Hi all
Finally have the last news and I can regale you all with the loooooong BUT eventual happy story of my bike on ebay 😉 as seen here – http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/stolen-bike-on-ebay
I've been moving house hence the delay in delivering the outcome……
The police decided that the best course of action was to give them the sellers mobile number, them pretend to be my mate (who won the ebay auction) and arrange a cash on collection (where they'd turn up in numbers & nick the theiving little f%^%er).
The seller took ages to respond to any emails, voicemails & txt messages so whilst trying to arrange the 'collection' the police had 3 courses of action –
><Trace the mobile no. & hope it turned up on their database
><Wait for ebay to supply the sellers details
><Actually meet up with him as above
Various days passed without a succesful meeting arrangement. One got arranged but the seller wanted to do it in a park which the police decided held v little chance of them ctaching him as he had a v v good chance of legging it.
In the meantime the sellers number turned up on the police db as one involved in a gumtree ad robbery and upon further investigation turned out that they had a good idea who it was & where they lived.
A warrant was obtained & they smashed his door down and there in all its glory was my bike (along with 2 others – a 'tasty road bike' and a hybrid, which they've yet to trace the owners. I've put them onto various forums to try and help find the owners).
I'm v v v surprised to get it back tbh as I'd totally written it off.
The police were helpful & honest but did take f£$£!en ages to do anything positive and I had lost faith.
Many thanks to everyone who helped & chipped in with advice and posts and/or spotted it on ebay. Wouldnt have happened without you.
It just goes to show that knowledge is power and the internet can be a wonderful thing –
The combined eyes & knowhow of the forums and internet got me my bike back
The police said they've not had a huge amount of luck with ebay in the past but I've put them onto the various threads here regarding the bristol bike bod so hopefully they'll glean the info & gain some skills in handling ebay
My advice for you all having just been through a 3 month bike stolen/spotted/retrieval journey is –
Take photos (of your bike)
Write down all parts, serials & identifying features
Take more photos (of your bike)
Tell everyone – LBS', forums, the police etc
Keep an eye out on gumtree, ebay, loot etc etc
(Dont get it nicked in the first place)
Once again – many many thanks to everyone
