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Ask HN: I was a victim of bike theft. What can I do?

5 points by ancarda ↗ HN
Today I woke up to see my bike was gone. I've filed a police report giving them the frame number. I made a claim to my insurance (they declined) and I've been searching craigslist and ebay for ads posted recently.

Is there anything else someone in my position can do? I'm about to ask my neighbors if they saw anything. It happened between midnight and ~8 am.

15 comments

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nmc
Was it in a relevant geographical location?

For instance, in Amsterdam (NL) there is a well-known black market for bikes, and when a bike is stolen there is always a good chance of finding it there.

On the contrary, for example in Paris (FR), my advice would be to forget about it — people even steal the heavily-impractical public rental bikes.

General advice for your next bike: take appropriate security precautions (more insecure neighbourhood -> bigger chain), and try to have it look cheap and dirty to discourage thieves.

ancarda
I'm in the south of the UK. I'm not really sure if there's any black markets for bikes here. I've never had to deal with something like this before.
collingwood
Local car boot sales, private adverts in shop windows. If you are in or near London, Brick Lane market may still be a possibility, although Wikipedia says it's not so notorious as it once was.

Consider challenging the insurer's decline of your claim, particularly if the bike was expensive.

GFischer
If he hadn't particularly registered his bike, I think he's out of luck, but he can try.

I work for an insurance company (not in the UK) and we specifically ask for such easily movable objects to be explicitely registered in the home insurance policy (make, model and in some cases identification numbers), they're otherwise excluded. People must remember to register new purchases (they usually don't), and it's up to the insurance company whether to cover them or not. As part of a bigger (proven/proveable) theft, they might, but usually not as a singular event (too easy to abuse).

Apparently in the UK it's an optional:

http://www.which.co.uk/money/insurance/guides/contents-insur...

ancarda
Yeah, that was the issue. I didn't register the bike with insurance, so it wasn't covered.
robbiea
You can also post something on reddit/r/<yourcity> if it's a large city. They can probably help you with other local resources for you to look into.
xauronx
It would be worth asking your neighbors, but honestly, I would just come to terms with it. I had a motorcycle stolen a couple years ago and never heard anything back. These people are able to do this shit because they're good at it and generally do it in a "safe" (for them) way.

You could try to set up a bait bike and hope they're greedy/stupid enough to do it again.

Also, sorry for your luck.

zumzumzum
Learn to lock it up better and get a new one.
hga
When I was living in Cambridge, MA during the '80s that was completely inadequate, even the best locks would still allow for the stripping of unlocked components. Everyone would carry their bikes up a stairway so it could be safe in the destination apartment.
aagha
I read a story (or a post?) a while back of how a guy used TaskRabbit.com (I guess you could get a group of your friends to do the same) to go to local flea markets and scope it out.

If you find it, you might be able to either buy it back or contact the police if you had it registered.

EDIT: https://www.taskrabbit.com/oakland-sf-bay-area/t/hit-east-ba...

nakedrobot2
Build a GPS tracker that is discreetly installed on your bike and launch it on Kickstarter.

Won't get this bike back, but this is a problem for millions of people out there....

ancarda
Would Tile work the same? I thought of buying one in the Summer when they're out.
gesman
Thief is unlikely to be an avid bike enthusiast, and very likely he will be trying to sell it ASAP.

Monitor local classifieds ads (craigslist, kijiji, or whatever in your area) about related items. Visit "potential" thiefs. If bike found - agree on price, leave deposit. Come back to "pickup your bike" together with police officer.

All "bike recovery success" stories and "how i screwed my bike thief" stories started exactly like that.