Four stolen bikes on Ebay

Its almost laughable, surely they must be.
Anyone recongnise these in the Wales area.

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/madlad2008/

apologies if you just a dislexic bike hoarder Mr Ebayer

Call the boys in blue……………

"not a cheap bike its a proper bike for stunk jumping"

PMSL.

Stunk jumping? Wtf?

Stolen using that van??

Hydrolic brakes… smash crank… red anodised bits…stunk jumping

all his mates

the spelling is the most criminal thing about it. have you reported it?

hotter than a scotch bonnet

He seems to have a lot of friends that are selling bikes….

I live not far from where the seller lives so if anyone recognises them and the bikes have tell tale marks i'd me more than willing to go and have a look before i bid….

notably all cash on collection, no paypal.

The funiest is the Big Hit 'Could do with a clean'.

Reported to Ebay.

asked the question "will you be buying a dictionary with your ill gotten gains?"

fox middle suspension??

This is so common now, and they always seem to get away with it. The police are useless and ebay need proof its stolen, like the description isn't proof enough!

What i would do to the little…

somebody must recognise the Ibis at least. Is there any evidence that reporting it to ebay actually does anything, apart from maybe removing the listings?

specialized stunt jumper…

🙄

At least he's got lots of friends.

As he's selling all of their bikes for them, what a nice guy

If the best thing is really to get Ebay to remove the listings (not sure that does anything to reunite the owners with their bikes), then that's easy – simply point out to them that the listings break Ebay T&Cs by saying no Paypal!

DON'T contact the seller with "hilarious" questions – if he gets suspicious he's likely to pull the auctions.

why the saw dust under the ibis, is it to give it some cred

Have you got evidence they have been stolen? If not and they haven't, then you are opening up a can of self-righteous worms on yourself…

Rather than post up wiht your 'thoughts', why not just do it quietly and report it to Ebay and the Police…when the Police ask for your evidence you can let them know –

i.e. poor grammar and spelling – is it a well known fact that people who lead a life of crime cannot spell – is that a sure sign of theft?
Inability to copy names properly – again, is this a sign of theft?
Selling for a mate – well that is quite common – I used to have a mate who'd sell stuff for me on Ebay as I refused to get an account – seemed to work fine for me.

I just find these posts highly amusing as they seem to play on people's stereotypical views of things and then give them a soapbox to shout from…unless you know 100% they are stolen, keep out of it as it could get nasty for you if you are shown to be wrong.

I just find these posts highly amusing as they seem to play on people's stereotypical views of things and then give them a soapbox to shout from…unless you know 100% they are stolen, keep out of it as it could get nasty for you if you are shown to be wrong.

I'd rather highlight 4 potential stolen bikes so owners can identify them as stolen, which would be evidence enough. If nobody does identify them and the seller can answer all questions, justifying why he has put up such crap descriptions for over £8000 worth of products then fair enough.

Having had a bike stolen, I know scouring the forsales ads is about the only very small chance you have of ever seeing it again.

Four mates who need bikes selling for cash ? white van in back ground ? and some numpty on here thinks they may not be stolen and actually be genuine items for sale. Oh look, I’ve just seen the tooth fairy cutting my grass to save me the job tonight……

Dickbarton what the **** is the matter with you?

Sure it MAY be the case that the guy really is selling bikes on behalf of mates, I mean who wouldnt want to piggy-back on a marketing pro like this fella?

Seriously, how do we flag this to the police? I'm presuming they will have dedicated teams looking at internet theft and fraud yes?

P.S is this a threat?

unless you know 100% they are stolen, keep out of it as it could get nasty for you if you are shown to be wrong.

I've had bikes stole. I'm not turning the other cheek.

the matter will be resolved of are the bikes stolen or not by simply asking him if he could ask his mate for the serial number of any bike, as a potential purchaser of said item you would never wish to buy a stolen bike and would therefore like to check with the local police first before bidding…. if the listings vanish there's your answer… pdf them before you write so the evidence can be sent to ebay – the bill

if the listings are taken down its not a problem, he will loose potential sales and have to devise a plan b to cash convert them…. anyone emailed ibis to see if they have had a customer report a stolen bike? maybe the uk importers could start to run a service recording stolen bike serial numbers for those buying expensive uk imported bikes and have them stolen so the singletrack forum police have somewhere to go, might actually make the higher price than direct importing sometimes a bit less bitter for some.

i hate this guy 👿

Of course they're stolen FFS!

DickBarton tell us how it's going to get nasty, i'm intrigued.

PS Dick Barton could actually be quite right… I was told a story of a cycle dealer who had a regular customer who bought new bikes then having sold them to his mate who had to have it came in to buy something else.. something the dealer at first could not believe his luck, this went on until having ordered a new bike and paid a deposit he never collected it,

some one in the know with the criminal world suggested the guy was probably spending money gained from drugs dealing and was cleaning it through this and other transactions, his sudden disappearance is more likely due to the volatility of the industry rather than the police feeling his collar as he simply appeared to vanish off the face of the earth. Right now one of you may well be riding one of those bikes which for all we know he might have sold on eBay rather than his mate.

