Tracking proof of ownership of the kit you have?
bigpikle
Posts: 1,690
I had a bit of a scare last weekend when my bike bag didnt arrive back in the UK on the plane with me, and initial investigations left me fearing my dream bike and gear were all MIA... What then scared me further was that during phone calls to the insurance company about a possible claim, they made it clear they wanted proof of ownership for everything in the bag. Thats not a surprise with insurance obviously, but it started me thinking about how the hell you track proof of ownership for all the bits you might have to claim for in such an event - track pump, expensive upgraded pedals, the tools thrown in the pockets, GPS, lights etc etc as well as the bike itself of course?
It made me think there must be an app, spreadsheet or some form of quality record keeping that would be very helpful for this in future. Perhaps something where I could record:
1. item description
2. cost
3. purchase date
4. photo/copy of receipt etc
5. serial number
With so much bought online there are flaky paper trails at times and often purchase confirmations etc get deleted or could even be disputed, so some form of central record would be very useful.
Does anyone have such a thing, perhaps for household items, that might work for this? Other ideas appreciated.
It made me think there must be an app, spreadsheet or some form of quality record keeping that would be very helpful for this in future. Perhaps something where I could record:
1. item description
2. cost
3. purchase date
4. photo/copy of receipt etc
5. serial number
With so much bought online there are flaky paper trails at times and often purchase confirmations etc get deleted or could even be disputed, so some form of central record would be very useful.
Does anyone have such a thing, perhaps for household items, that might work for this? Other ideas appreciated.
Your Past is Not Your Potential...
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Comments
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Depends on the insurance company. Some will insist, I guess, hoping you won't have these things and so they won't have to pay out. One insurance company once asked me for a photo.
Buying online actually comes in handy as you can always approach the store and get proof of purchase forwarded on. I've had to do this recently for a jacket.
Best just keep all your receipts and take photo of your bag packed up I guess. No doubt they'll find a way not to pay!0 -
We have been working on a web-based application to solve exactly this problem, plus the management of projects associated with assets ie insurance claim, riding South Downs Way, organising MTB event etc etc.
It launches in a coupe of weeks and is called www.LessAdmin.com0 -
I just take photos of the contents of my garage every so often. Also I never buy from a LBS so I have email receipts etc of everything I've every purchased.0
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LessAdmin.com Forgot to mention. It is FREE.0
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Don't over complicate things. Forget about the small £5 to £10 things, take a hit on those.
Anything over say a tenner, just keep a file with the receipts in. An old fashioned 'spike' system ie as you buy, add it to the pile of receipts in date order, is perfect.
Then you can flick back through if you lose a bike and produce receipts for the build etc and it takes no time to do. No need for spread sheets really.
As above, take photos every now and again and back up to your computer. If going away take a photo on your phone, takes 5 seconds and is easy.
i suppose I do it because I run my own business so do it anyway and is easy to have a parallel file for personal stuff.Peter0 -
Cheap scanner and a NAS. But increasingly you'll have payment receipts from paypal, credit card statements etc.
I'd be cautious about using cloud based services which are free. The idea behind every cloud service is that you upload all your stuff and then they either make it hard to migrate so that when they trickle in the charges, you don't or they mine your data for profiling.
I think their are phone apps that do this too.0 -
As far as retention of documentation goes, I switched to Evernote some time ago and went completely paperless for everything that I'm not required to keep by law. So I only keep tax documents, insurance certificates, etc.
I scan to PDF everything as it comes in the house, drag-drop it to Evernote, set basic metadata and organise it, dispose of the paperwork as required (I use my employer's secure document disposal service), and I'm done. This includes instruction manuals, as most are available for download -- and easy to search! My "life paperwork" has gone from a 2-drawer suspended file cabinet bursting at the seams down to a single A4 box file. I use a third-party tool to backup my Evernote database each month to store an offline backup, so that removes that concern.
I can access it all via the client on my computers, the client on my smartphone, or via the web interface (I also use Lastpass to ensure I have a stupidly long random string for each of my passwords). It's brilliant -- providing you're willing to accept the risk of storing content online (either you do or you don't).0 -
When our house was burgled last summer I provided proof for most of the big ticket items, and the smaller items they weren't really bothered about. They did ask, but they accepted that we didn't have a receipt for our 5 year old Nintendo Wii, or the hold-all the thief had bunged all our stuff into.
What we didn't have was serial numbers for practically anything, which I later discovered meant even if they caught someone with a bunch of our stuff, we might not have been able to prove it really was our stuff, and they might not have been able to prosecute the individual.
Since then I've been using http://www.immobilise.com/ to record details for all our stealable stuff. Even stuff I wouldn't be that bothered about goes in there, as having a record of ownership and a serial number might help catch the scumbag who pinched it along with stuff I do care about in the future.
I also scan receipts and add them as images on immobilise so I have it all in the one place. The neat thing about the website is you can mark stuff as stolen there, and various police forces use it to try and reunite people with their stolen goods. It's worth sticking your bikes on there with photos and serial numbers.0 -
I personally wouldn't put my life in a shopping basked ready for some rogue IT admin to download and sell. I think those stolen property database are great for uploading stolen item details (after the event), but there is no way I would trust them with details of all my assets.
Its open to fraud abuse too.0 -
Anti_Podean wrote:As far as retention of documentation goes, I switched to Evernote some time ago and went completely paperless for everything that I'm not required to keep by law. So I only keep tax documents, insurance certificates, etc.
I scan to PDF everything as it comes in the house, drag-drop it to Evernote, set basic metadata and organise it, dispose of the paperwork as required (I use my employer's secure document disposal service), and I'm done. This includes instruction manuals, as most are available for download -- and easy to search! My "life paperwork" has gone from a 2-drawer suspended file cabinet bursting at the seams down to a single A4 box file. I use a third-party tool to backup my Evernote database each month to store an offline backup, so that removes that concern.
I can access it all via the client on my computers, the client on my smartphone, or via the web interface (I also use Lastpass to ensure I have a stupidly long random string for each of my passwords). It's brilliant -- providing you're willing to accept the risk of storing content online (either you do or you don't).
Or forget all tose multiple steps and simply save the receipts as above. the odd photo, plus add the serial number to the receipt on big ticket items.
why complicate it?
ps I use Evernote too and loads of software but we really are complicating simple issues these days.
Just my humble opinion and not trying to be bombasticPeter0 -
Get the frame registered with the manufacturer and get lots of pics0
