Stolen Bikes Thread - Mod Note please read post #1 before posting

Ray Bloody Purchase

rubadub wrote: »

I think it would work. Bike theives will be reading that and know they will get off extremely lightly.

If he had broken into the same postoffice on 3 occassions and taken €3,000-4,000 would he have got a fine of €350? I doubt it. If he broke into a persons garage and stole 3 cars I wonder if it would have been so light.

I still get the impression it is treated like some sort of schoolyard crime, to be expected.

It would be good if certain items did get a different penalty, seeing as they are so commonly stolen and easy to get rid of I would like to see higher sentences. They would not even have to officially change the law, just make it widely known that they will be prosecuted to the fullest if caught. Like how some countries have extremely harsh laws on postal theft, I presume partly since it is quite easy to commit.

My bike is probably worth more than my car. :eek:

LollipopJimmy

I got a letter from victim support about the attempted theft of my bike. The guy was charged, didn't turn up to court, was arrested on foot of a bench warrant then released with a new date and didn't turn up again, arrested on foot of a second bench warrant and held in custody for 3 days. He was then brought to court and fined €150 and has 180 days(!) to pay

Ray Bloody Purchase

LollipopJimmy wrote: »

I got a letter from victim support about the attempted theft of my bike. The guy was charged, didn't turn up to court, was arrested on foot of a bench warrant then released with a new date and didn't turn up again, arrested on foot of a second bench warrant and held in custody for 3 days. He was then brought to court and fined €150 and has 180 days(!) to pay

Is it not a criminal offence to not turn up? Jesus H Christ, the amount of tax payers money wasted on even getting him to court???? And then he's fined that nominal fee????

I'd expect he's not paying for a solicitor either. :mad:

LollipopJimmy

Meh, he got a bot of hardship out of it and at the time of arrest he was left in a bit of a state. He picked the wrong bike to lift that day and hopefully he'll think twice the next time

AndrewJRenko

Rechuchote wrote: »

So how can bike theft be stopped? And don't shout "throw away the key", that doesn't work.
Full employment is a start.

Getting all the advertising sites to quote the serial number of the bike would be a great was to make it much harder to sell on the stolen bike.

p15574

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Getting all the advertising sites to quote the serial number of the bike would be a great was to make it much harder to sell on the stolen bike.

That's a great idea, it'd make it very googleable. Bike stolen -> Garda googles the serial -> hey presto, there's your thief (or fence). Making a photo of said serial number mandatory too might help stop people just spoofing them to get around this.

ED E

Wouldn't work. The Gardai have found 40fts full of stolen bikes before, most of em are exported. Only the small time lads put em back on Done deal. Some questioning at Dublin Port might help disrupt it.

Cabaal

p15574 wrote: »

That's a great idea, it'd make it very googleable. Bike stolen -> Garda googles the serial -> hey presto, there's your thief (or fence). Making a photo of said serial number mandatory too might help stop people just spoofing them to get around this.

Be easy for somebody to just make up a random number and claim its the serial....most people wouldn't bother to even check it.

Unless you had a database that will verify the number as belonging to that make/motel etc such a system would be useless and open to awful abuse.

magicbastarder

Cabaal wrote: »

Be easy for somebody to just make up a random number and claim its the serial....most people wouldn't bother to even check it.

that was my first thought - second thought was that making uploading a photo of the serial number mandatory, might help. but then you'd need staff to police it.

also, one major issue is that very few people when reporting stolen bikes know the serial number. 11%, according the gardai who work with stolen bikes in pearse street.

Cabaal

magicbastarder wrote: »

that was my first thought - second thought was that making uploading a photo of the serial number mandatory, might help. but then you'd need staff to police it.

also, one major issue is that very few people when reporting stolen bikes know the serial number. 11%, according the gardai who work with stolen bikes in pearse street.

I'd say it could even be lower then 11%,
Got two bikes and don't know serial for either...must sort that.

TychoCaine

Cabaal wrote: »

I'd say it could even be lower then 11%,
Got two bikes and don't know serial for either...must sort that.

I bought a Cannondale last year from Cycle Superstore and they put the serial number was on the invoice. It was useful to have a paper record of it when the time came to report it stolen.

loyatemu

it's a fücking farce that someone can steal a €1000+ bike and walk out of court with a €150 fine. These guys probably have a list of convictions as long as your arm, so another one is no punishment and the fine is no deterrent considering the bikes they're caught with (if indeed the bikes are recovered) are only a fraction of what they're stealing and selling on.

rivegauche

TychoCaine wrote: »

I bought a Cannondale last year from Cycle Superstore and they put the serial number was on the invoice. It was useful to have a paper record of it when the time came to report it stolen.

