What do you do when the police won't help?

shardman

I'm hoping someone here might be able to help with this. I had my vitus alios road bike stolen last week, I had customised everything (new forks, new wheels, new seatpost etc..) so it is very distinctive.

Yesterday I found an ebay seller selling a vitus road bike with no picture and the description just says 'Vitus bike', what makes me more suspicious is that he also has an eclectic mix of bikes for sale including Dawes Galaxies, bmx's, mountain bikes, ladies bikes etc, he also has Mavic tubular wheels and a few other bits.

All of these are really badly described, he clearly doesn't have any idea what he is selling and a lot of them have no pictures. I've been to the police but without solid evidence they aren't willing to even look into it, it's extremely frustrating that my bike could be being sold right under my nose and I can't do anything.

I realise that this may not be my bike at all but it looks highly likely that these are stolen bikes.

I've posted this in the stolen forum as well, I put it here in the hope it will get noticed.

CambsNewbie

Could ask the seller to send you a pic.. Say you are interested in buying it but would like to see a pic so you know exactly what you are bidding for.

Then if it is your bike it will match the pic I'm sure you will have taken of you bike in it's modified form for insurance purposes..

Then if the two match you have your evidence..

shardman

Yes, I asked for a pic yesterday, only trouble is I don't thik he's going to send me one, I've had nothing yet anyway...

jim453

Can't you arrange to buy it and say you'll pick it up yourself.

You can deal with it in person. Check serial number, if it's your bike take it.

Let him get the police involved.

coopsman1

I think you can inform Ebay and they will suspend the sale of the item

JustinLeeAtkinson

If you are not happy about the response of the police you can complain about the conduct of an officer or officers.

The Independent Police Compliants Commission has info on how to do this.

http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/en/Pages/default.aspx

markos1963

jim453 wrote:

Can't you arrange to buy it and say you'll pick it up yourself.

You can deal with it in person. Check serial number, if it's your bike take it.

Let him get the police involved.

+1 but with a few proviso's,take a mate(a big one) with you just in case. Tell him you'll pay him cash on collection to keep ebay fees down, he should bite for that one and take a camera so you can take a pic when you realise it's yours.
Good luck

shardman

Thanks for all the advice, at this point I think buying it may be the best option, I just need to find a few people to come with me! I think I'll write to the IPCC as well just to see what there take on it is...

I did consider reporting it to Ebay, the problem is if the seller gets wind of it any chance of getting the bike back is a s good as gone.

Thanks again for all your help,
Sam

CyclingBantam

Good luck getting it back Sam and let us know what happens. This comes up on here from time to time so it would be good to see how you got on.

keef66

Ebay don't want to know unless the police are involved. My old MTB was nicked from my son's student house in Loughborough and the frame appeared on Ebay shortly afterwards in Manchester.

I had no record of the serial number, neither did I have any photos good enough to ID it, so there was no way I could prove it was mine if the police got involved.

Caer caradoc

.... call for Audax UK to invalidate the riot.

derbygrimpeur

I don't think the police are being unreasonable. There's no evidence for them to investigate.

What happens if you buy the bike and it's not yours?

Tricky situation but I hope you get it sorted (and get your bike bike). Hopefully he'll give you a photo and you can show this to the police to get them involved.

jim453

derbygrimpeur wrote:

I don't think the police are being unreasonable. There's no evidence for them to investigate.

What happens if you buy the bike and it's not yours?

Tricky situation but I hope you get it sorted (and get your bike bike). Hopefully he'll give you a photo and you can show this to the police to get them involved.

Hang on, i'm not suggesting he actually buys the bike. Just check if it's his, take it if so. Say it's the wrong colour (or something) and he doesn't want it if not.

shouldbeinbed

JustinLeeAtkinson wrote:

If you are not happy about the response of the police you can complain about the conduct of an officer or officers.

The Independent Police Compliants Commission has info on how to do this.

http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/en/Pages/default.aspx

So the police are at fault for a conversation that will have gone (*)

S: Hello Police, my bike was stolen & I might have found it on ebay, will you go and check it out and bring it back for me please.

P: so the photo on ebay matches a photo you have of your bike?

S: err no

P: you've got an matching description then?

S: err no

P: they've given you the serial number?

S: err no.

P: so have you got any proof at all that it is your bike?

S: err no.

(* but didn't finish)

P: brilliant that's all the cold hard evidence we need. Tell you what, we'll send the chopper up & deploy an armed response unit just in case it turns nasty because we've got sod all better to do all day than chase up every ebay & gumtree ad that might be dodgy but which hasn't got a shred of actual evidence to back that gut feeling up.


Best of luck running it by the IPCC.

gmb

shouldbeinbed wrote:

JustinLeeAtkinson wrote:

If you are not happy about the response of the police you can complain about the conduct of an officer or officers.

The Independent Police Compliants Commission has info on how to do this.

http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/en/Pages/default.aspx

So the police are at fault for a conversation that will have gone (*)

S: Hello Police, my bike was stolen & I might have found it on ebay, will you go and check it out and bring it back for me please.

P: so the photo on ebay matches a photo you have of your bike?

S: err no

P: you've got an matching description then?

S: err no

P: they've given you the serial number?

S: err no.

P: so have you got any proof at all that it is your bike?

S: err no.

