

Philadelphia Stolen Bikes and a Facebook Solution

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In 2010 as a response to the on going problems with bike theft in Philadelphia a Facebook page was created where people could post stolen bikes in the hopes of recovering them, Philadelphia Stolen Bikes. Reading through many of the posts it seems that they have had success in recovering stolen bicycles, where the thefts have been happening, stolen bicycles that have been sighted, and the possible neighborhoods bicycle thieves live in.

With populations that change apartments, many of Philadelphia's neighborhoods intimidated by criminals, and the “no snitching” culture; quality of life crimes have become an acceptable part of a neighborhood. In the past this would have been a community effort as neighbors who knew neighbors and talked amongst themselves to prevent these crimes or identify the people who commit them. An interesting phenomena that has occurred with the Internet and the development of social websites. The creation of new communities within Philadelphia based on a common interest, in this case stolen bicycles. This a growing trend as documented by the Wall Street Journal and I am glad to see that it has reached Philadelphia.

There are some steps that you can take to make recovery of your bicycle goes smoothly in the vent it is found.

1.     Take a picture of your bicycle and a picture of you with the bicycle. You'll need to do this to document ownership.

2.     Write down the serial number of your bicycle and take a picture of it. The serial number can usually be found on the bottom bracket. If you can't find have your local bike shop show you where it is. This will also help you document ownership

3.     File a police report. Yes I know the police are not going to be terribly sympathetic, by having the theft on record makes it harder for a thief to claim they own or found the bike.

4.     Alert friends and coworkers who live in the city, regularly search E-Bay and Craigslist, talk to local bike shops, and post to the Philadelphia Stolen Bikes Facebook page.

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