In support of the use of serial numbers; I remember a Customer saying that the piece of equipment he bought in our store which needed to be repaired was rubbish, should have lasted longer. I listed quietly and as I was on summer holiday with nothing to do dug out the old invoice books, found the receipt with the serial number and compared to the piece of equipment he brought it. serial numbers didn't match and it had been bought two decades before.
He had either lent the equipment to someone who switched it or left it in to a repair shop who had switched it. Another piece of equipment was brought in and they wanted to trade it in to us for a newer piece of equipment. We checked the serial number and after speaking to the distributor we discovered it had been stolen in another part of the country.
The anecdotes may be slightly off-topic but recording serial numbers really does help.

Boom_Bap

loyatemu wrote: »

it's a fücking farce that someone can steal a €1000+ bike and walk out of court with a €150 fine. These guys probably have a list of convictions as long as your arm, so another one is no punishment and the fine is no deterrent considering the bikes they're caught with (if indeed the bikes are recovered) are only a fraction of what they're stealing and selling on.

Not bike related, but a guy broke into my car. Fell asleep while rummaging through the car. Was caught by the Garda asleep in the car, so caught in the act.

Arrested and brought to the Garda station.


The Garda even told me that they know the guy very well, he'll be released in the morning and told to appear in court on X day but will not show up. So not to get my hopes up about any sort of conviction.


Never heard anything about it since.

LollipopJimmy

Anybody missing this? A lad from a certain ethnic minority trying to sell it in Amiens Street.

Giant of some sort. I have his picture too if needed

AndrewJRenko

p15574 wrote: »

That's a great idea, it'd make it very googleable. Bike stolen -> Garda googles the serial -> hey presto, there's your thief (or fence). Making a photo of said serial number mandatory too might help stop people just spoofing them to get around this.

Yes, photo would be important too - and you'd need the buyer to be ready to check that the photo matches the actual bike.

ED E wrote: »

Wouldn't work. The Gardai have found 40fts full of stolen bikes before, most of em are exported. Only the small time lads put em back on Done deal. Some questioning at Dublin Port might help disrupt it.

I'm not sure that anyone really knows how/where most of them go. Certainly, there are some organised groups exporting them, and this approach wouldn't really help this - but shutting down one sales channel would have a significant impact. It would make it less attractive, particularly for the more casual, opportunistic thief.


Dublin Port action would of course be a great idea too.

magicbastarder wrote: »

that was my first thought - second thought was that making uploading a photo of the serial number mandatory, might help. but then you'd need staff to police it.

also, one major issue is that very few people when reporting stolen bikes know the serial number. 11%, according the gardai who work with stolen bikes in pearse street.

You'd need the photo of the SN with the SN in text format (so that it is searchable). You're right that lots of people don't have them, but there are ways to address this too - make it mandatory for BTW scheme purchases for the SN to be quoted on the invoice. Encourage bike shops to quote them on every invoice anyway.


As for staff at the advertisers to police it, the first step would be simple online validation rules to ensure that you can't submit an advert without the SN in text and image form - no ongoing staff needed for that.



They would have some staff already to deal with reports of bad adverts, so this would be an extension of that. In fairness, if they have a big problem in facilitating the selling of stolen goods (and I think they do), it really is there problem to solve. They can't be whinging that 'it's too hard' to stop facilitating crime like this.



They should also have some extra controls about 'busy' sellers. If you're selling more than say 5 bikes a year, it wouldn't be unreasonable about requiring extra ID controls, like passport and proof of address to be on file in case of Garda follow up.



Crowd-sourcing would help here too - there's enough people with a bit of common sense looking at these ads from time to time who would have the motivation to flag up dodgy ads for review.

Cabaal wrote: »

Be easy for somebody to just make up a random number and claim its the serial....most people wouldn't bother to even check it.

Unless you had a database that will verify the number as belonging to that make/motel etc such a system would be useless and open to awful abuse.

The difficult bit would be persuading the buyer to check that the SN shown on the ad matches to the bike purchased in real life. Again, the advert sites would have a role in communicating this to buyers - fairly easy to do as part of their communications to buyers at the appropriate stage in the process.