(* but didn't finish)

P: brilliant that's all the cold hard evidence we need. Tell you what, we'll send the chopper up & deploy an armed response unit just in case it turns nasty because we've got sod all better to do all day than chase up every ebay & gumtree ad that might be dodgy but which hasn't got a shred of actual evidence to back that gut feeling up.


Best of luck running it by the IPCC.

I would imagine that in the current climate the IPCC's interview with the officer would go something like this :-

Did the IP tell you that their bike MAY have been on ebay?

err, yes, but he couldn't be sure that it was hi....

Did you get the helicopter up?

....no, but..

Did you consider utilising the armed response unit?

...eh?

Did you even bother to contact dog section?

........?

Please hand in your warrant card and forget about your pension.

CambsNewbie

The IPCC is your ultimate port of call if you aren't happy but there are many steps before you get there..

When you called your local force to report this I'm guessing you were given a crime number? This would have generated a report which will then be allocated to an officer to 'investigate'. Give your force a call and ask who the investigating officer is. They should also be able to tell you when they are next on duty. If the officer is on duty then they might be able to put you through to him or will get a message to him.

Ask the officer if you can meet him to discuss the investigation and how you can work together on this. You both have similar goals here. You want your bike back, the officer wants a 'detection' and you both want the offender to have some form of chastisement. If there is to be no further investigation, he will be able to explain to you why and what he has done.

If you don't hear from the officer immediately don't stress. He may be on rest days, ill or on annual leave. With the current situation going on, every officer who can walk and wear hi-viz is going to be on foot beat or patrol so crimes where there is no immediate danger may be put on the back burner (even if your locality hasnt been directly affected by the poor disenfranchised youths protesting at a cruel world). Shifts are being changed at short notice as well.

If you still have no joy ask to speak to the officer's Sgt. Raise your concerns with him first. If you STILL have no joy then the officer's inspector is next. After that write in to your force with a formal complaint. This will then escalate your complaint to PSD ( professional standards, the police who police the police). Then write to the IPCC!

I hope this helps. Remember the vast majority of officers joined because they want to help people. Unfortunately they have to work with cold hard facts. Although this seller sounds dodgy and suspicious that's not enough, he just might be a crap eBay seller and not know what he's doing! At the moment what you have told us is not enough for this seller to be formally arrested and interviewed. Remember this is taking away someone's liberty and putting them in a police cell for a number of hours, photographing them, fingerprinting them, taking their DNA and putting their details on the police national computer. These rights which may seem to be protecting him may one day protect you!

mossychops

Mate, PM me the auction number and I will ask for some details and a photo if he can. My address in Ebay is registered in Solihull so it wont look local - can always say I will be working nearby.

Would like to help

Headhuunter

The police are notoriuously useless at retreiving stolen bikes on ebay or investigating them. I've seen a number of stories on various parts of this forum.

A couple of months ago, my dad had his distinctive road bike nicked, he'd basically built it from bits himself so there was no other like it. He checked on ebay to see it listed there a short time after it had been stolen! He managed to find out that it was listed by a local pawn shop so phoned the police with all this information.

The auction at this point was due to end in a few days. They said they would send someone straight away.... Nothing. He called again. They said sorry, they would send their ebay people round.... Nothing. He phoned ebay they said they would do nothing until contacted by the police.

He gave up with the police and ebay and phoned the pawn shop direct, the manager who was very helpful and agreed to take it off ebay until the police had spoken to him. He phoned the police again, they again said they would send someone round... Nothing.

By this time, if he hadn't spoken to the pawn shop manager, the auction would have ended, bike would have been sold and that would have been that. However because he knew that the pawn shop still had the bike he basically hassled the police again and again until they got off their asses and finally retreived it.

Of course the pawn shop had ID details for the guy who had sold them the bike in the 1st place, so not only could the police retreive the solen goods easily, they could easily follow up on the cuplrit... Last my dad heard they went round the guy's house who said that he had sold it for a friend or something and they had left it at that.... Pretty damn useless...

Anyway, good luck but best just get a crime number and claim on your insurance, you won't get much from the police...

shardman

CambsNewbie: Thanks for the advice, that's really helpfull. I managed to speak to the investigating officer today and he's passed it on to the relevent people to look at it, I've not overly optimistic but at least something is happening.

Headhunter: I've had a similar experience with the police myself. A few years ago I had a mountain bike stolen, I found it outside someones house less than 12 hours later. The guy who had it just said he bought it from someone else and the police wouldn't do anything, I couldn't believe it at the time and still can't now.

Headhuunter

shardman wrote:

CambsNewbie: Thanks for the advice, that's really helpfull. I managed to speak to the investigating officer today and he's passed it on to the relevent people to look at it, I've not overly optimistic but at least something is happening.

Headhunter: I've had a similar experience with the police myself. A few years ago I had a mountain bike stolen, I found it outside someones house less than 12 hours later. The guy who had it just said he bought it from someone else and the police wouldn't do anything, I couldn't believe it at the time and still can't now.

Yep if you want a bike back that you can see on sale at a market or on ebay, it's best to just take the law into your own hands as the police won't do anything...

pickylongstocking

Last year both mine and my brothers bikes were stolen. My brothers appeared on Gum tree, no photo bad description etc...

The police were brilliant, they got a warrant and raided the sellers house. Didn't find the bike but did find a load of stolen goods.

Persevere with the Police and good luck