I was told a story of a cycle dealer

Must be true then.

Kingtut, I vaguely remember Barney telling me about a similar customer when he worked in a bike shop.

No shit Sherlock !!!! All these reasons for it being a genuine ebay seller and yes I see it now so clearly this chap is just so lucky to have four loyal friends who want to use his genuine ebay account to sell the bikes that they no longer require or perhaps he did purchase second hand stock from a cycle retailer…… My arse !!!

Cycle retailers love to sell dirty bikes it means they can charge less for them 😉

If Ebay suspect the ads are dodgy then all they may do is pull them – I've no idea if they report anything to the police or whoever. Which means that although this might well make it harder for the crim to move them on, the owners are ultimately still left without their rightful pieces of kit … and the crims get to carry on regardless.

Therefore if reporting it to the police is the only way forward then this must be done. Anyone know who to call in the area? What about that guy who was on here a few weeks back who's remit was to reduce bike crime, etc?

[/quote]Seriously, how do we flag this to the police? I'm presuming they will have dedicated teams looking at internet theft and fraud yes?

I was the cycle theft lead for a midlands police force two years ago.

It was easy catching people in the act of stealing and prosecuting them using a honey trap of my Orange Five leaning on a lamp post with a cable lock and us hiding in a van, but to prove a bike is stolen in this situation you have to find the injured party or positive ID of the items. If the numbers seriel can be checked against the imobilise data base- you all register your bikes on that – right? http://www.immobilise.com/
and the bikes scanned for data tag and smartwater – you all mark you bikes -right?
and/ or check them against the manufacturer's data base for warranty- You all regsiter your bikes there too?
Otherwise it's a bit tricky, in a perfect world someone would buy them for pennies and hold on to thjem whilst seeking the owner.

It's worth finding out where the seller lives and contacting his local police. If he's a known scroat with little chance of having bought these bikes it may well be enough to go round there and pay him a visit. Then there are means to seize the goods if there's fair suspicion he did not get them through fair means. If he's a cleanster with a spotless record though, then nowt will happen without prior proof of the bikes being hot.

Now that I've opened a nice can of worms here, I'm ducking down and getting back to work. I hope I have given means to help not hinder. I'd look at them myself but Ebay is barred at my place so it's up to those that can do find out the location.

I reported this to Ebay, as it sound far too dodgy to be anywhere near true.

I had an automated reply back from them:

** This is an automated email to acknowledge receipt of your report.
Please do not respond to this email. If you need to, you can contact us
from any eBay Help page.**

——————-
Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to report a seller who you suspect is
offering stolen goods on eBay.

The sale of stolen goods is forbidden on eBay because it's against the
law to sell stolen property. eBay strongly supports law enforcement
efforts to recover stolen property listed on its website. However, we
can only investigate such a serious allegation if it comes from the
police.

If you believe that an item on eBay may be a stolen item, please inform
your local police and ask them to get in touch with us. The
investigating officer can use the "Contact Us Webform" link on this page
to contact our Trust and Safety team:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/safetycentre/law_enforcement.html

We know your time is valuable and we appreciate you taking a moment to
express your concern to us. Thank you for helping to keep eBay a safe,
fun place to shop.

Regards,

eBay Trust & Safety

Sounds fair enough. Though presumably the only reason to report to Ebay is to get them to pull the listing, and if that really is the best solution, as I said before just report them for not accepting Paypal.

And surely the best way to find the rightful owners is to post these links on bike forums, so that somebody who knows them will see?

Ebay must make a lot of money from fences. Wonder if it's really in their interest to do much about it.

I know the original owner of one of those bikes. please no 1 contact the guy. its all being dealt with. local bike shop is also helping out.

thanks col for the heads up to this thread!

Scant, it might be an idea to contact the mods with an explanation and ask them to pull this thread.

(Mr MC posting) and aimed particularly at Practical Matt;

theres a lot of apathy and complacency to security. Despite having been on a dedicated burglary unit for 2 years, and having used immobilise to identify stolen property, I have only just registered my own bikes after seeing all the STW threads, and your post.

One question for you and others-how many forces use or have access to digital readers for datatag/immobitag transponders? I notice my force (TVP) isn't on Immobilise's list of "where did you hear about us" when you register, and Ive never seen or heard if it's use in TVP. Is my force in the minority in not using these, as 14 quid is affordable security if it gets used.

Good grief, he has a lot of friends with the income to buy some nice bikes but they choose a retard to sell them on their behalf.
Can't see anything fishy about that.

Stuff like this really does make me laugh. Guy selling four bikes with bad grammar must be a crook? Hang on he has a white van as well he MUST be a crook!

Do you not think that if they were stolen he would demand on posting them? Which thief in his right mind would advertise stolen bikes on a national website and then risk someone coming round to have a look at them!

And then you are all jumping on Dickbartons case, FFS get a life. And no I dont mind people listing a 'heads up' about possible stolen bikes but that is all it is a posibility. No need to get so adamant and self righteous about it.