Thargor

loyatemu wrote: »

it's a fücking farce that someone can steal a €1000+ bike and walk out of court with a €150 fine. These guys probably have a list of convictions as long as your arm, so another one is no punishment and the fine is no deterrent considering the bikes they're caught with (if indeed the bikes are recovered) are only a fraction of what they're stealing and selling on.

As if that fine will ever be paid...

catrat12

Anyone have a hybrid bike stolen in the last few days in the glencullen/kilternan/ stepaside area of Dublin

Adult size

Nika Bolokov

Boardman Hybrid Pro 54cm

Grey from 2017.

Not many of these about.

Stolen from the Gallops in Leopardstown , Dublin 18 sometime between Sunday evening and this evening.

Cut from a bike rack with an angle grinder so Kryptonite lock still attached.

Chain has a little rust.

Carbon fibre forks.

catrat12

Nika Bolokov wrote: »

Boardman Hybrid Pro 54cm

Grey from 2017.

Not many of these about.

Stolen from the Gallops in Leopardstown , Dublin 18 sometime between Sunday evening and this evening.

Cut from a bike rack with an angle grinder so Kryptonite lock still attached.

Chain has a little rust.

Carbon fibre forks.

Sorry not the one I found
Little ****s

jos28

Not major spec but valuable to me - My Liv Alight was robbed outside Lidl in Eastwall this evening :mad:

Apparently 3 or 4 a week are being taken from there so be warned.
I'm more annoyed with myself for being lazy and putting the lock through the back wheel only. All that's left is my back wheel and my lock :mad:

italodisco

jos28 wrote: »

Not major spec but valuable to me - My Liv Alight was robbed outside Lidl in Eastwall this evening :mad:

Apparently 3 or 4 a week are being taken from there so be warned.
I'm more annoyed with myself for being lazy and putting the lock through the back wheel only. All that's left is my back wheel and my lock :mad:

Word of warning, as someone living near North strand I can tell you know that lidl eastwall is a cash cow for bike thieves.

I've had the young lads from the area who train in the gym offer me robbed bikes, asked one of them and he said they get around 10 to 15 bikes a week usually from outside lidl and Aldi and that they could get me a decent bike in 'my size'.

jos28

italodisco wrote: »

Word of warning, as someone living near North strand I can tell you know that lidl eastwall is a cash cow for bike thieves.

I've had the young lads from the area who train in the gym offer me robbed bikes, asked one of them and he said they get around 10 to 15 bikes a week usually from outside lidl and Aldi and that they could get me a decent bike in 'my size'.

Unfortunately that doesn't surprise me. Mine was taken at 5pm, place was very busy. The scroats who took mine in full view of everyone were stopped by 2 different people who were told to f*** off.

yosser hughes

The Gardai's charm offensive today regarding bike theft, is pathetic and RTE are asking them zero hard questions.
The message , seriously, is "lock it or lose it" as if that makes any difference.

They were not asked about their detection rates or what they are actively doing to stop or investigate bike theft.

velo.2010

yosser hughes wrote: »

The message , seriously, is "lock it or lose it" as if that makes any difference.

The equivalent of saying 'Don't walk down that road at night or you'll be attacked'. Completely missing the point of actually tackling the root of the problem.

DeepBlue

yosser hughes wrote: »

The Gardai's charm offensive today regarding bike theft, is pathetic and RTE are asking them zero hard questions.
The message , seriously, is "lock it or lose it" as if that makes any difference.

It really did sound like "blame the victim" and it's your fault if your bike gets nicked. Really tone deaf stuff.

bilbot79

DeepBlue wrote: »

It really did sound like "blame the victim" and it's your fault if your bike gets nicked. Really tone deaf stuff.

#metoo

Rechuchote

Not to mention the total lack of prosecutions of stolen bike buyers for receiving stolen goods…

italodisco

jos28 wrote: »

Unfortunately that doesn't surprise me. Mine was taken at 5pm, place was very busy. The scroats who took mine in full view of everyone were stopped by 2 different people who were told to f*** off.

Don't ever be naive enough to think these rats care how busy and public a place is.

mod note - comments promoting violence have been removed.

pitchfork

Stolen from a locked shed in Clonskeagh, Dublin last night/this morning
On one Fat Bike - it's white and got fat tyres so it is distinctive
SL Pro Carbon SRAM Rival
Focus variado expert