 You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
A friend suffered a break in on Friday night, one of his bikes has turned up on gumtree. What's the preferred approach for dealing with the thieves? Police force will most be Surrey or West Sussex if that makes a difference...
My experience of Surrey Police was: 3 of my bikes stolen from my garage, 1 week later a forensic person turned up. I saw the bike on eBay. 4 weeks later the police contacted the eBay seller. Make sure you're insured.
This happened to me.
Bike stolen in a house break-in, then spotted the bike a week later on gumtree. A friend contacted the seller, arranged to view it and we told the police we were meeting the seller / suspected thief. They agreed to meet us there too (with some cajoling) and once the seller and I were talking they came in and arrested him.
Took a bit chasing but end result was I got bike back and he was charged with handling stolen goods.
Plan B was to simply ride off on the bike at the viewing if the police were not helpful.
Actually, it's for sale in Hampshire. Please no links to potential adverts, just in case the W⚓s have half way decent google-fu
EDIT: anyone have a number to speak to a real person in Hampshire Police that might be interested is resolving this?
Is he / are you big & handy and do you have any big & handy mates ?
If so, the high risk option is consider arranging to view/collect and then call the police and tell them you're on the way to confront a thief and recover your property. Then go & do it in the knowledge that the police will probably not attend. If not, review insurance docs as caher says and move on
... and get your mate to review security as they'll likely come back.
Mob handed. Make sure before hitting the nuclear button it is the correct bike.
Just to add that my first intention was to "buy" on eBay but the police advised me that they believed that it was some known south London criminal gang that should not be confronted. Although seeing as the police seemed to know I was still bemused as to why they took so long to act.